11,727 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Marx Brothers’ first film release The Cocoanuts (1929). By 1928 the Marx Brothers were big Broadway stars and the technology of s…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the W.C. Fields classic Man on on the Flying Trapeze (1935), co-written by Fields and directed by Clyde Bruckman. Simon Louvish very ast…
Today is the anniversary of the release of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy short The Midnight Patrol (1933). In this classic, the boys play a couple of police patrolmen on what t…
Today is the anniversary of the Hal Roach comedy Short Kilts (1924) starring Stan Laurel and Jimmy Finlayson, starring George Jeske. As a member of the Stewart clan I am more susce…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of W.C. Fields’ first silent feature Sally of the Sawdust (1925).  The film was based on Fields’ hit Broadway stage musical …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Wheeler and Woolsey’s third film Dixiana (1930). W & W are the comedians in this standard period musical, set in ante-bellum N…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Property Man. Something feels original about this film in contrast with most of Chaplin’s ear…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Coney Island, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Variety Arts (Defined) Tagged: burlesque, Christmas in July, Coney Island, Lefty Lucy
Today is the 100th birthday of Professor Irwin Corey! Corey’s is essentially a vaudeville act, although he introduced it two decades too late for vaudeville. (He launched his act in th…
Today is the birthday of the great Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya (1876-1949). Film buffs know her well as the mysterious Gypsy fortune teller in The Wolf Man (1941) and Frank…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the day Austria-Hungray declared war on Serbia, thus triggering World War One. We who have not felt the sting of a proper World War in over six decades year…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Clown, Comedy, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Cloud City, Show and Show Show, Williamsburg
Today’s the anniversary of the release date of the Roscoe Arbuckle comedy Fatty’s Tintype Tangle (1915). Fatty’s photograph (tin type) is accidentally taken with a wo…
 Today is the birthday of the great impresario André Charlot (1882-1956), whose great career radiated across the great show business capitals along with the march of history, w…
There’s something chilling? ironic? depressing? that this World War One centenary year is taking place at the very same time that World War Three, 3.5 or Four (depending on how you cou…
The happy news that I’ll Say She Is  will be in this summer's New York International Fringe Festival provides a nice opening for this update re-blog the topic of the Fringe…
Originally posted in 2013. Today is the birthday of Gus Elen (Ernest Augustus Elen, 1862-1940), one of the first of the so-called “coster comedians” of the English music hall…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the  Buster Keaton short The Blacksmith (1922). An extremely Keatonesque opening shot (Buster standing next to the tallest tree …
Tonight is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy Them Thar Hills (1934). In this Hal Roach production, the boys go camping in a trailer as a trea…
Tonight on TCM, a cornucopia of silent comedies; quite a diverse selection. It’ll be interesting to see the rationale they give for putting this particular batch on a bill together.…
Today is the birthday of Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944). Jenkins is a notorious in show business annals as the worst professional opera singer in history. A 1909 inheritance allow…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Burlesque Bliz, Excelsior Burlesque, Horse Trade, Wonderland
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, Dime Museum and Side Show, Indie Theatre, PLUGS Tagged: Bunny Buxom, Chris McDaniel, Donny Vomit, Frankie Sin, Gal Friday, Jonny Porkpie, Kraine T…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Circus, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Big Sky Works, Circus Cabaret, The Treasure Chest
As we mentioned just now, tickets for our Fringe show I’ll Say She Is are available today.  But we would be remiss in not mentioning the fact that some of our closest f…
