Pastry is the Soul of Wit.
A fat man sat on Mary’s Hat.
The crowd just roared with glee.
The movie pie that smites the eye
Gets laughs from sea to sea.
. . .
Banana peels that trip up heels
Oft fill the throng with joy
The wind-swept lid is still a bid
For grins from man and boy.
– “Funny
Stuff,” La Monte Waldron, 1922.
Some things are naturally funny;
like the misfortune of others. Banana
peels, and orange peels before them, caused countless injuries and numerous
deaths throughout the nineteenth century.
Banana peel (and orange peel) humor dates
back to about 1800; banana peel comedy on film dates to
at least 1905.
But some things need to be
learned. A pie in the face is not a
natural act; but it is funny. Its place
in the comic lexicon dates back to Saint Patrick’s Day, 1898 when Mabel Fenton,
as Yvonne Grandpiano, threw a pie (variously described as a “piece of pie,”[i]
a “thick custard pie,”[ii]
or “a lemon meringue pie” [iii]) into the face of Charles J. Ross, as Eric von Roeshad, on opening night of the
burlesque musical, “The Con-Curers,” a spoof of the melodramatic hit, “The
Conquerers.”
And, just as banana peel humor
masks the real dangers of banana peels, the source of the humor of the original
pie gag lay in its association with the real dangers of sexual assault. Early pie-in-the-face humor on film also made
light of domestic violence, homelessness and hunger.
(For an even earlier (1709) literary, comedic pie in the face, see my Pie-in-the-Face Update)
The First Pie
Paul Potter’s melodrama, The Conquerors, produced by his presumed
life-partner[iv]
Charles Frohmann (who went down with the Lusitania), caused a sensation upon
its debut in New York City on January 4, 1898.
The dramatic centerpiece of the play was a graphic (for the time) double-rape
of the heroine, Yvonne de Grandpre.
The action takes place at the
close of the Franco-Prussian War. Lieutenant
Eric von Rodeck brings a group of Prussian officers (the “conquerors” of the
title) to a castle owned by Yvonne’s brother, the Baron of Grandpre.:
[Lieutenant
von Rodeck has ]scoured the country for a number of low women, politely
described on the program as dancing girls.
These are assigned, like so much merchandise, one to every man, and
before the daughters of the house the riotous feasting begins. The eldest of the two girls, Yvonne, finally
protests and is grossly insulted by von Rodeck.
She
picks up a glass of wine and throws it in his face, thus ending the act.
The Times (Washington DC), January 9, 1898, part 2, page 12.
In the spoof, “The Con-Curers,”
the wine is replaced by a pie. That’s
why it was funny. But the pie-metaphor
does not stop there.
In the second act of “The
Conquerors,” Rodeck seeks his revenge; trapping Yvonne in a mill and forces
himself on her, in what was apparently a fairly graphic and realistic portrayal
for the time. Rodeck leaves in shame at
the mention of his sister; but Yvonne’s troubles are not over. The miller, Jean Baudin, enters – and forces
himself on her. Rodeck, feeling guilty,
returns and kills the miller in mid-act.
But Rodeck’s troubles are not over.
When Yvonne recovers from her rape-induced unconscioussness, she
assesses the situation and determines that the Rodeck must have killed Baudin
when he (Baudin) came to save her. She swears her
revenge on Rodeck – and later stabs him, intending to kill him. But all’s well that ends well; Yvonne has a
change of heart; she falls in love with “her despoiler,” he survives, and
apparently they lived happily ever after.
In the “Con-Curers,” on the other
hand, the bad-guy does not force himself on her – “he attempts to have revenge
by forcing Yvonne to eat the pie;”[v]
“a pie of her own deadly baking.”[vi]
And instead of Jean Baudin being killed by a repentent rapist, Jean Badun (“Bad One” – get it?) is desperately hungry and chokes Yvonne to get possession of the deadly pie;
whereupon he immediately drops dead of food poisoning.
