Abbott and Costello’s hot dog and mustard sketch is one of their classic bits. They did it on their radio show, their first movie One Night in the Tropics, and The Abbott and Costello Show episode “Police Rookies“, where this is from. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello have a disagreement about …. Eating hot dogs with mustard. Which Lou doesn’t like!
Bud Abbott: He told me I’ve got to teach you these things. What is the first thing you buy in a baseball park?
Lou Costello: Hot dogs.
Bud Abbott: A hot dog.
Lou Costello: Without mustard.
Bud Abbott: Mustard goes with a hot dog.
Lou Costello: Not with mine.
Bud Abbott: Mustard was made for the hot dog.
Lou Costello: I don’t care what the stuff was made for, I’m not gonna eat it.
Mustard sketch – mustard and a hot dog go together …
Bud Abbott: But Lou, mustard and a hot dog go together.
Lou Costello: Let them go together. I’m not going to spoil any romance.
Bud Abbott: Who’s talking about romance?
Lou Costello: I mean, after all, if I don’t like mustard I don’t have to eat it for you or nobody else. I won’t even eat it for Mike the cop.
Bud Abbott: Oh, well I didn’t know you disliked it. I only asked you the question.
Lou Costello: Who do you think you are to tell me to put mustard on a hot dog?
Bud Abbott: I’m not telling you to do anything, Lou.
Lou Costello: If I want to put ketchup on a hot dog, there’s no law saying I can’t put ketchup on a hot dog.
Bud Abbott: You don’t put it on. Forget about it.
Lou Costello: This is a free country, and if I don’t want to eat mustard, I don’t have to eat it.
Bud Abbott: Don’t holler.
Lou Costello: You don’t know better. I’m not gonna eat it.
Bud Abbott: Keep quiet. So you don’t like mustard. Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?
Lou Costello: I don’t like it ’cause it makes me sick.
Bud Abbott: All right.
Mustard sketch – Three little nieces
Lou Costello: I don’t want to walk around the street sick.
Bud Abbott: I don’t want to see you sick.
Lou Costello: I mean, after all, I’m a happy kid.
Bud Abbott: I know, I know.
Lou Costello: I got a lot of friends of mine, I got — I got little nieces. I got three little nieces, and I help support those three little nieces.
Bud Abbott: Well, forget about it.
Lou Costello: If I walk around the street sick, and I can’t go out and get any work, and get any money to give my sister for her three kids, what’s gonna happen? My sweet little nieces — they’re gonna starve to death. They won’t eat. Somebody’s gonna take those three kids and put them in the orphan asylum.
Bud Abbott: You’re making this too serious.
Lou Costello: What right you got to put my three nieces in the orphan asylum?
Bud Abbott: Who’s putting who in what orphan asylum?
Lou Costello: What did my nieces ever do to you?
Bud Abbott: Nothing at all.
Lou Costello: Well, come on, Abbott. They’re in the orphan asylum now.
Bud Abbott: Wait a minute. Now, enough is enough.
Lou Costello: After all, I’m laboring to support them kids. You got no right to put them in an orphan asylum.
Do you know where mustard comes from?
Bud Abbott: Do you know where mustard comes from?
Lou Costello: I don’t know. Mustard plasters. I don’t know.
Bud Abbott: Not a mustard plaster. They manufacture mustard. Do you know they spend millions of dollars every year just to put up factories to manufacture mustard? Do you know these factories employ thousands and thousands of men just to manufacture mustard? And Do you know those man take care of thousands and thousands of families, all on account of mustard? And you, just because you don’t like mustard, what do you want them to do, close those factories down and put all those people out of work?
Lou Costello: Abbott, are you trying to tell me all those people are making one little jar of mustard like this just for me?
Bud Abbott: No, no. You don’t seem to understand, no.
Lou Costello: Are you trying to tell me those thousands of people are making one jar of mustard just for me?
Bud Abbott: No, I didn’t say that.
Lou Costello: Well, if they are, Abbott, you can tell them not to make it anymore, ’cause I’m not gonna eat it! You can lay them off! Who am I to support thousands of people?
Bud Abbott: Who’s asking you to support them?
Lou Costello: I can’t even get the three little nieces out of the orphan asylum.
Bud Abbott: Now don’t start that again.
Lou Costello: I ain’t gonna eat mustard for you or nobody else!
Close the mustard factories down!
Bud Abbott: Close the mustard factories down.
Lou Costello: Close the mustard factories down is right! I like ketchup!
Bud Abbott: Put the people out of work!
Lou Costello: I’m not putting anybody out of work!
Bud Abbott: Fathers out of work, husbands out of work …
Lou Costello: I’m not putting any husbands out of work.
Bud Abbott: You don’t even know what a husband is.
Lou Costello: Yes, I do. A husband is what’s left of a sweetheart after the nerve has been killed!
Mustard sketch, courtesy of YouTube