MUST SEE! A True Genesis Moment In Visual Comedy!

What you are about to see is the seed that grew into a forest. This single clip has been cited by Ernie Kovacs, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Rowan & Martin and Monty Python as the root of the comedic arts taking on the very medium by which it is being relayed.

Here, the “fourth wall” is not only broken, but gleefully demolished by a comedy team that few in our generation have ever heard of… Olsen And Johnson.

It’s near impossible to describe what happens here, so you’ll have to watch it, and you be glad you did because this is the first time in the history of moving images that this has been done…and it’s done quite well given the technology of the time. Among other firsts you’ll see here, this could also be the first “move within a movie” overlay of characters “off screen” talking to characters “on screen”.

This is from the film ‘Hellzapoppin’ from 1941, which was based on the long running Broadway play of the same name that starred Olson and Johnson. They wrote the play and are legendary for their volume and range of material. They were famous from the 1920s through the early 50s, but having played more on vaudeville and broadway stages, their legacy is not a lasting as their contemporaries, like Laurel And Hardy or The Marx Brothers who were mostly film stars.

The setup for the brilliant technical manipulations of the film begins with The Three Stooges own Shemp Howard playing the part of a projectionist having a fight. The premise is that this is happening in the very theater that each audience is seeing this movie. This has the effect of taking the audience out of spectator mode and making them participants in the experience.

The consequences of the disturbance in the projection room are played out on the big screen in a way no one had ever seen before and a lot of gags from the film spilled over into the Warner Brothers cartoons of the era. I have yet to see the entire film, but after seeing this, I can’t wait! Enjoy and SHARE! – Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouLlA6IQZGI

[From “Kovacs Corner” on YouTube.com] – Returning to what I believe was a great influence on Ernie Kovacs’ comedic style is the zany 1941 film “Hellzapoppin’…

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