This skit is iconic, especially in the baseball world. In 2007, the Dodgers called up Taiwanese player Chin-Lung Hu, and the first time he reached first base, legendary Dodgers broadcaster, Vin Scully, was elated that he could finally say "Hu is on first base" 😂
Side note: the guy at 1:10 who says "we got the props for you here" is Mel Blanc, the man who had a 60 year run doing nearly ALL the voices for Looney Toons cartoons.
Everyone thinks this is a comedy skit, but they're actual players: David Hu is on 1st, Jason Watt is on 2nd, Joe Aiduno is on 3rd. Thomas Wy covers the left field, Dominic Becaz handles center, Nathan Truli is in the right. Kenji Tamara is pitching while Seth Tudae is catching. Finally, Aidun Givadun is the short stop.
Hu isn't a first baseman, he plays middle infield. The Vin Scully had to wait until he hit a single to be able to say "Hu's on first!" I believe Hu is still playing for a team in Taiwan. He in addition to the Dodgers, he played in the Met's organization for a while. He was never able to stick with the big league club for either team, amassing less than 120 big league games across 5 seasons, but will always be remembered for having given announcers the opportunity to say Hu's on first.
Just want to point out that there is no second take. They went through this with perfect timing in front of a live audience and never missed a beat. THAT is amazing talent and chemistry.
This routine is much older than 1940. It was done in variations of "word play" by many artists in vaudeville. While covering several topics, baseball was but one. Most were done in a similar team approach, a couple of vaudeville artists did do this as a solo stand-up. Abbot and Costello teamed in 1936 and started this routine in 1937. They did several variations of it, honing the routine until they copyrighted it in 1944. Even then they often did slight variations. They referred to the routine as the "Baseball" skit. The public referred to it as "Who's on First". A&C did not originate the routine, but did hone it and perform it to this precision.
@@HenshinFanatic Sometime the shortstop is "I don't give a damn." At the other extreme, sometimes the shortstop is "I don't care." It all depended on the venue and audience. They were clean in the movies but the convention in live performances was "clean a 8, blue at midnight." "Blue" means no limits on language or subject matter, what you might expect to be called "dirty." THIS kind of class is long dead! Sorry but even in the '40s, the world was still real.
Fact: This bit is endlessly rewatchable. No matter how many times you watch it it is always fresh and hilarious. Simple word play at its best. During the original run of Animanics there was a Slappy Squirrel segment that imitated this bit but set at Woodstock. It is very close to being as good as this with the benefit of using the names of actual bands from that time instead of having to contrive a set of names.
Skippy, what’s the name of that group playing on stage? Who. The name of the group. Who. The group on stage! Who! The group playin’ on stage! Who! You’re startin’ to sound like an owl, Skippy. Who is on stage. That’s what I’m asking you. Who is on stage? That’s what I said! You said Who? I sure did. Who is onstage? Yes. Who is? Yes. Oh, so the name of the band is Yes. No, Aunt Slappy, Yes is not even at this concert! Wait. Let’s try this again. Do you see the band on stage? No, I don’t see The Band, that’s a different group entirely! On stage, Skippy! Look, see the band? No I don’t! Get rid of those John Lennon glasses and look! There, there’s the band! No, that’s not The Band! The Band is performing later on. Who is onstage!
I remember laughing so hard I wet myself the first time I heard this, when I was 7. The next time I listened to it I was just bored. Every time since then I have been annoyed.
It's mostly wordplay, but things like facial expressions and body language play a part too. Even the simple props of baseball cap and bat add to the performance. And they'd rehearsed the routine so often I think even Lou had some idea what Bud was on about.😆
This 1953 performance by Abbott and Costello has been a classic comedy routine since its inception. It was so popular that the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, NY, shows the video regularly to visitors, and has done so for decades.
@@dpastor6631 The Baseball HOF in Cooperstown plays both the 1953 and the "Naughty Nineties" versions... And they run continuously in one of the display rooms...
