January 21

I needed a film short tonight and so I went to YouTube to search up something and I found just the thing. I have had Abbott & Costello, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges so far in this Genre-ary, but a comedy month is not complete with a little bit of Laurel and Hardy.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are comedic geniuses in the early days of film. Their slapstick performances rivaled the very best of the genre, and their characters were even more developed than some of their contemporaries.

In this short, Laurel and Hardy are trying to get to sleep on a cold, wintry night, but Laurel’s hiccups kept Hardy awake and was causing the dog to bark. They knew that they were not supposed to have a dog, and so they were panicking when their dog-hating landlord came knocking on their door.

Their physical comedy was tremendous as they were trying to get back into the house with the dog. It is an impressive feat with how they worked together.

The short ended with a shocking event that caught me off guard. Something that might have been considered funnier at the time than it is today.

With the exception of the ending, this was a hoot. These old short films concentrated on the laughs and never fail to provide them.