If you re-watch "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun" after seeing this comedy sketch special (or any of the Universal Olsen & Johnson films), you won't be able to deny that the creators of those two fairly modern comedy classics were influenced by Olsen and Johnson. Sight gags, puns made on words and an all 'round zany atmosphere is what makes this team quite different than their Universal "rivals", Abbott and Costello. In the 1943 film "Crazy House", the team returns to Universal after their latest Broadway hit, causing a ruckus and giving the executive's secretary a nervous breakdown simply by their arrival announcing "Universal's greatest comedy team" which was not the creators of the "Who's on First" routine. Abbott and Costello are completely different than Olsen and Johnson, their gags more juvenile, with Olsen and Johnson the "thinking man's comics". You can watch their films over and over and see something new every time, just like the two modern classics I mention above.
This T.V. special came after their film and stage careers were pretty much over, only certain "special" stage shows way off Broadway in store for them. More than a decade after the film version of "Hellzapoppin'", they are just as wacky as ever and are surrounded by tons of little people, character performers, chorus girls and one singer best known today as Doug Williams on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives". Back in the 1950's, Bill Hayes was a regular on musical variety shows which led to him being chosen to be the lead in Rodgers and Hammerstein's now almost forgotten musical "Me and Juliet". Today, he's remembered as daytime T.V.'s first male superstar, but long before meeting Susan Seaforth, he was one of the most popular singers on T.V. Performing two big production numbers, he stands out in one called "Manhattan Symphony" which brings the farce element up a bit, taking a look at post-war New York City and its variety of characters, even including hoofer's who might be called an early versions of the "June Taylor Dancers".
For me, other than the "quickies" (blackouts as they were known in the days of vaudeville), the comedy highlight is the duo's roles as private investigators, checking out a haunted house where even Frankenstein's monster confuses them for Abbott and Costello. A spooky looking man walks by asking if a funeral party went by then informs them that he just fell out of a hearse. One of the boys starts shooting, claiming there's bats in the room, and of course, they turn out to be of the baseball variety. All sorts of other funny sight gags (and references to fads and other popular entertainment shows) come by, but nothing more funny and ironic than the one concerning "The Whistler" (followed by his mama). This was particularly ironic to me because I had just watched two of the Columbia "Whistler" movies showing me that sometimes fiction is often more realistic than life. I could have done without the dog act or the man on the very tall unicycle, but since those kind of acts reflect what was going on in burlesque, they were appropriate for this kind of T.V. variety show.
This T.V. special came after their film and stage careers were pretty much over, only certain "special" stage shows way off Broadway in store for them. More than a decade after the film version of "Hellzapoppin'", they are just as wacky as ever and are surrounded by tons of little people, character performers, chorus girls and one singer best known today as Doug Williams on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives". Back in the 1950's, Bill Hayes was a regular on musical variety shows which led to him being chosen to be the lead in Rodgers and Hammerstein's now almost forgotten musical "Me and Juliet". Today, he's remembered as daytime T.V.'s first male superstar, but long before meeting Susan Seaforth, he was one of the most popular singers on T.V. Performing two big production numbers, he stands out in one called "Manhattan Symphony" which brings the farce element up a bit, taking a look at post-war New York City and its variety of characters, even including hoofer's who might be called an early versions of the "June Taylor Dancers".
For me, other than the "quickies" (blackouts as they were known in the days of vaudeville), the comedy highlight is the duo's roles as private investigators, checking out a haunted house where even Frankenstein's monster confuses them for Abbott and Costello. A spooky looking man walks by asking if a funeral party went by then informs them that he just fell out of a hearse. One of the boys starts shooting, claiming there's bats in the room, and of course, they turn out to be of the baseball variety. All sorts of other funny sight gags (and references to fads and other popular entertainment shows) come by, but nothing more funny and ironic than the one concerning "The Whistler" (followed by his mama). This was particularly ironic to me because I had just watched two of the Columbia "Whistler" movies showing me that sometimes fiction is often more realistic than life. I could have done without the dog act or the man on the very tall unicycle, but since those kind of acts reflect what was going on in burlesque, they were appropriate for this kind of T.V. variety show.