This routine is very cleverly crafted. There are loops within loops. Here the skit ran 8 minutes but they literally could do an hour of it as at times they would ad lib a comment just to spice it up. But the clever thing is, when they pause, either one could ask a question or make a comment to get to the next loop, or go to a previous loop. So you see them go with the three infielders (1st, 2nd, and 3rd base), then they do a short version of the outfielders (left, center, and right field). And finally the battery (pitcher and catcher). Then they mix in the battery with the infielders. Not shown, they can also get the outfielders involved with a batted ball and throw to one of the infielders. Toss in a few ad libs and the subject can get crazy. If it gets too far away from the loops, they pause, and start one of the loops over again, but with things like who signs the pay check (which is one of the scripted sub-loops but an extra comment just tossed in like they were on the Actors Retirement Home Team). The punch line is the 9th player, the short stop, who plays between 2nd and 3rd base. So each performance was a combination of scripted and ad lib combined. They did this live for decades in Vaudeville, then live on the radio (which they timed it to fill a show be it 15, 20, 30 minutes or 55 minutes in early TV. Very few shows were ever taped. This 1953 version was one of the first, so we have it today. A variation of it was in one of their movies I believe.
So iconic because it is simply clean "word play" and nothing else. Just the placement of the player's name changes the entire direction of the conversation, and yet can be switched back to the original topic just by repeating the question to the other person. Pure, simple, and concise word-play skills on full display.
@@kylestubbs8867 - Well, it was one of their most known skits, so pretty sure that they didn't need to rehearse it against. Just like their "math skits". Once you learn it, kind of hard to forget it because it more or less is saying the same things over and over within the skit again. So, if you lose your play, pretty much just repeat the last line and you are more or less back on track.
The genius of this skit is that every time you think Lou is starting to catch on, they throw you (forgive the pun) a curveball and come at the joke from an entirely different direction. It goes just so fast, too.
@8:59 I believe this particular version was done in the early 50's, but the duo was iconic, and had the Abbott and Costello Comedy Hour, and were truly golden ages with Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, among others. On another note, me and my best friend of 40 years memorized this routine when we were 10 and 9. #thatisall
An absolute CLASSIC! I wish comedy was still like this. Fast paced, family friendly, and funny to everyone - not putting others down. When you hear how fast they're going, just imagine how many times they practiced, and performed, that skit!
They were definitely great, and their talent with this routine is amazing. So was Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and many others. BUT....your description of modern comedy is very simplistic, flawed, and completely overlooking the incredible talent and artistry that comedy has produced over the last 50 years. You may not like it all, but there has been some amazingly funny, groundbreaking comedy in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, 10's, AND 20's. Open your mind to something different. I'm a guy who sees talent for more than 100 years, not just that narrow little window of nostalgia some like to live in.
Check out videos of a ren fair comedy team called Puke and Snot that did similar skits based on things like a pirate ship (id like to buy an eye), bull fighter (magaga). And sure wood Sherwood. Warning, humour a bit more innuendo. Like the captain stands on the "poop" deck.
This skit is actually the only comedy routine in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Abbott and Costello began their career in Vaudeville and successfully transitioned to radio and the movies. Their most famous movies are a series of films where they encounter the classic monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman.
The thing about this skit is that the night Lou Costello did this skit, his baby boy had drowned in the pool earlier that day, but Costello felt the show must go on. Must have broken his heart to do so.
To shove that emotional moment down and still give a performance like that, he is really a tough actor, I'm sure that those at the retired actors home would understand if he wanted to take some time if they knew about it.
Yes and no. THIS TV clip is from circa 1953. Lou, Jr. died on November 4, 1943. The skit you are referring to was performed on radio in 1943. Lou was in rehearsal when he learned of his son's death.
Weird Al got the news that both his parents died just a short time before he was supposed to go on stage. He did his entire show anyway. Later he was asked why and he said if he can still go on stage and entertain people, maybe it will help him cope with such a big loss as well. I imagine maybe Lou felt the same about his performance.
