Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
How come there are no more comedy teams? You might ask more broadly, how come there is no more comedy? What happened to comedy is another story for another time. Actually, there are still individuals who perform comedy, we have comedy clubs across the country, comics are on television, and movies. Now, whether you think the comedy being served up today is worthy of laughter or even funny at all, that's something else again. And a good topic for another column sometime. But, like it or not, individuals are still doing comedy.
Circling back to my original question, where are the comedy TEAMS? We had comedy teams throughout the 20th Century, then we entered the 21st Century and guess what? We've got nobody. The last century had them all. Gallagher and Shean, Weber and Fields, Smith and Dale, Wheeler and Woolsey, and Burns and Allen, were but a few comedy duos to come out of vaudeville. The husband and wife team of Burns and Allen were the most successful of the bunch, appearing on radio, in movies, and finally a popular television show.
Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis were the three biggest comedy duos in motion pictures during the last century. Television and night clubs showcased new duos like Nichols and May, Stiller and Meara, Wayne and Schuster, Bob and Ray, Rowan and Martin, and Allen and Rossi. We even had a hippy pot smoking duo in the 60's, Cheech and Chong. And to my knowledge, the Smothers Brothers were the only comedy duo which were also brothers. You can't count the Blues Brothers because they weren't really brothers. And anyway, they were music not comedy.
There were plenty of music brothers. The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, The Jackson Five, The Osmond Brothers, The Everly Brothers, The Jonas Brothers. And if you really want to go back, there was the Dorsey Brothers. And a load of sister acts like the Boswells and the Andrews, and the McGuires, and the Kings, and the Lennons.
But getting back to comedy teams, beside the Smothers, there were plenty of funny brothers teams, usually composed of three or more. The most famous being The Marx Brothers, of which there were five at one time; Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo. Also very big in movies of the 30's and 40's was the Ritz Brothers, the Wiere Brothers, and The Three Stooges (Curly, Moe, and Shemp were brothers. Larry Fine being the only stooge who wasn't a brother).
So where the heck are all the funny brothers now? Isn't it about time we bring back comedy team brothers? And no, King Charles and his disgraced brother Andrew don't qualify. Joel and Ethan Coen are not performers so they don't qualify either. The fact is, we haven't had a decent brother comedy act for decades.
Maybe that's why our society is so screwed up and divided and angry. If we only had a Moe and Shemp and Curly Howard today, maybe it would help bring us together. Could a few "Nyuk Nyuks" hurt? It might be just what we need. And a new Marx Brothers comedy team could shoot a few holes in our stupid pompous woke entertainment industry. A few crazy guys running around in blonde wigs, big black mustaches, wearing funny clothes, blowing horns, chasing girls, and smoking cigars might do wonders for this country.
Sadly there are no more comedy teams, brothers or otherwise. All we have now are a few crude wise guys doing standup. Many of whom don't find being "funny" as important as being politically corrosive and divisive.
Personally, I'd rather see Curly get a poke in the eye from Moe than listen to another nasty screed on President Trump. I'd settle for Shemp getting the poke in the eye. Heck, I'll even take Larry getting it (even though he's not technically a brother).
And don't forget. "Why a duck? Why a no chicken?"
(COMMENT, BELOW)