Now, that’s funny(?).
 |
| Charles J. Ross and Mabel Fenton - First Pie-in-the-Face Recipient and Thrower |
Contemporary reviewers, at least,
thought so. Part of the genius of the
spoof was that all of the naughty bits had been removed – and replaced with an
innocent custard (or lemon meringue) pie:
Nothing
short of ingenuity could devise a way to ridicule [The Conquerers] without
going further away from propriety than Mr. Potter did. To make the insulted heroine swat the hero in the face with a custard pie in the
supper scene instead of throwing a glass of wine, and to have his dreadful plan
of vengeance at the inn consist of compelling her to eat
a pie of her own deadly baking, was something like a stroke of genius in
joking. Her frenzied appeals for mercy,
his relenting after she has fainted, the stealing of the pie by the voracious
landlord, and its instantly fatal effect upon him, are such good travesty of
the original as to deserve a rating as literature. And the best of it is that not so much as an
insinuation of indecency is given. In
the process of burlesquing “The Conquerors” it was cleaned so thoroughly that,
in this version, it might be performed without offence at a Sunday school
entertainment. Like most of the matter
at this theatre, the “Con-Curers” was somewhat raw in the first performance and
had to be baked over to some extent. In
this instance, the dough had been more expertly mixed and kneaded than usual,
however, and their improvement has been made principally by Comedians Weber,
Fields, and Bernard in their caricatures of German army officers.
The Sun (New York), April 11, 1898, page 5.
But not everyone loved the show:
A
burlesque on “The Conquerors,” called “The Con-Curers,” is being presented at
Weber & Fields’s Music Hall. It is vulgar
and inane from start to finish and the only attraction in it is a lot of pretty
girls in tights.
The Times (Washington DC), March 27, 1898, page 7.
The fact that actors, Lew Fields and Joe Weber,
were a well-known “Dutch” comedy act[vii]
(mimicking or mocking the speech patterns of German immigrants) lent an
additional layer of comedy to their role as Prussian officers. They also owned the theater where the play
was staged.
The original and the spoof were
both success in New York City and on the road; the touring company of “The
Con-Curers following close behind the touring company of “The Conquerers” – but
about two weeks behind at each stop, so that the audience would get the references.[viii]
The Con-Curers endured for a
time; there are notices of performances at far-flung places from 1898 through
1903. Tens of thousands of people could
have seen the pie-in-the-face gag in its original form across the entire United
States, spreading awareness and appreciation of the pie gag – and ensuring its
longevity.
By 1906, a pie in the face was a staple of vaudeville shtick, generally. In response to a negative review in the trade-magazine, Variety, vaudeville comedian, Fred Ray, of Ray and Wood, wrote a letter to the editors, defending his low style of slapstick humor:
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 7, 1925, page E3.
The pie in the face’s long life
may also be attributed to regular and frequent imitation on vaudeville and in
burlesque. Although Weber & Fields
were “Dutch” (or German) comics, the pie-in-the-face gag was picked up by other
“ethnic” comedians. In 1902, a Catholic
newspaper lamenting the various Irish stereotypes on stage described a typical,
“Burlesque Irishman”:
The
reasons why this type is objectionable to the more sensitive members of the
same race are plain. He is ridiculous in
appearance; his idea of wit and humor is to hit his
partner over the head with a custard pie or to beat him with a slap
stick; he is the butt for endless jokes and tricks; there is nothing about him
which is in any degree admirable.
Inter-Mountain Catholic (Salt Lake City, Utah), September 13, 1902,
page 1.
By 1906, a pie in the face was a staple of vaudeville shtick, generally. In response to a negative review in the trade-magazine, Variety, vaudeville comedian, Fred Ray, of Ray and Wood, wrote a letter to the editors, defending his low style of slapstick humor:
If you
would stand outside a vaudeville theatre and look at the people as they leave,
you would never run down this class of comedy that I am trying to handle. Any audience is a fair sample; a bucket of
suds on the head; sit on fly paper; a loaded slapstick and slap a custard pie.
The average will laugh and applaud.
Then you are working all the time.
Give
them clean, clever wit and humor; then you please one in a hundred, and, God
help you, the Actors’ Fund will soon put another slab on its lot. Starved to death. Wishing you continued success, I remain Fred
Ray.
Variety, Volume 1, Number 6, January 20, 1906, page 11.
But despite the bit’s apparent
ubiquity, the originators were not forgotten.
Years later, long after the a pie in the face had become an established comedy staple in the movies, and at a time when Weber and Fields were still performing
and making films together, they were recognized as the originators of the
pie-in-the-face gag:
To the
world at large the mention of Weber and Fields means years and years of
delightful, vigorous, enthusiastic comedy – a national institution. To the stage the name means even more. They were, in truth, the originators of the
pie-throwing gag.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 7, 1925, page E3.
The pie-gag still endures.
