It's that special time of year. . .the one in which we celebrate Pi Day! Funny, rounding pi to the ten-thousandth, four numbers past the decimal point, it comes out to 3.1416, matching today's date - March 14, 2016!
It's uncommon knowledge that Albert Einstein, born on this very day in 1879, was a fan of comedy films, the hilariously funny Time For Beany TV show and big screen fun in general. Now I am not sure how much time the great Charlie spent with the great Einstein. One imagines if the two were alone together, they talked about women.
Here's a film Charlie made for Mutual which, if not the first pie fight movie, is certainly one of them - Behind The Screen.
While there were very likely tons of pie-throwing epics in the teens - the usual suspects would be Roscoe Arbuckle, Al St. John, Ford Sterling, Harold Lloyd, Larry Semon, the scurrilous Billie Ritchie and Kalem's unkempt, uncouth and uncontrollable anti-team of Ham & Bud - we will jump forward to the late 1920's and the film known as The Mother Of All Pie Fights, the Hal Roach comedy The Battle Of The Century, starring Laurel & Hardy and at least 400 pies courtesy of the L.A. Pie Co.
We close our salute by noting that nothing says Pi Day quite like this scene from The Three Stooges' fine dessert-throwing epic, In The Sweet Pie And Pie! The key to this scene is ace supporting player Symona Boniface, the dowager, frequently to the Stooges what Margaret Dumont was to The Marx Brothers and known for delivering the line, "young man, you look as if the Sword of Damacles was hanging over your head" - who joins the pie-throwing melee with unbridled and then crazed enthusiasm.
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