Forever Laughing 2 (Information)

Yesterday's photo was a huge hit so here is some information that I found on the subjects. The guy in the front is Stan Laurel and the guy in the back is Oliver Hardy. They were a comedy team that appeared on stage and on television.

Info from Wikipedia...

Laurel and Hardy were a popular comedy team composed of thin, English-born Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and heavy, American-born Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). They became famous during the early half of the 20th century for their work in motion pictures and also appeared on stage throughout America and Europe.

The two comedians first worked together on The Lucky Dog. After a period appearing separately in several short films for the Hal Roach studio during the 1920s, they began appearing in movie shorts together in 1926. Laurel and Hardy officially became a team the following year, and soon became Hal Roach's most famous and lucrative stars.

Much of their comedy involves milking a joke, where a simple idea provides a basis from which to build several gags. Many of their films have extended sequences constructed around a single problem the pair is facing, without following a defined narrative.

In some cases, their comedy bordered on the surreal, a style Stan Laurel called "white magic". For example, in Way Out West (1937), Laurel clenches his fist and pours tobacco into it, as if it were a pipe. Then, he flicks his thumb upward as if he held a lighter. His thumb ignites, and he matter-of-factly lights his "pipe." The amazed Hardy, seeing this, would unsuccessfully attempt to duplicate it throughout the rest of the film. Much later in the film, Hardy finally succeeds - only to be terrified when his thumb catches fire.

A common routine the team often performed was a "tit-for-tat" fight with an adversary. Typically, Laurel and Hardy accidentally damaged someone else's property. The injured party would retaliate by ruining something belonging to Laurel or Hardy, who would calmly survey the damage and find something else to vandalize. The conflict would escalate until both sides were simultaneously destroying property in front of each other. An early example of the routine occurs in their classic short, Big Business (1929), which was added to the Library of Congress as a national treasure in 1992, and one of their short films, which revolves entirely around such an altercation, was titled Tit for Tat (1935).

Many gags involved the Ford Model T car which was their favored form of transport. Several such automobiles were wrecked in the films; for example, in the short Busy Bodies (1933), Laurel and Hardy's Model T is sawn in half by a huge bandsaw (the bandsaw cutting right between them while they were sitting in it).

Rather than showing Hardy suffering the pain of misfortunes such as falling down stairs or being beaten by a thug, banging and crashing sound effects were often used so the audience could visualize the scene for themselves. Routines frequently performed by Laurel were a high pitched whooping when in peril and crying like an infant when being berated by Hardy. Hardy often looked directly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall, to express his frustration with Laurel to the film audience.