Throwing Pies in Film
In the summer
of 2015, in the wake of the rediscovery of the lost second-reel to Laurel and
Hardy’s pie-fight classic, “The Battle of the Century,” an article in the New York Times dated the first thrown
pie in the face “to the Mack Sennett era, probably to a 1913 Fatty Arbuckle
short called ‘A Noise From the Deep.’” [ix] A contemporary account of the film detailed
the silliness:
“A
Noise from the Deep” (Keystone), July 17.
– This is one of the screamingly funny concoctions which made this company
famous as a purveyor of nonsense. It
begins with throwing pies and then Mabel and her lover go bicycling. Mabel falls into the lake and the lover flees
for help. The fat boy, Bob, saves
her. This is but the beginning of the
fun. A hose is employed to gurgle in the
water which makes everyone think Mabel is still in the lake. The police force come to the rescue on
bucking bronchos. Very funny and free
from coarseness of any kind.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 17, Number 4, July 16, 1913, page
430.
But while “A Noise from the Deep”
may have been an early pie-fight, it was not the first. More than one year earlier, in March 1912, Majestic’s film, “Keep Quiet,” featured
a custard pie in the face.
Cultures clash and sparks (and a
pie) fly when a husband and wife each independently hire new cooks –a Chinese
man and an Irish woman:
The
Irish and Chinese combination don’t get along well and create a lot of
disturbance which finally ends with Bridget throwing a
custard pie in John’s face.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 11, Number 13, March 30, 1912, page
1204.
A comment from November 1912
suggests that Mack Sennett and his Keystone Cops may have been associated with
pie fights even before 1913:
To
learn that a burglar or holdup man may be repulsed by throwing
a custard pie in his face is a distinct advance in knowledge. If possible, however, the pie should be hot.
Goodwin’s Weekly (Salt Lake City), November 2, 1912, page 4.
In 1909, Ben Turpin’s film, “Mr.
Flip,” may have featured a pie in the face.
But the images may be ambiguous; the waitress hits him in the face with
a plate of food, but it is unclear whether it is a pie. Judge for yourself; through the miracle of
YouTube you can see the
erstwhile pie 3:25 of this clip.
But regardless
of whether you buy “Mr. Flip’s” plate of food as a pie or not, a pie – or at
least a pie crust – was used as a weapon on film one month before “Mr. Flip’s” release
in May, 1909.[x] A pie – or at least pie crust – was used as a
weapon to fend off an unwanted suitor in “Lady Helen’s Escapade,” starring Florence Lawrence, the
“Biograph Girl,” arguably the world’s first movie star.
The plot
involves a bored little rich girl who takes a menial job to get some
excitement; she finds love with a musician and unwanted advances in the
kitchen:
The
scene in the kitchen, where Lady Helen, disguised as a domestic, has many
encounters with the cookery utensils which she does not know how to use, and
the viands she does not know how to cook, was full of delicate humor; and her attack on a too persistent suitor with for weapon the pie
crust she is making, provoked much laughter. Indeed, the various phases of the story
linger in the memory, a rare thing for us to say of a moving picture, and we
are so pleased with this exquisite production that we want all the patrons of
moving picture theaters to participate in our enjoyment of it.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 4, Number 17, April 24, 1909, page
515.
The Keystone Cops and their
antics became so popular within just a few years that they would have an effect
on at least one boy’s career aspirations:
When I grow up I’m going to be
a policeman,” said little Bobby, “and if you don’t look out I’ll arrest
you.”
“You won’t do any such a
thing,” retorted Johnny. “I’m going to
be a moving picture actor, and if you try to arrest me I’ll
throw a custard pie in your face.”
The Herald (New Orleans, Louisiana), April 12, 1917, page 5.
In real life, however, pies were
no laughing matter – they were a case for the divorce courts and reflection of
homelessness and hunger.
But that did not make them any
less funny (some might say that is precisely what makes them funny).
Domestic Violence and Pies
In 1904, a pie in the face made
headlines in San Francisco as the centerpiece of a suit for divorce.
A. J.
McLaughlin is an aggrieved husband and he wants to divorce from his wife,
Carrie. . . . The climax of her alleged cruelty . . . was not reached until
April of this year. In that month she
poured the contents of a coffee pot, including the grounds, over his head and threw a lemon cream pie into his face.
The San Francisco Call, July 24, 1904, page 28.
The story appeared less than nine
months after “The Con-Curers” played to packed houses in San Francisco – just a
coincidence? Hmmmm? Perhaps life was
imitating art.
 |
| Town Talk (San Francisco), Volume 12, Number 578, September 26, 1903, page 26. |
A joke from the following year
plays off the same notion of pie as a tool of domestic violence:
Goodman
Gonrong gazed at the bilious looking pumpkin pie that had been placed before
him by the sweet-faced young wife.
