Random Bits for September

Lloyd Hamilton discarded his checkered cap to be the grand marshal of Straw Hat Day.

I thank Steve Rydzewski for letting me know that these photos of Ham and Bud have been posted to ebay.  I believe that the first photo is from The Blundering Blacksmith (1917) and the second photo is from For Sweet Charity (1916).

A carnival's distorting mirror is always a good prop to use when photographing a comedian.

Many comedy films have included a scene in which the comedian has had to awkwardly carry about a dead or unconscious person, but this action was typically limited to a single scene.  Three Girls About Town (1941) was the first feature film in which the comic leads spent most of the film's running time dragging around a corpse.  This was almost 50 years before Weekend at Bernie's (1989).

Here are two clips from the film.

An expressive comedian could draw a steady stream of laughs trying on a variety of hats.  An example of this comic business could be found in an early Hepworth film.  The film's title is, to my knowledge, unknown.

Here we have Norma Nichols, Larry Semon and Frank Alexnder in The Rent Collector (1921).

My favorite oldtime music hall singer is Harry Champion.  Champion amassed a large repertoire of songs.

 
Many of them were, according to Wikipedia, "sung at breakneck speed and often about the joys of food."  Champion's food songs included "Boiled Beef and Carrots," "Taters," "A Little Bit Of Cucumber," "Yorkshire Pudden," "Let's Have a Basin of Soup," "Hot Meat Pies, Saveloys and Trotters," "Put a Bit of Treacle on my Puddin', Mary Ann," "Oh! That Gorgonzola Cheese" and the rather blunt "I Want Meat." 

But he also had great success with non-food songs, including "I'm Proud Of My Old Bald Head," "It's Cold Without Your Trousers," "My Wife's Sister's Pussy Cat" and "Never Let Your Braces Dangle."  I enjoy so many of Champion's songs in this category that I had a hard time selecting a single one to post.  I decided in the end to post three additional songs.  I hope that you enjoy them, too.