George the Younger and my sideways dialogue led to a discussion about the old Abbot and Costello "Who's on First" comedy routine from 1938. (As a bit of trivia, I have come to find out that while it is most commonly remembered as a skit from a movie in 1945, the routine was developed much earlier in 1938. They paid a comedy writer about $15 for it. Those were the days.) Turns out, not surprisingly, that the boys had never seen nor heard about this little snippet of Americana.
So as dinner was wrapping up and both George the Elder and I were doing what we usually do - which is to continually ask (yell/cajole/command/threaten) the boys to "SIT DOWN AND FINISH YOUR DINNER FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!" - we grabbed the laptop to introduce the boys to Abbot and Costello. As the photo illustrates, the comedic patter continues to induce the same hilarity these 80 odd years later. They both thought it was hysterical! There are a couple of other photos showing George the Younger yucking it up so much that his open guffawing mouth looks like a 747 could land in it.
And so, for those of you wishing to take a little stroll down memory lane or introduce you own young whipper-snappers to the brilliant schtick of old vaudevillians, here is the YouTube link to "Who's on First" as it was presented in the 1945 film "The Naughty Nineties" It's a classic. Yuck it up. Go ahead....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M
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