Bud Abbott

Vaudeville is a 1997 PBS documentary under its American Masters program. Using film clips and photos, the art and history of vaudeville (1890-1930s) is illustrated.

The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.

Jonesy and Lou are in Algeria looking for a wrestler they are promoting. Sergeant Axmann tricks them into joining the Foreign Legion, after which they discover Axmann's collaboration with the nasty Sheik Hamud El Khalid.

Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.

Bud and Lou, two stranded American archaeologists, run afoul of an Egyptian cult with big plans to resurrect the mummified corpse of Klaris, guardian of his Princess Ara's treasure-filled tomb. When Lou accidentally eats the cursed medallion needed to find the ancient treasure, the two become targets of the cult's leader, his goons, a mysterious femme fatale, and the mummy of Klaris himself!

Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.

Two hapless waiters in a tavern on the Spanish Main play cupid between aristocratic Lady Jane and tavern co-worker Bruce Martindale, but the two bumpkins mix-up a love letter with Captain Kidd's treasure map of Skull Island, leading to them being kidnapped and taken off to the notorious pirate's island.

Lester and Orville accidentally launch a rocket which is supposed to fly to Mars. Instead it goes to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. They are then forced by bank robber Mugsy and his pal Harry to fly to Venus where they find a civilization made up entirely of women, men having been banished.

Two bumbling magicians help a Middle Eastern prince regain his rightful throne from his despotic uncle.

When bookseller Buzz cons Diana into thinking that his friend Stanley knows all there is to know about Africa, they are abducted and ordered to lead Diana and her henchmen to an African tribe in search of a fortune in jewels.

As novice detectives, Bud and Lou come face to face with the Invisible Man.

Two bumbling service station attendants are left as the sole beneficiaries in a gangster's will. Their trip to claim their fortune is sidetracked when they are stranded in a haunted house along with several other strangers.

Two down-on-their-luck loafers take a job babysitting, with a bedtime story of the titular tale turning into a wacky Abbott and Costello-faced musical retelling involving stolen cows, terrible giants, and the heroic boy with an opportunistic butcher in a castle above the clouds.

Petty con artists Slicker Smith and Herbie Brown mistakenly join the Army evading the cops. The cop chasing them winds up as their drill instructor. A rich young man and his former working class chauffeur are not only in the same unit, they're vying for a pretty girl who seems attracted to both.

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

Starting with "The Wolf Man" (in 1941), Universal Studios made five movies featuring The Wolf Man, a character portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr. Monster by Moonlight! explores these movies. Rick Baker explains how the make-up was done on Chaney's character. Screenwriter Curtis Siodmak took very little from earlier werewolf legends, providing his own story for some of the films. This documentary displays clips from several other movies, including "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "House of Dracula" (1945).

Lou Costello plays a country bumpkin vacuum-cleaner salesman, working for the company run by the crooked Bud Abbott. To try to keep him under his thumb, Abbott convinces Costello that he's a crackerjack salesman. This comedy is somewhat like "The Time of Their Lives," in that Abbott and Costello don't have much screen time together and there are very few vaudeville bits woven into the plot.

As American policemen in London, Bud and Lou meet up with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Two ghosts, who were mistakenly branded as traitors during the Revolutionary War, return to 20th century New England to retrieve a letter from George Washington which would prove their innocence.

After two volunteer firemen rescue a gold prospector from suicide, they discover that the police mistakenly want them for murder.

Al Stewart and Wilbert are magicians doing a stage act when they run into Wilbert's cousin, Dorothy McCoy. They find out that Wilbert's grandfather, Squeeze-box McCoy, had treasure hidden in the hills of Kentucky, which they go to find.

Molly, her brother, Slats, and his pal, Oliver, are taxi dancers at the Miramar Ballroom. As a publicity stunt, Slats plants an article about Molly claiming her ambition is to earn enough money to attend staid, all-girl Bixby College. Bixby's progressive dean offers Molly a scholarship. Molly accepts on the condition that Slats and Oliver come along too as campus caretakers. But the pompous Chairman threatens to foreclose on the school's mortgage if Molly isn't expelled. Together, the trio, with the help of some new friends, concocts a scheme to raise enough money to save the school. The plan involves a bet on the Bixby basketball team, which is playing in a game rated at 20 to 1 by the local bookie. But the bookie has other plans for their dough and hires a group of ringers to step in for the opponents. All is not lost, at least while Oliver has the chance to turn things around for his friends-one way or another.

Jim "Lucky" Moore, an insurance salesman, comes up with a novel policy for his friend, Steve: a 'love insurance policy', that will pay out $1-million if Steve does not marry his fiancée, Cynthia. The upcoming marriage is jeopardized by Steve's ex-girlfriend, Mickey, and Cynthia's disapproving Aunt Kitty. The policy is underwritten by a nightclub owner, Roscoe, who sends two enforcers - Abbott and Costello - to ensure that the wedding occurs as planned.

