Richard Coon
on March 9, 2023
5 views
Although Bud Abbott and Lou Costello did not create "Who's On First," they copyrighted it as the "Abbott and Costello Baseball Routine" in 1944. "Who's On First" is generally believed to have been written by John Grant, who created many of Abbott and Costello's famous word-play dialogues, though a similar routine involving towns named "What" and "Which" appears in "Cracked Nuts" (1931) starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey.
The scene of Abbott and Costello doing the routine in "The Naughty Nineties" (1945) is run continuously at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. It is regarded as the best version of this routine in existence.
The sequence was added after the rest of the film was shot and edited. Universal executives thought the film didn't have enough laughs, so they wrote in "Who's on First," which the pair had been performing for years on stage and radio, as well as a much shorter version in their first film, "One Night in the Tropics" (1940).
The laughter that can be heard faintly in the background during the routine belongs to the film crew and director Jean Yarbrough. After numerous re-takes trying to eliminate it, Yarbrough just couldn't get the crew - or himself - to stop laughing during the routine, no matter how many times they heard it. So he just gave up and left the giggling in.
Happy Birthday, Lou Costello!
Dimension: 825 x 716
File Size: 88.22 Kb
Be the first person to like this.