The Tons of Fun?
Tony Spadaro
but I've never seen them anyplace else. Good ol' Buffalo Bob used the right
name for every other star during the "old time movie" segment of the show,
Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Turpin, etc, so I have to believe that there
was a trio called the Tons of Fun and not something entirely different.
Anyone know anything about them?
While on the subject of ol B. Bob. I really came to appreciate the silent
part of silents after hearing enough of his narration. I took to turning off
the sound. I was still tuning in for the silent movie years after I had
stopped watching the show. If I happened to be near the set at 5 o:clock I
would turn it on to catch the movie. Princess whatsername was kinda a dish
too.
--
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The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
A few pictures are available at
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Rob Farr
Kewpie Ross. All were talented comedians who had years of experience playing
heavys for other comics. Much comic milage was gotten out of having all
three side by side, such as walking down a sidewalk in tendem and knocking
all the other pedestrians into the street. The series was made by Joe Rock
from 1925-27. If you want to go down memory lane, you can see one of their
shorts on Vol. 8 of the Slapstick Encyclopedia called Tons o' Fun: Comedy's
Anarchic Fringe.
Rob Farr
"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
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James L. Neibaur
>but I've never seen them anyplace else.
I have a VHS of their films from Videobrary. Fatty Alexander and Fat Carr were
two of them. Can't think of the third.
>Princess whatsername was kinda a dish
>too.
Princess WinterSpringSummerFall. That was Judy Tyler, who made two movies --
Bop Girl Goes Calypso and Jailhouse Rock (with Elvis)--- before being killed in
a car crash in 1957.
JN
Please visit the most poorly designed web pages online:
my Favorite Movies web page:
http://hometown.aol.com/jimneibr/myhomepage/movies.html
and my Favorite Performers web page:
http://hometown.aol.com/jimneibr/myhomepage/rant.html
Brattilina
tvparty.com It has a lot of stuff about television kids shows. -- Toni
AAbrams0264
Not to be a nitpicker, but her name was
Princess SummerFallWinterSpring --and I'm old enough to remember how sad it was
when she died (I was seven years old at the time and a big Howdy Doody fan).
William Hooper
> but I've never seen them anyplace else. Good ol' Buffalo Bob used the right
> name for every other star during the "old time movie" segment of the show,
> Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Turpin, etc, so I have to believe that there
> was a trio called the Tons of Fun and not something entirely different.
> Anyone know anything about them?
Filmclassic has one of their 2-reelers for sale:
http://www.filmclassic.com/Exclusives.htm
It's 16mm, & requires special equipment to run:
a projector from eBay, a really, really bright light bulb, an
electrical outlet, etc.
George Shelps
>>Princess whatsername was kinda a dish
>>too.
>Princess WinterSpringSummerFall. That
>was Judy Tyler, who made two movies --
>Bop Girl Goes Calypso and Jailhouse
>Rock (with Elvis)--- before being killed in
>a car crash in 1957.
I think her name was Princess SummerFallWinterSpring.
I was in attendance when Buffalo
Bob made his first "nostalgia"
appearance that led to the new
Howdy Doody show eventually.
The rowdy college crowd was ready
to laugh at the very mention of the Princess until Bob cooled them off
with
the story of Judy Tyler's death. They
thought he was leading up a racy
anecdote and the sad end of his
story led to a collective hush by the
Ivy League snotbags.
By the way, a friend of mine has a print of a film called HEAVY ROMEOS
in which they are called "The Ton of Fun." (no "s").
It gives their character names as "Lou,
Clint, and Bullets."
Hal Erickson
Bill Sprague also has a lot of the "Ton of Fun" shorts.
In addition to HOWDY DOODY, the shorts also showed up on the old FUNNY
MANNS series. I vividly remember one gag in which all three comedians
piled into a Model T, then we cut to a closeup of the car's
headlights, which with the help of animation had grown eyes that were
rolling around and crossing etc.
From what I've seen, these comedies were built around a single joke:
"We're fat and we break things." Some of the individual gags are
pretty inventive, though, and the films made excellent use of
standing sets at Universal (notably in the WW1 spoof "The Heavy
Parade").