American Baby Boomers (born between 1946 & 1964) grew up on Abbott and Costello, who were heavily syndicated on television and made a good number of feature-length movies. I have listened to "Who's on First" countless times, and I still laugh. Abbott and Costello flourished during a more innocent age in America. They would do anything for a laugh. Immortal comedy.
Abbott and Costello were great comedians and made a bunch of movies as well. Watching this had me laughing so hard. I've heard it a lot of times but I still laugh. Perhaps their funniest movie is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It is a classic.
This routine was written about 10 years after baseball became popular. So Abbott and Costello weren't the first to do it, but were the one's who made it so loved. It's so loved, it's run on a loop at the Cooperstown Baseball Museum. Abbott and Costello were one of the first non-baseball players inducted into the museum.
I watched them as a kid back in the early 60's and that was classic comedy. They have a series of movies, like Abbott and Costello meet the Wolfman/Dracula/Frankenstein/the invisible man/the Mummy. Those are cult classics that I still watch today. They had financial issues in the 50's but they continued to act until their deaths. I recommend watching, The Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers. You will love both acts.
Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "Road to" Movies. Like "The Road to Zanzibar" and the "Road to Morocco". The Marx Brothers were especially funny. Groucho Marx was hilarious. Talk about rapid fire, you really had to pay attention.
@@BalokLivesI remember being introduced to The Road movies by my older family members as a kid and loved them. I thought The 3 Stooges were okay, but for some reason, I really liked The Marx Brothers. Danny Kaye movies were great, too. Three of my brothers' favorite Stooges episode was about Moe , Larry, and Curly trying to hook up with this one woman, who was dating all three of them behind the other two's backs. And one day, they all showed up at her place one after the other. And when each stooge showed up, she'd tell him, "I knew you were coming so I baked you a cake." My brothers Loved that one
Bud Abbot and Lou Costello were a comedy team who began in burlesque and vaudeville. They made quite a few movies in the 1940s and 1959s. My Mom grew up watching them then I in turn watched the movies on TV in the 1960s. I thought Costello (little plump guy) was adorable and loved their movies. They were extremely popular in the US in their day and some of their crazy routines like the one you just played are considered classics in the field of comedy.
-Bud Abbot is the "plump" guy. Lou Costello is the tall man.- Holy crap. I know this. How the heck did my brain flip this around? "Heyyy Abbot, Abbot!" was one of his catch phrases.
Abbott and Costello are one of the biggest comedy duos of all time. This was relatively late in their career, and that was their most popular skit, so by this point they'd performed it thousands of times. Hence the absolutely perfect timing on the delivery. Other notable comedy duos include George and Gracie, Laurel and Hardy, and the Smothers Brothers.
Think about this, almost 100 years ago who's on first came out and it is still relevant and funny today. That just tells you what geniuses Abbot and Costello were. You have to check out Dice and 7x13=28
This just shows how great this material is - it still makes later generations laugh. As a New Jersey resident, I'm so proud to claim both of these gentlemen as NJ natives. Bud Abbott was from Asbury Park, and Lou Costello was from Paterson.
Best thing about this was that it's live and always a bit unscripted. That way if one of them missteps they can adjust the lines immediately without missing a beat. These guys are amazing to watch back and forth like that.
Adam discovering some real old school American comedy duos is amazing! Abbot and Costello are so classic, there are Bugs Bunny cartoons which reference them.
Been laughing over this for years. When I first saw this as a young teen, my eyes were literally sore red from laughing till I cried throughout the whole skit. My red hair looked brown from how red my face was from laughing so hard. I've loved word twist comedy ever since.
All the great comedy duos got started in "Vaudeville". Live traveling variety shows. The best moved on to radio and film. Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Burns & Allen, etc. George Burns was doing stand up and films into his 80s and lived to be 100. One that earned sequels was "Oh God" in '77.