Two peanut vendors at a rodeo show get in trouble with their boss and hide out on a railroad train heading west. They get jobs as cowboys on a dude ranch, despite the fact that neither of them knows anything about cowboys, horses, or anything else.

Harry and Willie are scammed into buying the Thomas Edison studio lot by a man named Gorman. They decide to follow Gorman's trail to Hollywood where, unbeknownst to them, he has taken the identity of a foreign film director. The lads wind up as stunt doubles in film the which Gorman is now shooting, while the conman tries to have the bungling pair done away with before they realize who he really is.

Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts, a reporter, discovers his identity and follows him in the hopes of photographing him and revealing his identity to the world. Aboard the Alabama, Tommy meets up with Smoky and Pomeroy, who help hide him from Dorothy, who hatches numerous schemes in an attempt to photograph Tommy/Russ being a sailor.

Chester Wooley and Duke Egan are travelling salesmen who make a stopover in Wagon Gap, Montana while enroute to California. During the stopover, a notorious criminal is murdered, and the two are charged with the crime.

Lou and Bud start their new job as live-in caretakers on a college campus by trying - very trying - to get their own quarters cleaned up.

After Flash Fulton and Weejie McCoy take pictures of a bank robbery, they're lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers, where they meet an old friend and his band.

A retrospective of Dracula's appearances in film. It includes trailers and scenes from many Dracula-related films. There is an emphasis on films which feature the actors Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, as they portrayed the most popular versions of Dracula. Also covered are films depicting sons and daughters of Dracula, and Dracula-like vampires. Many of the trailers focus on the beauty of Dracula's victims, or the beauty of female vampires.

Uncensored. Laugh along with Hollywood's brightest stars in this hilarious compilation of bloopers from some of the biggest movies in history . You'll see stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Ronald Reagan, Marlene Dietrich, Boris Karloff, Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn and more. They're not so perfect after all when these flubbed moments are caught on film!

A collection of bloopers and outtakes from an enormous selection of Hollywood classic productions spanning from the 1930s through the 1980s.

While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film fare. Comedian David Steinberg plays host for this star-studded, 90-minute documentary, which looks at the way Tinseltown helped the United States' war effort.

Lost Caverns Resort Hotel bellhop Freddie Phillips gives an empty threat to one attorney Amos Strickland, and is shortly fired. When Freddie visits his guest's suite to apologize, he finds Strickland dead of a gunshot wound. As the investigators file in, Freddie becomes the scapegoat of the guests in the hotel, who all had a bone to pick with Strickland. It's now up to Freddie and Detective Casey Edwards to find out who the real killer is, all the while avoiding the many vigorous and violent villains staying at the resort.

When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

Doc and Wishey run into some Nazi-agents, who want to smuggle bombs into the USA from a Mexican border hotel.

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

A history of horror movies.

Two window washers are mistaken for crooks by gangsters who are missing money.

When a barnstorming stunt pilot decides to join the air corps, his two goofball assistants decide to go with him. Since the two are Abbott & Costello, the air corps doesn't know what it's in for.

Abbot and Costello must find a replacement for a woman's horse they accidentally killed after feeding it some candy. They head for the racetrack, find a look-a-like and take it. They do not realize that the nag is "Tea Biscuit," a champion racehorse.

Bud and Lou are the owners of the amusement park Kiddieland. Bud, a compulsive gambler, gets in trouble with the mob, and Lou finds himself struggling to keep his adopted children. When Bud is forced to make a shady deal, Lou tries to arrange a deal with the DA, but winds up framed for murder.

Two bumbling plumbers are hired by a socialite to fix a leak. A case of mistaken identity gets the pair an invitation to a fancy party and an entree into high society. As expected, things don't go too smoothly.

In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.

Two dumb soda jerks dream of writing radio mysteries. When they try to pitch an idea at a radio station, they end up in the middle of a real murder when the station owner is killed during a broadcast.

A pair of bus drivers accidentally steal their own bus. With the company issuing a warrant for their arrest, they tag along with a playboy on a boat trip that finds them on a tropical island, where a jewel thief has sinister plans for them.

Two con men selling phony stock flee to Mexico ahead of the law, where they run into a woman friend from their earlier days, who is now a bullfighter.

Dive into more than a century of decadence with this tantalizing look at the evolution of burlesque. Cabaret star Leslie Zemeckis traces the art form from vaudeville-style variety show through its extinction and contemporary rebirth. Vintage photos, film clips and ads illustrate burlesque's resilient history and how the public's sexual appetite kept it alive amid moral and legal ado.

Documentary featured on the Classic Monster Collection and Monster Legacy Collection for The Mummy (1932).

A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

Jerry Seinfeld celebrates the lives and careers of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Featured are clips from their movies and TV shows, plus home movies, newsreel footage and their trademark "Who's on First?" routine, shown in its entirety.

