Skip to content
TV Guide - Lou Costello plays it straight

Lou Costello plays it straight

originally published in TV Guide (November 1-7, 1958)

LOU COSTELLO PLAYS IT STRAIGHT
Veteran Comic Goes Dramatic in Television Western
By Dan Jenkins

TV Guide - Lou Costello plays it straightLou Costello, the short, rotund , butt-end of one of the entertainment world’s longest running (22 years) comedy teams,  Is working as a single these days and gratifying the hidden desire of every baggy-pants comic— he is playing it straight.Lou Costello plays it straight

Betty and Bud Abbott eating

The Care and Feeding of Abbott & Costello

Lou Costello - breaking through a drum in Rio RitaBud Abbott - breaking through a drum in Rio RitaOriginally published in “Twenty Complete Stories – New Players and Old Hollywood”
June 1942

The Care and Feeding of Abbott & Costello

Life is smooth for Abbott and Costello. Professionally they’re sitting on top of the world and domestically they’re in the hands of two super-efficient housewives -€“ Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. Lou Costello.

It’€™s no slander against Betty Abbott and Ann Costello to classify them as the second-best managers in their respective households; merely an acknowledgment of the superior skill of their mates. They don’€™t have to try.

Costello, the small soprano apple dumpling of the comedy team, the guy who can’t get anything right on the screen of over the microphone, is a managerial genius in private life.The Care and Feeding of Abbott & Costello

Lou Costello and Bud Abbott in Newsweek 1940

Fred Allen’s Heirs: Costello and Abbott Given Summer Spot

Fred Allen’€™s Heirs: Costello and Abbott Given Summer Spot  (originally published in  Newsweek  – July 1, 1940)

Lou Costello and Bud Abbott in Newsweek 1940

With Fred Allen leaving the air this week. * Ipana-Sal Hepatica decided to cut its NBC Red network time from an hour to a half hour (still starting at 9 o’clock EDT Wednesdays) and two months ago began looking for breezy talent to fill the breach for the summer. What they got was a popular pair of wacky vaudevillians, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Fred Allen’s Heirs: Costello and Abbott Given Summer Spot
Abbott and Costello meet the Invisible Man - promotional photo

Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man

Synopsis of Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)

Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man - Lou Costello & Invisible Man in Car


Fresh graduates from detective school, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, get their first case – recapturing the escaped killer, Tommy Nelson. Nelson, however, the typical “convicted of a crime that he didn’t commit” – and has a scientist friend give him a dose of the Invisible Man formula, giving him a race against time to find the real killer — before the formula drives him mad. But Abbott and Costello are there to help

Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man
Who's on First? t-shirt - Bud Abbott and Lou Costello

Who’s on First? T-shirt

Who’s on First? T-shirt Who’s on First T-Shirt  featuring the entire  Who’s on First  routine from  The Naughty Nineties. Who’s on First? What’s on Second? I don’t know — he’s on Third, we’re not talking… Who’s on First? T-shirt