In America before radio and television, they had Vaudeville. Vaudeville companies were traveling variety stage shows that were very popular, and I'm pretty sure that's where Abbott and Costello got started and first developed their routines. By the time this was filmed, they probably performed that bit countless times, but before radio and television, most people they performed it for were seeing it for the first time.
My nephew who was about at the time watched an Abbott & Costello movie with me. He laughed so hard he fell off the couch. After the movie he said he couldn't believe that the little fat guy (Costello) was so funny and never used a single curse word. His words not mine and back in the 90's when people weren't so sensitive. That Christmas he was shopping with my mom when he saw a 5 pack vhs set of their movies. He told her she HAD to buy those for me because I really liked them.
I have a Who's on First t shirt with the routine on the back of the shirt and the boys on the front. The only curse word, if you want to call it that, is the shortstop is I Don't Give A Damn. 🤣
Adam, the funniest fact I have that still blows me away to this day is that the Little Guy (Lou Costello) had a decent career as a pro boxer and one as a movie stuntman before getting into comedy. He also had a lovable singing voice and could put on some of the best, most emotional dramatic performances fans had ever seen. He was talented on soooooo many levels. He and Bud Abbott (the thin guy with a moustache) were thrown together as a team and despite often clashing did 38 movies and 2 TV shows together as well as having a weekly radio show for years and performed live on stage in Vaudeville (early stand-up variety). There was even a TV cartoon and tons and tons of merch (comics, lunchboxes, pez dispensers, etc). That said, you may want to check out their 7x13=28, Loafing and Dice skits. They're all just as much fun. 7X13=28 is my favorite to this day, 50+ years after seeing it for the first time.
Love these guys growing up in the 60s we love watching Abbott and costello on Saturday rainy afternoons. Made quite a few good movies. Oh you brought me back. Thanks.
I’m sitting here laughing my butt off, and I’ve even performed it with a buddy for an event… we couldn’t keep a straight face the whole time. Their great acting is being fully invested in the argument.
Abbot and Costello were a famous comedy duo from vaudeville where they honed their craft for many years. Later they were featured on radio where they reprised all their most famous bits, and then went on to Hollywood films where they fit their most famous bits into their movies. Later in life they again preformed the same bits on TV - But no they were not the first to "Stand-Up"comedians - They were just the lucky comedians that had their performances recorded for posterity. There are a handful of earlier comedians that were recorded for the gramophone those recordings were never reissued.
There's a David Montgomery and Fred Stone comedy routine on a gramophone cylinder that was included on a CD of early cylinders and disks related to 'Oz'-Montgomery and Stone were the Tin Man and Scarecrow in the 1902 Wizard of Oz stage musical.
I remember first time actually hearing about Abbott and Costello was just a few years ago, I laughed so hard! Looked into their stuff and all of it was great, knocks me dead laughing every time!
They did that routine thousands of times. They did short versions, medium versions, and that was the long version. Radio, live, in front of troops, parties, movies, bond drives whatever. When they did it on stage they would intentionally screw up to get the other one to laugh. They would improv in front of a crowd to vary the routine, because many people had it memorized so they would have to change it from time to time.
By the way, I had to show this video to my 84yo father. He grew up with this comedy. I believe it morphed from Vaudeville acts (live on stage). A current example of "vaudevillian acts" are skit or late-night comedy shows like Graham Norton or Johnny Carson. If you want to see a short clip that'll have you falling out of your chair, check out when Ed Ames teaches Johnny Carson how to throw an axe at a target on live tv. You don't have to know anything about either to bust a gut laughing at the skit.
What is really impressive is this skit had a few slightly different versions. Yet they could pull it off at that speed with no breaks and no mistakes each time. I still laugh everytime. Cant image how they could stay in character like that
They did that live in one take too.Its so impressive they run it at the baseball hall of fame too.They have some old comedy movies they did too but I don't know if they are on YT.They also have a skit about conning their landlord too
@@kebasor Well, a mix of memory and improv. A number of the core jokes are memorized and they improv around them, mixing and connecting them in different ways and different orders. Basically, they had a really solid and well-honed framework that they could riff on for more or less whatever time window they were working with.
