A classic Abbott and Costello routine, in the style of Who’s on First?, where Bud Abbott tries to explain electricity — Watts and Volts — only to have Lou Costello think that he’s talking about What’s and Votes. From their movie, Who Done It? Interestingly, it was improvised on the spot as they were filming, and reportedly has the other cast and crew in stitches.
Watts and Volts
Bud Abbott: Oh, you can cause more trouble! We were going to the eight-to-the-bar-ranch to ask the Andrews Sisters to appear on our show. And YOU wrecked the car we were going to use! Well, now we’ll have to rent a carHertz U Drive
A Dollar A Day is a classic vaudeville skit, made famous by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, where Lou Costello has been working for Bud Abbott for the last year for the “princely” sum of one dollar per day—and Bud Abbott finds one reason after another to keep deducting wages, and deducting, and deducting …
It was first shown in their first movie, One Night in the Tropics, but the version displayed below is taken from their popular radio show.
A Dollar a Day
One of Abbott and Costello’s lesser-known routines, but performed by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in their first movie One Night in the Tropics, in “Here Come the Co-Eds“, on their television show episode “The Drug Store“, and also on the Colgate television show. The “Here Come the Co-Eds” version is perfect, as they perform it in a classroom of co-eds for audience reaction, and this is transcribed from that version. Bud and Lou are janitors dusting a classroom, where the girls are writing some jokes for the school play. The sympathy Lou gets from the girls adds to the atmosphere of the routine, unlike any other version. Much of the humor comes from the rapid-fire delivery of the lines, that Abbott and Costello were masters of.Captain Jonah and the Whale
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
Poko Moko / Slowly I turned – classic clown skit as done by Abbott and Costello
The most famous of all of Abbott and Costello’s routines, Who’s on First? had been performed countless times in vaudeville and on radio, as well as a shortened version of it in their first movie, One Night in the Tropics, with the longer, definitive version (shown here) filmed in The Naughty Nineties.
Who’s on First? script
Simply put, streaming audio of some of Abbott and Costello‘s classic radio comedy. It includes 50 episodes of their classic radio show.
Abbott & Costello 50+ Vintage Comedy Radio Episodes