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Abbott and Costello - Bagel Street

Bagel Street, aka. Susquehannah Hat Company

Bagel Street, aka. Susquehanna Hat Company, aka. Fluegel Street routine – Abbott and Costello  skit, taken from In Society

This is a classic vaudeville routine and highly popular with the fans of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.  During the filming ofIn Society, Lou wanted to include this routine in the movie. However, because the movie was already on a tight shooting schedule, since Universal Pictures wanted to release this film before MGM’s Abbott and Costello movie “Lost in a Harem,” the producers refused. Lou was unwilling to give up on the idea, so he filmed and directed this segment himself.

The routine involves Abbott and Costello helping out a friend, Derby Dan, owner of a hat shop, by delivering some hats to the Susquehanna Hat Company on Bagel Street [later, when doing the same routine on the Abbott and Costello television show, it was changed to Fleugel Street].Bagel Street, aka. Susquehannah Hat Company

Hit the Ice - Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

Hit the Ice

 Hit the Ice starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Ginny Sims, Sheldon Leonard, released June 2, 1943

Flash Fulton (Bud Abbott) and Weejie McCoy (Lou Costello) take pictures of a bank robbery. They’re lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers. They’re accompanied by Dr. Bill Elliott (Patric Knowles) and Peggy Osborn (Elyse Knox). They meet old friend Johnny Long  and his band and singer Marcia Manning (Ginny Simms). Dr. Elliott and Peggy are being held in a remote cabin by the robbers…

Hit the Ice
Lou Costello and Bud Abbott in Newsweek 1940

The Feud of Abbott and Costello

(originally published in TV Forecast and Guide, March 7, 1953)

Loafing - Bud Abbott confuses Lou Costello about loafing around vs. making loaves of bread -- loafing -- at a bakery

 One of the worst kept secrets in show business a few years back was the backstage feuding of the top comedy team of Abbott and Costello. It seemed hard to believe that the finely balanced pair could be anything but the best of friends. Yet the evidence was there.

It burst out in the open in 1945. Rotund  Lou Costello, the buffoon of the team, suddenly charges in the public prints that  Bud Abbott  was a drunk.

The Feud of Abbott and Costello
Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot!

Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot!

Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot
(originally published in Screen Stories, June 1960)

Gray-haired Bud Abbott stared bleakly out of his breakfast-room window, at the brown, untended lawn and grounds of his Encino, California home. Although it was past noon, he still wore his bedroom slippers, pajamas and white flannel robe. Why get dressed? He had no place to go, no job to do.

Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot!
Lou Costello in From Bed to Worse

My cure for sorrow, by Lou Costello

(originally published in Journal of Living, January 1954)

Lou Costello: My Cure For Sorrow, As told to Vivian Cosby

Mexican Hayride, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, 1948

A funny man’s prescription for grief that can work for everyone as it has for him.

“Why did this have to happen to me?”

A few years ago, when I was  stricken with rheumatic fever, this question kept repeating itself in my mind. As I lay in bed week after week, I searched for the answer. And what made it all the more bewildering was that  I had become ill while making a tour to raise charity funds. While striving to help others, I had been stricken myself. Why? The more I thought about it, the more sorry I became for myself.

My cure for sorrow, by Lou Costello
Lou Costello - breaking through a drum in Rio Rita

How I fought back – Lou Costello’s account of his recovery from rheumatic fever

Lou Costello, Hollywood’s best-loved comedian, tells how he fought his way back to health through prayer and undying faith.This an exclusive account to Motion Piture’s Readers

I think I’m a pretty lucky guy to be alive to tell this story.

With more than a half a year in bed spent grimly facing the terrifying prospect that I might never walk again, I found myself suddenly projected into a new world. A world that I never knew existed until then. And because I had never before come in contact with sickness and disaster, I suddenly saw a lot of things for the first time – things that before had meant very little to me.

How I fought back – Lou Costello’s account of his recovery from rheumatic fever