Then he
turned and fled.
“Yeller
peril!” he gasped. – Chicago Tribune
Omaha Daily Bee (Nebrask), April 14, 1905, page 4.
The image of pies as grounds for
divorce must have been common enough in 1908 to inspire the following joke:
On
general principles throwing pie into a wife’s face
or elsewhere is sufficient cause for divorce, for it is an insult to every good
wife’s masterpiece.
The Princeton Union (Princeton, Minnesota), November 19, 1908, page
6.
The sentiments expressed in this
joke were echoed in what appear to be reports of an actual incident on Boston
in 1909; although it is possible that it was merely a repackaged form of the
joke, masking as actual news:
Deserves Censure.
A
Boston woman is charged with throwing a pie in her
husband’s face.
That’s
a fine way to waste pie! –
Cleveland
Plain-Dealer.
The Plymouth Tribune (Plymouth, Indiana), February 25, 1909, page 6.
The report of the Boston pie
(Boston cream pie?) went “viral,” at least by early 20th Century
standards. It appeared in numerous
newspapers across the entire United States over the course of several
weeks.
A similar report from Pennsylvania
appeared several months later.
Wife Smears Pie in Husband’s Face
Sharon,
Pa., Nov. 29. – “I don’t care much about being arrested, but just think! Here’s a whole, good pumpkin pie gone to wreck.” That is what Joe Mueller said today after his wife had smeared him on the face with the pie and
both of them had been arrested, the wife for assault and the husband for surety
of the peace. Both were fined in court.
The Washington (DC) Times,
November 29, 1909, page 10.
Whether all of those reports were
true, or not, repeated image of pies in the face suggest that pie-in-the-face
imagery was well on its way to becoming a comedy staple even before 1909. Further reports of domestic pies in the face
suggest that it may have been more than comedy; it may have been an actual
feature in domestic violence incidents:
Joseph Devorshack, a milk
dealer of Pasasic, N. J., was fined $50 on a charge of having hit his wife in the face with a hot mince pie.
The Pickens Sentinel (Pickens, South Carolina), November 27, 1913,
page 1.
Wm. D.
Kruse wants divorce. Wife threw custard pie in face.
The Day Book (Chicago, Illinois), December 16, 1913, page 7.
These Mad Wags
Because
his wife threw a pumpkin pie in his face during
the course of an argument on why the Lord made man first, a Missouri man named
Piper is now referred to by his friends as the Pied Piper.
- The
Pea Ridge (Ark.) Pod.
Harper’s Weekly, Volume 61, Number 3074, November 20, 1915, page
498.
As a side note, I find it
interesting that many of these reports appeared between Thanksgiving and
Christmas; I guess that is when homes were full of pies.
A film about marriage from 1916 stood
this convention on its head – with two men throwing pies into each others’
faces instead of their wives’. The pie-throwing
in this film must have been particularly good; the director of pie-throwing was
singled out for special mention:
The
sub-title of “Married for Revenge” is “Two Old Chumps,” and its application is
at once apparent when one views the disheveled appearance of the two principals
in the scene. William W. Farmer is
responsible for the scenario of the story, and Allen Curtis directed the pie throwing and other scenes.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 29, August 19, 1916, page 1267.
Pie throwing was featured in a
film about divorce in 1917; at a time when cinematic pies in the face were
already a tired, old gimmick:
Max Wants a Divorce.
. . .
The comedy should be a welcome addition to any program as the slapstick work is
not overdone and fits in with the development of the piece. The fly in the amber is the recurrence of
that tiresome but apparently everlasting pie in the
face incident.
Variety, March 23, 1917 (Variety
Film Reviews 1907-1920, Volume 1, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc.,
1983).
It is difficult to assess whether
the various reports of domestic pie-violence inspired early pie-throwing in film,
or were, themselves, inspired by pie-throwing comedies on film and on stage. In any case, the image of couples hitting
each other with pies was became part of the pie-comedy lexicon. Humorist, J. P. McEvoy (who is credited with
coining the expression, “cut to the chase”) summed up this sort of pie humor in
1919:
Moving
pictures have opened up a wonderful new field for the pie industry. No movie comedy is complete without its case
of pies.
The
most comical pie, of course, is the custard.
In
movies the comedy reaches a happy perfection when the comedian throws a ripe
custard pie into the nearest lady’s face.
