Good Reading

Let me share a few good articles that I read recently.

Ivan Shreve explores the history of a short-lived RKO comedy series, "The Blondes and the Redheads."

http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.com/2016/03/i-got-plenty-of-sutton.html

June Brewster of "The Blondes and the Redheads."

Trav S. D. takes a look at slapstick sailors in films.

https://travsd.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/for-fleet-week-several-slapsticks-with-sailors-sailing/

Abbott and Costello in In the Navy (1941)

Peter Reitan writes about Irish comedians of early vaudeville.

http://esnpc.blogspot.ca/2016/06/irish-stew-irish-militias-and-chowder.html

Lea Stans examines the imaginative filmmaking style of Segundo De Chomon.

https://silentology.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/segundo-de-chomon-the-man-you-think-is-melies/#more-13698

Segundo de chomon's Ah! La Barbe (1905)

Animator Jonathan Lyons explains the nature of "funny anger." 

http://comedyforanimators.com/2016/05/22/some-notes-about-angry-birds/

Lyons also finds humor in eating.

http://comedyforanimators.com/2016/04/03/eating-the-elements-of-comedy-for-animators/

John Towsen is an exceptional authority on the history of comedy.  Let me bring to your attention three of Mr. Towsen's recent articles.  First, we have an article on the acrobatic chase scenes that climaxed the nineteenth century English pantomime shows. 

http://physicalcomedy.blogspot.com/2016/05/video-from-early-1800s-or-in-search-of.html

Next, we have an article about Foottit & Chocolat, groundbreaking circus clowns that performed together in France from 1895 to 1910.

http://physicalcomedy.blogspot.com/2016/05/monsieur-chocolat.html

People are interested in the team today because Chocolat, also known as Rafael Padilla, was one of the first black entertainers to achieve celebrity in France.  Padilla was the subject of a recent biopic, Chocolat (2015).

Comic tumbling is discussed in the third article.

http://physicalcomedy.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-holy-grail-of-theatrical-acrobatics_9.html

Towsen's new book "How Many Surrealists Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb? or, Why did the Intellectual Cross the Road and Walk into a Bar?" is available on Amazon.

I am now off to swab my kitchen floor.  Have a good day, everyone.

Collinson & Dean