Articles

Who’s on First: Collection Routines from 1940’s by Abbott & Costello is actually a recording of the Abbott and Costello radio show. Which, for the record, I’m a large fan of. It’s at least as funny as their famous television series.

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

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

Lou 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.Read More »Lou Costello plays it straight

Originally published in Radio and Television Mirror,  July 1948

Is Lou Costello on the level?
Is Lou’s Foundation run from the heart … or for the publicity?
The answer is in the facts, and here they areRead More »Is Lou Costello on the level?

Movie Life  
(June 1943)

The Navy Gets a Laugh Ration

VOTED KINGS  of the box-office for 1942, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello prove themselves Princes of Good Fellows  by clowning till it hurt. Costello went  into the hospital after seven weeks.Read More »The Navy Gets a Laugh Ration

Originally 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.Read More »The Care and Feeding of Abbott & Costello

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

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

 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.

Read More »Introduction to Abbott and Costello, famous comedy team