If the lady happens to be his mother, then the comedy is even more
inspired, and consequently the laughter is heartier.
One
ordinary pie is good for at least three laughs, and a ripe, juicy custard
produces even more. When you consider
that more than one hundred pies are used in the average two-reel comedy, you
begin to understand the importance of the pie industry.
As the
saying goes: Pastry is the soul of wit.
“Pies,” J. P. McEvoy, The Evening World (New York), June 9,
1919, Final Edition, page 16.
Homelessness and Hunger
Domestic pie throwing incidents
may have inspired spousal-abuse pie throwing comedy; hunger may have inspired cops-and-robbers
pie-throwing. Pie stealing was a common
theme in early American film. Pies were
frequently stolen from a windowsill or back porch when set out to cool. In some films, the culprits were young boys;
in others, homeless “tramps” or “bums” looking for a square meal. It is easy to imagine an early
cops-and-robbers pie-fight growing out of a stolen-pie scenario.
Even the first pie-in-the-face
alluded to hungry bums stealing pies.
The hungry villain, Jean Badun, who assaulted Yvonne to get at her
deadly pie, was also known as “Bumface.”[xi]
The earliest known pie-in-the-face
film, in fact, involved a pie in the face as punishment for stealing a
pie. Film historian, Anthony Balducci, identified
the earliest known incident of a pie in the face on film in the 1905 comedy, “The
Coal Strike.” A charwoman is so angered by a small boy who stole a pie that she
rubbed the pie in his face.[xii]
Substitute Keystone Cop for charwoman – and you’ve got a winning formula.
Two other early pie-stealing
stories involve pie thieves framing innocent bystanders. The description of first of these films also typifies
a type of casual racism that passed for humor at the time:
Circumstantial
Evidence. – Who ate the ‘possum pie? Is the problem, and the evidence is so
strong that any jury in the world would bring in a verdict of guilty, thereby
convicting an innocent man and allowing the guilty to escape.
Old
Uncle Mose Jackson is seen entering his cabin with a very fine ‘possum which he
has captured, and he proceeds to make a ‘possum pie and puts it in the oven to
cook, and while it is cooking he falls asleep.
A young
darkey passing the cabin detects the odor of ‘possum pie, so dear to the
colored race, and pushing the door open he discovers Uncle Mose asleep, and
further search reveals the pie in the oven, which is now cooked, and Mister
Darkey proceeds to eat it. After
finishing the pie, he proceeds to start a false trail, and using the scraps
that are left he greases the old man’s face and hands.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 3, Number 22, Novemer 28, 1908,
page 435.
The film ends with Uncle Mose
believing that he must have eaten his own pie in his sleep.
Similar plot elements were
borrowed a few months later in the film, “Caught at last.” A young boy, Willie, learns about
circumstantial evidence from a headline in a newspaper and immediately puts his
new learning to the test. He drinks milk
without permission and frames the cat for stealing milk. He takes some hair from the Irish maid,
Bridget, and frames his father, causing a jealous row between his parents:
He then
goes out on the back porch, where his mother has just put some freshly baked
pies out to cool off. Willie makes away
with them, calls the dog, smears a little pie over its mouth and feet and runs
away.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 4, Number 23, June 5, 1909, page
769.
Although many of the films tend
to make light of the bums’ starving conditions, at least one of the films
brings redemption to the pie thief. When
Tim is wrongfully hounded from his job for protecting the honor of a woman, he
finds himself out of work and hungry:
Discouraged
and hungry he passes a restaurant. The
sight of the viands in the window emphasizes his already famished condition, so
he enters and begs for a bite to eat.
The proprietor coldly waves him away with a refusal, and in abject
desperation he seizes a piece of pie and runs, overturning everybody who
attempts to hinder him.
The Moving Picture World, Volume 4, Number 17, April 24, 1909, page
524.
During his escape, Tim steals a
police uniform from a disarmed policeman; but then, in the guise of a policeman,
is asked to save the restaurant owner’s wife from the abusive owner. A pie-thief with a heart of gold, Tim goes to
the rescue and so impresses the police captain with his Moxie that he earns a
spot on the force; which enables him to win the heart of the woman for whom he
lost his job.
In “Town Hall Tonight,” two
down-on-their luck vaudeville performers find themselves stuck in the jay-town of
Snakeville, without funds and without food, after the promoter stole all of
their proceeds:
The
next morning one of them is arrested for stealing a pie from a kitchen window
and thrown into jail.
The Moving Picture World, Volume
10, Number 12, September 30, 1911, page 988.