--Hal E
-
SRydzewski
Yes there was a trio of fat comics known as the Ton of Fun, aka The Three
Fatties. There was a few series of several two reelers produced c1925-27 by Joe
Rock for FBO distribution. The Ton of Fun included Frank "Fatty" Alexander who
worked in several Keystones in the mid-teens, before joining Larry Semon where
he stayed several years before becoming the leader and heaviest of the three.
Hilliard Karr, a Texan who played in many Century shorts (and possibly the
better looking of the three); and Joseph "Kewpie" Ross of whom very little is
known about at this writing. Their most frequent leading lady, Lois Boyd, was
one of the prettiest girls in the biz.
Videobrary (Paul Lisy) has two volumes of their short subjects and I too am a
great fan of their slapstick antics who can't get enough.
SteveR
Tony Spadaro
back of one's brain for decades - until it starts to cause mind rot.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
A few pictures are available at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
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FLEXARET2
The silent movies on the Howdy Doody Show and many other early 50s TV shows
came from Milton Menell, owner of Select Film Library.
Milton had a large library of original 35MM Nitrate negatives from which he
made dupe 16MM and regular 8MM negatives to print both 8MM and 16MM silent
prints which were sold to the public for Home Projectors.
Eventually he sold most of the nitrate to some company in France.
What remains of the library should be over there.
He owned and operated the "Home Movie" Department, which was an outside
concession, in New York's photography supermarket -
Peerless Camera Store (43rd Street and Lexington Avenue) - then it moved to
Willoughby's Camera Store on 32nd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. His
store manager was the affable Charlie Pavlicek, who was famous for making
"deals" with collectors for 16MM sound and silent features. They also, at one
time, operated a 16MM and 8MM rental library.
When television came in, Menell, having 16MM negatives on many titles,
made prints for TV syndication of silent comedies.
He was the owner of the 35MM original camera negatives to the
"Ton of Fun" short comedies, which were produced by Larry Darmour
in Hollywood, towards the end of the silent era. Darmour was also producing the
Mickey McGuire comedies around that period, which did transition from silent to
sound. I believe that FBO (later RKO),
acted as the distributor for both series. Darmour then went on to produce
many low budget "poverty row" features, westerns and serials,
including many for Columbia Pictures. He died in the early 40s and his
work for Columbia was eventually taken over by Sam Katzman.
-Sam Sherman
StormChaser
"SRydzewski" <srydz...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020215180322...@mb-fb.aol.com...
>...... and Joseph "Kewpie" Ross of whom very little is
> known about at this writing.
> > Steve R
Wasn't Joseph "Kewpie" Ross the heavy (villain) in the Billy Bevan
comedy shorts?
Mark
Christopher Snowden
>
> Wasn't Joseph "Kewpie" Ross the heavy (villain) in the Billy Bevan
> comedy shorts?
>
That was another guy, Kewpie Morgan.
Chris Snowden
Unknown Video
http://www.unknownvideo.com
This week: The Trouble with Nitrate
http://www.unknownvideo.com/it.shtml
StormChaser
named Kewpie working in comedy shorts in the 1920's.
Mark
"Christopher Snowden" <unk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
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Richard M Roberts
Sam, forgive me for correcting you, but it was Joe Rock, not Larry
Darmour who produced the Ton of Fun comedies for FBO, Rock and Darmour
supplied FBO with comedy product all through the late twenties, but
Darmour was concentrating on series based on comic strips like Mickey
McGuire, Barney Google, Toots and Casper. Rock produced comedy series
with Stan Laurel, Jimmy Aubrey, Lee Moran, Alice Ardell, and easily the
most popular of his FBO releases were the Three Fatties.
But thanks for mentioning Milton Menell and the legendary Select Film
Library/Regent Films/Willoughby Peerless/Marlu Telefilms or whatever
name those negatives were going out under at the time. No matter the
brand name, Menell managed to save and preserve a lot of rare comedy
material and make it available to the collectors in good prints. I'm
still amazed at some of the titles in that catalogue.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
James L. Neibaur
death in any of the Film Necrology books I have in my reference collection,
including the more recent releases by Billy Doyle or the late Gene Vazzana. No
data on Fat Karr either.