That's right - there actually is a National Spumoni Day, August 21!
Do lots of us like spumoni and ice cream in general? Yes.
Naturally, spumoni and ice cream have found their way to the cartoon world, especially in vintage 1950's TV commercials.
To suggest that Homer Simpson and Spongebob are ice cream fans would be quite the understatement. Without a doubt, Homer could go for some spumoni 365 days a year!
Thanks to an animation genre started by the Walt Disney Silly Symphonies, cartoons back in the 1930's were almost as dessert-obsessed as The Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants decades later. Importantly, the denizens of Cartoonland can eat unlimited ice cream and not gain weight!
The concept of ice cream and other confections transporting 1930's movie audiences away from The Great Depression and directly to Happyland is particularly notable in the Max Fleischer Color Classic SOMEWHERE IN DREAMLAND.
Since this blog has been primarily focused on movie comedians over the past 3-4 months, we'll close today's post with one of the comics featured in Leonard Maltin's books THE GREAT MOVIE SHORTS and THE GREAT MOVIE COMEDIANS, that stalwart from the Hal Roach Studio (a.k.a. The Lot Of Fun), Charley Chase, in the following ice cream-laden opus. He is supported adeptly by Our Gang's inimitable Tommy "Butch" Bond, who could play a brat better than Jane Withers!
Big time thanks again to Kit Parker, Richard M. Roberts and others at The Sprocket Vault for making these classic Hal Roach Studio comedies available on Blu-ray here in the misbegotten 21st century!
How the blog somehow missed the centenary of the birth of wacky, imaginative and marvelously goofy comedian Milton Supman, known professionally as Soupy Sales, back on January 8, we'll never know!
Oh well, at least Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remembered our pals Dick Van Dyke and Mel Brooks, both of whom lived to see that 100th birthday.
Let's rectify that grevious error of overlooking the fabulous Soupy Sales RIGHT NOW, shall we!
Soupy was an avid jazz and blues fan, so the guest on the following show is virtuoso guitarist, master of the Gibson ES-335 and king of vibrato B.B. King.
Soupy Sales is responsible for the ONLY television appearance of trumpet genius Clifford Brown!
Entertainer Trini Lopez and Rat Packers Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. co-star in the following Soupy Sales Show! Where's Dino?
Even Alice "Welcome To My Nightmare" Cooper was a guest on The Soupy Sales Show!
Must buy the following DVDs from RHINO VIDEO!
Undoubtedly, music mavens, jazz and blues fans, and the comedy-centric love him! The splendid Detroit Historical Society website adds:
Soupy Sales was a lifelong jazz fan who used his late-night Detroit program, Soupy's On, to champion legendary jazz artists. Hosted a late-night adult-oriented talk show in Detroit during the 1950s. Partnered with local venues like Baker's Keyboard Lounge to feature touring acts. Used Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" as his theme song. Featured heavyweights like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong.
The gang here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love jazz, blues, rock n'roll, comedy, Soupy and his talented rocker sons Hunt and Tony.
The Sales brothers:
Formed the teen band Tony and the Tigers as children and secured a record deal by age 11
Todd Rundgren: Played on Todd Rundgren's early 1970s albums, backing the hit "We Gotta Get You a Woman".
Provided the iconic, driving rhythm section and famous drum groove on Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust for Life.
Tin Machine: Reunited as the rhythmic backbone for David Bowie’s hard rock project alongside guitarist Reeves Gabrels from 1988 to 1992.
Today's hat tip goes to one of a favorite comedian and wordsmiths from my misspent youth, a TV producer who was also a lyricist, musician, satirist and prolific recording artist, the great Allan Sherman (1924-1973).
Here, Allan Sherman is the guest on The Mike Douglas Show, a very popular 1960's - early 1970s daytime TV variety program.
Allan goes international with British pop group Herman's Hermits.
Mr. Sherman was a frequent guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dean Martin Show in 1965-1968.
Well, whatdaya know - found The Allan Sherman Show (1968) on Internet Archive - yippee kai-yoh kai-yay!
Love seeing Allan Sherman meet Hans Conreid in a Jay Ward Production! Allan enters at 13:52, after Fractured Flickers has thoroughly spoofed cowboy William S. Hart.
The latest Allan Sherman material this scribe has seen is the following 1970 appearance at UCLA.
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tip our hats to Allan Sherman - and an old friend who gave us a splendid 120 minute cassette of the song parody king in concert way back when. Miss you!