In the 1912 film, “Apple Pies,”
“the good housewives and also the embryo housewives have a spell of baking
cakes and pies” for the village church fair.
When one of their pies disappears, they spike another with “sleep sugar,”
enabling them to easily find and subdue the four comatose tramps who stole the
pie.
 |
| Kinetogram, Volume 6, June 15, 1912, page 5. |
In “A Green Eyed Monster,” two
bums overhear a jealous couple arguing with one another. They plant suspicious letters for each of
them to follow, hoping that they will leave their home unattended so that they
can steal a meal – including pie (although the pie wasn’t very good):
Still
quarreling they enter the house where they find the kitchen in great disorder,
the refrigerator and larder having been robbed of every morsel of food with the
following note from the tramps:
“Sorry
to have caused any hard feeling between you but we needed a square meal. Kiss
and make up. Wear and Pal. P. S. The pie
was sure bum.”
The Kinetogram, Volume 7, Number 5, October 1, 1912, page 5.
In “A Pie Worthwhile,” some
tramps steal a pie just looking for a meal, and discover that the pie conceals
the payroll. In “Kidnapping of Dolly,”
some young rowdies kidnap a little girl’s favorite doll and demand custard pie
as ransom.
What with all of this stealing of
pies – and throwing of pies – it is no wonder that the two eventually merged in
the Keystone Cops films.
Conclusion
Pie-in-the-face humor dates back to the earliest days of the
film industry. It was a well-established
comic-staple by 1913, and a tired old cliché by 1916. The earliest pie in the face on film may have
been in 1905’s, “The Coal Strike.” Other
early pie-in-the-face films include, “Lady Helen’s Escapade” (1909), “Mr. Flip”
(1909), “Keep Quiet” (1912); and “A Noise from the Deep” (1913). Presumably there were many more.
The hungry tramp stealing pies was a common feature of early
American film. The cops-and-robbers
pie-fights of the Keystone Cops may have first emerged from a similar common
plot element.
Pie-in-the-face humor pre-dates the earliest pie-in-the-face
movies. Much of the early pie-in-the-face
“humor” in print made light of what may have been very real cases of domestic
abuse. But even that form of abuse may
have been a case of life imitating art; the earliest known instance of a pie
thrown on stage pre-dates the various reports of pie-in-the-face abuse I could
find.
The very first pie-in-the-face gag may have been thrown by
Mabel Fenton, in her role of Yvonne Grandpiano, in Weber & Fields’
production of, “The Con-Curers,” which debuted on St. Patrick’s Day of
1898. “The Con-Curers” was a spoof of an
earlier melodrama, “The Conquerors.” In
the spoof, the pie in the face replaced a glass of wine in the face at the end
of Act 1. Force-feeding Yvonne that pie,
and assaulting her to steal her pie, lampooned the forced sex-acts of the
second act of “The Conquerors.”
Pie as a comic stand-in for the real thing? – it all came
full-circle in American
Pie’s classic apple pie scene.
Everything old really is new again.
[i] The New York Clipper, March 26, 1898,
page 60.
[ii] The Sun (New York), April 11, 1898, page
5.
[iii] New York Dramatic Mirror, March 26,
1898, page 20.
[iv] Paul Potter
is believed to have been Broadway producer, Charles Frohmann’s, lover.
[v] The New York Clipper, March 26, 1898,
page 60.
[vi] The Sun (New York), April 11, 1898, page
5.
[vii]
Through the miracle of YouTube,
you can see a typical one of their acts here; they seem to be a lot like
Abbott and Costello.
[viii]
The Virginia Enterprise (Virginia,
Minnesota), November 18, 1898, page 2 (The shrewd manager of a party traveling
with “The Con-Curers” is following Charles Frohman’s company in “The
Conquerors” from city to city, but keeping a week or two behind, so that
audiences may comprehend the points of the burlesque.).
[ix] The New York Times (online), July 8,
2015 (a version of the article also appeared in print on July 12, 2015, on page
AR10 of the New York edition with the headline: In Comedy, Some Weapons Are
Sweet); reporting the discovery of the lost-reel from Laurel and Hardy’s
pie-fight classic, “The
Battle of the Century.”
[x] Moving Picture World, Volume 4, Number
20, May 15, 1909, page 652 (“Mr. Flip” was released May 12, 1909).
[xi] The New York Clipper, March 26, 1898,
page 60.
[xii]
Anthony Balducci, The Funny Parts,
McFarland, 2011, page 9.