They were a radio show. American city dwellers used to talk really fast back then, especially New York and Chicago, and especially in entertainment. Lou clearly sounds like a New York or Chicago accent from the time.
Growing up in the 70s, we watched Abbott and Costello movies every Sunday morning. I also remember there was an Abbott and Costello animated series too
Who’s On First was performed in Vaudeville (1915-1929) by many comedy teams. Each one bought the performance license for the region (pre-radio). As Vaudeville died, A&C were performing in NYC, and was asked to do the show on radio. Costello (the comic) went to all of the other teams and bought the rights from them.
This is one of the bits that will have me belly laughing out loud no matter how many times I’ve seen it. You need to watch the Niagara Falls skit as well, The Three Stooges has the best one for that, but the Abbot and Costello Niagara Falls can hold its own, too.
Adam, you love to laugh, and we love it when you laugh. For heaven sake there is a combination of two videos that you need to react to. One is possibly the funniest moment, ever on TV. The other is one of the people in the scene, several years later, being interviewed, and asked about how the scene came about. I'll give you this much info, to help set up the scene. The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show back in the 70s. They did comedy skits. One of the actors was named Tim Conway. He always had a goal of getting his fellow actors to break character by doing something funny, that wasn't necessarily in the script. This particular skit was of this dysfunctional Southern family. It was a reoccurring series of skits, that eventually led to its own tv series. The first video that you must watch first, is titled Elephant Story Explained. The second one, that is the Elephant Story, is title The Carol Burnett Show - Tim Conway's Elephant Story. As Vicki Lawrence says in the explanation video... Good Luck.
This bit never gets old. I'm 62 and I die ever time😅. Adam I love your reaction. They also have some funny movies like Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein
Should also check out "Tim Conway" doing the "Dentist Skit" and "Elephant Story skit" from the Carrol Bernett show. Both are outrageously funny on a verbal or physical level.
Abbott & Costello have roots going all the way back to the 1930s, but were active in TV & film all the way up until the 1960s. They starred in dozens of their own hit comedy films, and were the first people allowed to use Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy & the Wolfman in comedy movies!!
When we were kids (all under 13) my grandma rented "Cheech and Chong Up in Smoke." We start to watch the movie and my mom shouts, "WHAT DID YOU RENT!" My grandma says, "I thought it was a comedy like Abbott and Costello." My mom busts out laughing 😂
this is such a great bit. I did this in high school on stage. I was Lou Costello's part. It helps if you don't like the other person, its easier to get mad when you're asking "Who's on first!?" and you really wanna yell "WHO THE F*CK IS ON F*CKING FIRST GOODDAMN BASE, MOTHERF*CKER!?"
This skit is so classic and will always stand the test of time. I have watched this skit at least 100 times, and I still laugh just as hard the first time.
They were a mainstay of Saturday and Sunday mornings back in late 70's and early 80's. Along with Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, and the occasional Marx Brothers movie. They had a line of movies where it was Abbott and Costelo meets... "Frankenstein" ..."The Invisible Man" ..."Dracula". There was another one where Lou died and was a ghost a from the Revolutionary War, but I forget the name of it.
I'm 49 years old now. My father got me an Abbott and Costello cassette with Who's on First when I was about 9. I didn't quite get it at first. It took a few listens before it sunk in. But I still laugh at this classic routine today and I always will.
This is the penultimate routine from the end of the vaudeville era. The complexity of timing is extraordinary. And such a long routine. The real surprise is that years later it was revealed that Bud Abbott was an epileptic and how he could get through the whole routine is amazing.
This is widely regarded as the best written and performed sketch of the time. It transcends everything. Simple. Word. Play. Taken to an unbelievably creative extreme.