In a few weeks (on August 28), a new movie based on Warner Brothers Animation and desert dwellers Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner hits movie theaters.
While well aware that Warner Brothers Animation and Road Runner stalwarts Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe and Ben Washam are long gone, this trailer looks pretty darn good. Nonetheless, the Coyote vs. ACME preview emphatically sparks an uncontrollable urge to watch Road Runner cartoons!
Will's over-the-top performance in the Fly High Duluth sketch is a personal favorite and the ultimate statement on bad bands, enhanced by Fred Armisen as the group's animated and overenthusiastic drummer. Love the fact that both host Scarlett Johansson and the entire SNL cast are involved.
When everyday life, the annoyances of old age and unrelentingly lousy 2026 get the gang here feeling down, a fantastic way to get to that better place involves vintage Warner Bros. cartoons from 1935-1955 and the both gloriously unhinged and intergalactic country singers Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad.
And, in closing, we respectfully tip our Michigan J. Frog top hats to the desert dwellers and all involved in making Warner Brothers cartoons and the high-wire sketch comedy at Second City, Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, etc. Thanks to all who bring the laughs!
This blog has recently profiled 1920's and 1930's comics Harry Sweet, Lloyd Hamilton, Joe Rock's Three Fat Guys a.k.a. Ton Of Fun series and such Columbia Shorts Department stalwarts as The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, Leon Errol and Harry Langdon in search of laughs. Now we travel across the pond and leap several decades later to 1980's and 1990's with French & Saunders and The Vicar Of Dibley.
Dawn French gets this comedy fan thinking of Melissa McCarthy, another amazing physical comedienne, whose six times hosting Saturday Night Live were invariably hilarious.
Among the numerous prominent comedy performers from The Groundlings on Saturday Night Live: Melissa and Kristen Wiig. There was a point when SNL, the late 1970's - early 1980's ABC sketch comedy show Fridays and (later) Mad TV were competing for ex-Groundlings. Surprises me that Melissa was not hired to be in the SNL cast.
One of my favorite bits from the past quarter century of SNL is the Lulu Diamonds sketch. It's both an extremely funny sendup of Mae West and exceptional physical comedy. Melissa and supporting cast Jason Sudeikis, Taran Killam, Andy Samberg and Bobby Moynihan are all excellent.
Her last stint hosting Saturday Night live was on December 6, 2025.
While all the sketches were excellent, the following one is particularly riotous.
The following SNL sketch written by Streeter Seidel & Mikey Day is quite funny and downright Monty Python-esque.
Finishing this extended plunge into the slapstick of The Shorts Department, the spotlight shines on the guy who cranked out numerous Three Stooges shorts in the latter 1940's and early 1950's, longtime Columbia Studio soundman Edward Bernds.
Chicago-born Edward Bernds was a pioneering soundman who, after working with Frank Capra and Howard Hawks, would become a prolific director of silver screen comedies, television series and psychotronic B-films. He lived to be 95 and thus gave numerous interviews.
Mr. Bernds had the unenviable task of directing Three Stooges comedies when Curly Howard's health was rapidly declining in the mid-1940's.
He did a remarkable job working around the NYUK NYUK NYUK king's health issues and getting Curly's last great comedy performances on film.
He also did a stellar job handling the comedy team's transition from Curly to Shemp.
Greg Hilbrich's historical overview of The Shorts Department adds: "In 1944, Edward Bernds, a sound mixer at Columbia since the shorts department's beginnings, began writing scripts for the shorts, only later to find himself in the director's chair. Bernds is responsible for some of the finest two-reel comedies Columbia made."
His Columbia comedy short subjects featured unusual choices of headliners. For example, Billie Burke, ubiquitous character actress known for, among numerous parts, Glinda The Good Witch from The Wizard Of Oz, starred in Columbia 2-reelers. While Billie remains the least likely to headline a Three Stooges style knockabout comedy, it happened!
Ex-pugilists Max Baer and "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom swapped taking punches in the ring for Moe Howard style mega-slaps in the movies!
Edward Bernds directed several short subjects starring character actor and cartoon voice artist Sterling Holloway.
The slapstick team of Gus Schilling & Richard Lane made a series of very funny and very over-the-top comedy shorts in the Three Stooges knockabout school.
Future "3rd Stooges" Joe De Rita and Joe Besser also starred in 2-reelers directed by Edward Bernds at Columbia.
After leaving the Columbia Shorts Department in 1952, Edward Bernds directed films for Allied Artists, including The Bowery Boys Meet The Monsters, starring Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey and Guy In A Gorilla Suit.
