Jimbo's OTR Buffet

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Review: Abbott and Costello Show

As a kid growing up, I watched a lot of Abbott and Costello movies. I've come to find out that there's really only one good one but as a kid, they all seemed like quality entertainment.

About 4 years ago, I found the radio show by the boys. I've listened to each one and I think I have a good grasp of the show.

I'm not sure you'd put the duo in the 'juvenile' category, but it's darn close to being there - at least in 2012. It probably wasn't that way in the 1940's (and later on television.) But things change.

I probably don't have to tell you this, but Bud Abbott was the duo's straight man. He was tall and thin and quick and snarky and needless to say, he was all business. Lou Costello was a pear-shaped, active, silly, elastic, lunatic who provided all the machine gun crazy stuff.

They were better in the films and on television, where you could see them. On the radio though, their material worked too. It just wasn't as strong.

Their jokes and puns were pretty corny. They weren't the corniest people on the radio but they were up there. I remember Milton Berle doing a very brief parody of them and he 'murdered' them. It was eye-opening, because their corny humor (which I somewhat enjoy and always have) all of them sudden sort of died that very day that I heard the parody.

At any rate, Abbott and Costello will always be mentioned when people talk about comedy teams. They aren't in the same class as Laurel and Hardy, Burns and Allen or Fibber McGee and Molly, but they do rank somewhere near the 1940's Three Stooges, in my mind (it's hard to beat the 1930's Three Stooges.)

The radio show isn't horrible it's just corn, corn and more corn. Not the corniest. Not the worst. It's good, clean fun. It's GREAT for kids. It's fast and loud. It's Abbott and Costello.