Poko Moko / Slowly I turned – classic clown skit as done by Abbott and Costello
Read More »Poko Moko / Slowly I turned – classic clown skit as done by Abbott and Costello
Read More »Poko Moko / Slowly I turned – classic clown skit as done by Abbott and Costello
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…
Read More »Hit the IceThe 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.
Read More »Who’s on First? script(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 »The Feud of Abbott and CostelloGray-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.
Read More »Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot!(originally published in Journal of Living, January 1954)
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.
Read More »My cure for sorrow, by Lou CostelloI 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.
Lou Costello, the man who would ask the eternal question, Who’s on First?, was born as Louis Francis Cristillo on March 6, 1906. He grew up in his hometown of Patterson, New Jersey, which he mentioned in virtually every movie and television episode that he appeared in. After high school, he had been bitten by the entertainer bug, and worked as a carpenter at both MGM and Warner Brothers movie studios in an attempt to break into show business
Read More »Lou Costello biographySome people are said to have show business in their blood – in Bud Abbott’s case, it’s almost literally true. Abbott’s mother was a bareback rider for the Ringling Brothers Circus. And his father worked as an advance man for the same circus. Bud Abbot was born and raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and was smitten with the performing bug at an early age. He dropped out of school at the age of 14 and began working in carnivals. Later he began working in theaters across the country, eventually becoming the manager of the Nation Theater in Detroit. While there, Abbott began performing on stage as straight man to vaudeville performers. This led to a chance encounter that changed his life.
Read More »Bud Abbott biography