Edward Bernds' extended career in movies and TV included psychotronic B-films.
Including the classic SPACE X-7!
Hard not to love a guy who directed Queen Of Outer Space!
Last week's post on rubber-legged slapstick master Leon Errol and silver screen humor essential Mel Brooks, as well as the previous one on The Three Stooges, has profoundly immersed this blog in the pratfall-packed world of physical comedy.
We've been heavily into Slapstickland, both silents and talkies, for the past three months. And many moons ago, back in 2013 (which now feels like 1913), wrote an extended series of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write a Blog posts paying tribute to the Columbia Shorts Department and Jules White.
Lee Weinstein's 2023 article The Rivals Of The Three Stooges adeptly covers the comedy headliners from Columbia 2-reelers at length and gets us thinking of the guy who spent 20 years with The Shorts Department before going on to a successful career in television, former silent slapstick perennial and Mack Sennett stock company player Andy Clyde.
In I'M A FATHER, Andy plays the "cranky old stick in the mud" to perfection.
In such Columbia 2-reelers as OLD SAWBONES, a collaboration between prolific silent comedy creators Del Lord and Jack "Preston Black" White, Andy presents a down-home variant on the physical comedy formula of Moe, Larry and Curly.
Now it's on to character actor supreme, the guy who coached none other than Kate Hepburn in comedy chops during the making of Bringing Up Baby, the great Broadway and movie comedian Walter Catlett.
Here's Walter in Get Along Little Hubby (1934). (Note: the following transfer is very out of sync). He co-stars with Vivien Oakland, very much a key player in the first year of The Shorts Department (and a take-no-prisoners character actress here), as well as ubiquitous slapstick comedy stalwart, future Columbia 2-reelers headliner and Three Stooges co-star Monte Collins.
In case you're wondering why Walter Catlett seems more than vaguely familiar. . .
Indeed, that is a wonderful performance in Pinocchio as J. Worthington Foulfellow A.K.A."Honest John."
In between his numerous character roles in feature films, Catlett turns up periodically in Columbia shorts through the early 1940's; he even co-stars with the popular Guy In A Gorilla Suit, who torments Walt and Dudley Dickerson (the talented African-American comedian invariably cast in grotesque stereotyped parts) in YOU'RE NEXT.
BLONDES AND BLUNDERS has a pronounced Moe-Larry-Curley style knockabout approach throughout, in no small part due to the presence of irreplaceable Three Stooges supporting comics Bud Jamison and Vernon Dent.
Walter Catlett had prominent roles in comedy and musical short subjects long before working for Columbia. Here he is, teamed with none other than gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette.
One of the most memorable Walter Catlett performances is in Mark Sandrich's 1933 RKO opus SO THIS IS HARRIS (1933).
Have devoted many blog posts to the unorthodox and original comedian Harry Langdon over the years.
Like Buster Keaton and Charley Chase, Harry was among the former silent movie headliners making 2-reelers at Columbia. Langdon was one of two Harrys - the second was Harry von Zell in 1946-1950 - to headline short subjects for The Shorts Department.
The Columbia Langdon comedies remain a mixed bag; some - SHIVERS, HIS MARRIAGE MIX-UP (the 1935 predecessor to Saturday Night Live star Mike Myers' 1993 feature film So I Married An Axe Murderer) - are still lost films.
Langdon, an unique and idiosyncratic performer, was especially ill-suited to Jules White's tendency to make Three Stooges comedies with all Shorts Department headliners.
At that point Harry, who was pushing 40 when he debuted in movies, was in his fifties and no longer able to do strenuous physical slapstick. Nonetheless, the comedy-crazed gang here find Langdon's appearances in features and short subjects, more often than not, to be quite funny; check him out in Lewis Milestone's Hallelujah, I'm A Bum (1933).
The following, directed by frequent Langdon collaborator Arthur Ripley and written by the inventive and prolific Harry McCoy, is a sendup of Warner Brothers' Warren William vehicle and courtroom drama The Mouthpiece (1932). Harry sports a mustache!
Harry works quite well with the marvelously and unabashedly over-the-top Hal Roach Studios comedian and cartoon voice artist Billy Gilbert in this 1935 2-reeler. Langdon's the straight man here! Billy reprises the raving loony he portrayed with relish in the Three Stooges opus Men In Black.
For more on this great movie comedian, check out Chicago historian Nicole Arciola's terrific Harry Langdon Archive YouTube channel, a classic comedy treasure trove.