When I was a kid in the 60's I loved Abbot and Costello. My Mum and Dad and Sister hated them and so I rarely got to see them. But if no one was paying attention and the duo were on the other channel, I'd turn over. They made little me roar with laughter!
Ah, "Who's On First." This is one of the all time most revered, most legendary, most well-known, most reenacted, and just plain funniest comedy routines in the history of the American spoken word. It is probably still performed year in and year out at high school talent shows. I could hardly name a more beloved, more American piece of art than this. The thing to remember about a comedy team like Abbott and Costello and material like this is that they were a creative team for decades and decades, and a routine like this would evolve over time. While much of this is written or scripted, a lot of it is improvised and ad-libbed around source material, and they had such great chemistry, so much experience with each other, and so much pure wit and talent between them, they would do basically the routine they had written, but they would do it whatever way occurred to them on the stage they happened to be standing on that night. It's not unlike music that way - if you see a jazz group or a rock group once a year for 10 years, you won't hear them play the same song the same way 10 times.
During the 2007 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers added an infielder named Chin-Lung Hu. After Hu singled in his third at bat in a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on September 23, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully said, "OK everybody, all together... Hu's on first!" At that pointvin Scully had been the Dodger's play-by-play annoucer for 58 years. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PWei5rfeSPA.html
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) has held up really well and is well worth your time. It has most of the classic Universal Studios movie monsters on full display. It’s in black and white and is still very funny. This movie was very big when it came out, so Abbott and Costello did a few more of this type.
Abbot and Costello made a lot of movies together.But my all time favorite is when they meet Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman all in the same movie! It was the one and only time Bella Lugosi reprised his role as Lord of the Vampires on film!
That skit has been done numerous times, by many different acts, and it never took off for anyone. Abbott and Costello, are the only act that did this skit to perfection, and the skit finally took off, and became the classic hit that we know and love, today!
In the sci-fi movie Arrival, the Amercan team named heptopod aliens "Abbott & Costello" because their biggest bit, "Who's on First?" was about difficulty communicating.
Abbott and Costello were huge in the 40's and 50's. They had their own tv show that was still in reruns in the 70's. They did a bunch of movies. Most famously with several of the famous monsters of the day. Frankenstein. Darcula. The Werewolf. The Mummy. And a few war movies during WW2. The two big comedy acts before them were Laurel and Hardy and The Marx Brothers. And the Three Stooges were about the same time as them.
3:47 "Why doesn't he just say his name..." You already know it's because then you wouldn't have a comedy bit, Persistent obtuseness has been the basis for much of comedy forever, and the template of this particular bit is the ultimate refinement of bits from the vaudeville era. I have to believe that The Two Ronnies' "Four Candles" bit was inspired by Abbott & Costello.
Okay, the iconic timing of this duo was born in the age of Radio Shows. 😅 So they are used to keeping the sound rolling full speed. Abbott and Costello Show is a comedy program from the era of old-time radio in the United States. It was broadcast first on NBC and later on ABC, beginning on July 3, 1940 and ending on June 9, 1949
In the late 1960s dad bought a Victoria (old old record player) and a bunch of records (78 RPMs), and one of the records was an Abbot and Costello comedy records of song and jokes....it's on RU-vid, there's some history notes at the beginning. Bud Abbott & Lou Costello: " Laugh, Laugh, Laugh (Hey Abbott! Hey Costello!)" (1941) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-usYNXMxqsSE.html
When my daughter was a little girl, I was trying to explain to her that I liked smart humor instead of stupid humor. She didn't understand the difference, so I played her this skit. She was laughing about it for weeks!
You may be able to locate the radio version of this. It is even better, but audio only...they were great, in an era when baseball was the national pastime.
Their impeccable quick timing is what makes this skit so funny. I once saw in a documentary about them that they spent more than 8 hours every day for two weeks not just memorizing the routine, but getting the timing down
