The Head Waiter

Larry Semon goes from fighting a limping dog for a string of sausages, to trying to deadhead a meal at a fancy restaurant, to being the head waiter at that fancy restaurant.

We're still early in Semon's career, when his gags are fresh, daring, and adroitly performed. There is much to puzzle over in this short. Why is Frank Alexander in such heavy make-up that he appears to be wearing war paint? Why is there are acrobat on a trapeze at the restaurant? Why are the strands of spaghetti cut so long that they stretch from diner to diner, with never a thought to cut any of them?

The answer to all of these is that they are present to make a gag work. Semon's comedies are not set in anything like the real world, but in a cartoon world where everything is constructed first to be funny, and any utility is of distantly secondary importance. The the moment they are funny. But as the urge to top each picture with the next grew, eventually the gags ceased to be funny and became merely bizarre. But for the moment, that's a couple of years in the future.