Most Keystones do not age well. Comedy tastes have changed over 90 years, and the hyper-speed frantic randomness of the early Keystones tend to leave the viewer wondering what was supposed to be funny. And frequently, plots are both too complicated and stereotyped.
This one is different. There ain't no plot. All that happens is that Chaplin and Arbuckle, roaringly drunk, annoy their wives, patrons of a restaurant, and eventually the entire civilized world (which seems to have found its way to Griffith Park in LA.) Charlie Chapin and Fatty Arbuckle are very, very funny drunks. They just have the routine down. Chaplin's drunken behavior around his wife is hilarious, because he knows how to make inanimate objects do all the wrong things, and he knows how to pitch his body in all sorts of wrong angles. Arbuckle is not the comedian that Chaplin is, but he keeps up, particularly when he and Chaplin start to demolish a posh restaurant.
The key to this short is pacing. Chaplin and Arbuckle do not spaz out in the typical Keystone way, to assure everyone what hysterical fellows they are. They just move according to their own looped logic, and let the application of that logic be the humor.
The ending, by the way, can be taken as a bit of a cosmic statement -- and is that rare thing in a short comedy -- the perfect closing gag.
This one is different. There ain't no plot. All that happens is that Chaplin and Arbuckle, roaringly drunk, annoy their wives, patrons of a restaurant, and eventually the entire civilized world (which seems to have found its way to Griffith Park in LA.) Charlie Chapin and Fatty Arbuckle are very, very funny drunks. They just have the routine down. Chaplin's drunken behavior around his wife is hilarious, because he knows how to make inanimate objects do all the wrong things, and he knows how to pitch his body in all sorts of wrong angles. Arbuckle is not the comedian that Chaplin is, but he keeps up, particularly when he and Chaplin start to demolish a posh restaurant.
The key to this short is pacing. Chaplin and Arbuckle do not spaz out in the typical Keystone way, to assure everyone what hysterical fellows they are. They just move according to their own looped logic, and let the application of that logic be the humor.
The ending, by the way, can be taken as a bit of a cosmic statement -- and is that rare thing in a short comedy -- the perfect closing gag.