A compilation of clips from 19 Abbott & Costello features: The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, In the Navy, Hit the Ice, Who Done It?, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Mexican Hayride, Hold That Ghost, Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion, Little Giant, In Society, Ride 'Em Cowboy, The Naughty Nineties, Buck Privates Come Home, Buck Privates, Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops, Lost in Alaska, Comin' Round the Mountain, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. - Written by Tom Weaver

A documentary showing the constructive approach taken by the Lou Costello, Jr. Youth Foundation in Los Angeles toward prevention of juvenile delinquency. William Bendix, as a neighborhood policeman, visits the Foundation and discovers the juveniles who used to give him trouble now engaged in sports and activities, furnished them gratis, under self-supervision. Abbott and Costello furnish a couple of bits to liven it up some.

A history of the famous vampire of books and movies, using film clips, previews and other methods.

Featuring the routines that made them comedy legends like “Who’s On First?,” and “The Lemon Bit,” this digitally restored and re-mastered “Best Of” collection includes six of the Abbott and Costello Show’s most beloved episodes.

Brazilian documentary film directed by Salvyano Cavalcanti de Paiva that showcases the evolution of Brazilian artists in the American film industry between the late 1920s and 1950s. Using archive footage, it highlights the contributions of figures like Carmen Miranda.

A history of the British television comedy double act Morecambe & Wise to coincide with the BBC drama about their early lives.

William Shatner, Liz Taylor and many more stars blow lines, lose their pants and more in this hilarious collection of movie and TV bloopers.

See America's funniest comedy team in rare movie trailers, hilarious highlights, belly-busting bloopers, and scenes from their starring feature films, all the way from first (Buck privates) to last (Dance With Me Henry). After early success in burlesque and radio, they made their movie debut with supporting roles in One Night in the Tropics and got top billing in their very next film, becoming the nation's #1 boxoffice draw of the '40s. The Andrews Sisters, Dick Powell, Shemp Howard, Martha Raye, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Dorsey, Lucille Ball and Marjorie Main co-star in films like In the Navy, Rio Rita, In Society, Little Giant, and Mexican Hayride. They also go to Hollywood and Venus (not Mars), and meet Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, Boris Karloff, the Invisible Man, Captain Kidd, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Keystone Kops, and the Mummy.

A compilation that highlights works from the Three Stooges. It includes the shorts Brideless Groom, Sing a Song of Six Pants, and Malice in the Palace, also Ed Wynn's live TV Camel Comedy Caravan starring Shemp, Larry, and Moe.

Hosted by Christopher Lee, this documentary examines the different actors who have portrayed Dracula over the years.

Celebrate the season with this collection of sketches starring the hilarious Abbott and Costello and special guests.

Short film cobbled from the Abbott & Costello feature In Society for the home movie market.

A documentary from Universal about the movie Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Documentary feature hosted by Chris Costello, and Ron Palumbo, exploring the lives and career of the legendary comedy duo

A biography of comedian double act Bud Abbott & Lou Costello

Glenn Ford narrates this hilarious look back at the greatest comedians in movie history.

Join the most popular comedy team in history with a collection of their most loved classic skits! Highlights include Who's on First, The Piano Bit and Niagara Falls featuring the great Errol Flynn and many more. Also, included is the delightful Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein trailer in color for the first time. The laughter is endless with Abbott and Costello at their very best in this timeless medley of their funniest routines! Digitally re-mastered and fully restored in high definition, this is perfect for any fan. Routines include: Hole in the Wall, Mustard, The Magic Act Bit, The Mother Bit, Aspirin, Army Drill, Niagara Falls, Jonah and the Whale, 7x13 is 28, The Piano Bit, The Lemon Bit, The Dice Game, and Who's on First.

"He-e-ey Abb-o-o-o-tt!!" screamed Lou. And all America knew the fun was about to begin. For decades, lanky straight man Bud Abbott and tubby spark plug Lou Costello brought the knock about outrageousness of vaudeville to Hollywood... and uncontrolled laughter to millions. Chances are you already know the duo from the widely-syndicated The Abbott & Costello Show. Now see these two comedy greats as you've never seen them before in this inspired, exclusive hour-long assortment of timeless good times culled from Bud and Lou's appearances as host on network TV variety hours. Preserved originally on kinescope and available here for the first time in nearly 25 years, this fast, funny unforgettable lineup of more than 29 classic Abbot & Costello skits and manic moments will have you in stitches over "Who's on First?"- and keep you looking forward to what's up next.

Steve Allen hosts this collection of clips of some of the greatest comedy teams in movie and television history, including Our Gang, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Burns and Allen, The Three Stooges, The East-Side Kids, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis.

Take a golden trip down memory lane with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello and their classic zany, rapid-fire routines that keep generations laughing!

Offering 1950s television audiences night after night of vaudeville-style hilarity, comic legends Abbott and Costello frequently used their hosting duties on "The Colgate Comedy Hour" as opportunities to revisit some of their most beloved routines.This wonderful collection of Bud and Lou's best bits includes "Getting Down Off a Duck's Back," "The Ice Cream Bit," "Oh! Charlie" with Lon Chaney, Jr., "Crazy Horse," "Who's on First?" in color, and more.

Abbott and Costello partake in a midget car race, and things quickly go south.