I've been listening to the Abbot and Costello show on Old Time Radio.

[xiphias]

Man, they're funny. And sometimes, I'm not clear how they got the stuff on the radio.

COSTELLO: Of course I been out West! I even went with a cowgirl for a while?
ABBOTT: You did?
COSTELLO: Sure I did! She wasn't very good at it, though -- she could never keep her calves together.

Comments

[dave riba (from livejournal.com)]

Remember the core of their routines was still vaudeville / burlesque. The baggy pants comic / straight man routines have a long tradition, going back to the late 1800's, and they were NOT what we would consider "clean" jokes. Cleaned up for the censors, but a lot of subtle word play still slipped thru

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I think it was Peter Cook, and if not him, one of that whole generation of British comedians who produced The Goodies and Monty Python, who counted getting a radio sketch about a character called Martha Farquhar past the BBC as one of the high points of his career.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

OK, this is bugging me now.

I have what I remember as the A&C theme music in my head- but when I google it, I get a million Youtubes that all look and sound like this.

The one I remember was shorter- maybe 15 seconds- and much more up-tempo. It began with Lou crying out "Hey Abbbbottttt!" (as he does) and then launches into a fairly frantic flute-based couple of measures that repeat a few times and then fade into the opening of the episode.

Maybe it was just a syndication thing- but SOMEONE's gotta have this.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Abbot and Costello had a LOT of different shows. I've been listening to two different ones, both sponsored by Camel cigarettes. Both are "Camel Cigarette show starring Abbot and Costello." The opener for one is "C for comedy, A for Abbot, M for music, E for entertainment, and L for Lou Costello," and the opener for the other is "C, A M, EL, S -- Camels, first in the Service, first worldwide! Camels are smoked by more men in all the services than any other cigarette, as told by actual PX sales records!"