Plain Text Version

(This FAQ is a work in progress)

A1. Where can I find the picture of Laurel and Hardy as seen in the hit comedy FRIENDS?
A2. Is Clint Eastwood the son of Stan Laurel?
A3. In what film do Laurel & Hardy perform the "Who's on First?" routine?
A4. Where can I find a particular Laurel & Hardy film?
A5. I found some Laurel & Hardy items (Christmas ornaments, cookie jars, coffee mugs, etc.) in my attic.  How much are they worth?

Laurel and Hardy Questions

B1. In how many films did Laurel and Hardy appear together?
B2. Were Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy friends in real life?
B3. What were their real names?  When were they born?  When did they die?

Site Questions


C1. When was Laurel and Hardy Central founded?
C2. You guys are so cool!  Do you run any other sites?
C3. How and why did you guys create this site?
C4. If I send you an email, will it definitely be published on your Letters/Feedback page?

Misc. Questions

D1. When-a you gonna cut the watermelon up?

Most Asked Questions Answers

  A1. Friends forever... Unfortunately, that poster, from the silent film Leave 'Em Laughing, is no longer in print in the United States as far as we can tell.  We have a small version of it in our Pictures section in the Fun Factory.  Other than that, we suggest getting in touch with Joey Tribiani or Chandler Bing.  Or Miss Chanandoler Bong for that matter. [Back]

  A2. Clint Laurel....  Definitively not.  This is an "urban myth" of indeterminite origin.  And before you ask, Patricia Eastwood is not Stan Laurel's granddaughter. [Back]

  A3. Who's on First?... "Who's on First?" was performed by Abbott & Costello, not Laurel & Hardy.  We've been asked this about a dozen times through the years.  We do our best to refrain from sarcasm when answering it.

     For the record, Bud Abbott (the thin one) and Lou Costello (the fat one) did a truncated version of this famous baseball routine in the fim One Night in the Tropics, a full, excellent version in the film The Naughty Nineties, and performed it in an episode of their 1950s sitcom The Abbott and Costello Show.  As it was their most famous verbal routine, they repeated it on live television (The Colgate Comedy Hour) and radio, and it often can be found in collections on video, audiotape or CD.  You can also find it in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  None of this has to do with Laurel and Hardy, but since we get asked this question so many times, we want to provide as full an answer as possible. [Back]

  A4. Where are the films?....  If you live in the U.S., there's not much available at the present time.  The DVD releases by Hallmark in 2003 and 2005 total eight classic films, but the discs used some of the poorest prints available.  Most other American releases have been of public-domain material (THE FLYING DEUCES, UTOPIA, home-movie footage and the like).  If your DVD player was purchased in the last few years, however, chances are it's a multi-region player (it should read "NTSC/PAL" on the front if so), enabling you to purchase high-quality DVDs from other countries.  The following link provides a comprehensive list of discs available throughout the world, as well as links for purchase and price comparisons:

http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=0&tiq=laurel+%26+hardy&rg=A&x=27&y=16

      When you get to this page, you will have to choose which region you are interested in.  The choices are Region One (USA, Canada), Region Two (Europe) and "All Regions". [Back]

  A5. Things in the Attic... We're not memorabilia collectors, so we're not the the best people to ask such questions.  We might be able to help you find someone who would know better, but we wouldn't presume to estimate a value for your item.  If you happen to find a print of Hats Off in your attic, however, we'd be happy to purchase it for ten dollars and put it to good use. [Back]

Laurel and Hardy Questions Answers

  B1. How many films?... 106.  This includes 34 silent shorts, 40 sound shorts, 23 feature films in which they starred, 5 films in which they had guest appearances and 4 films in which they had fleeting cameos. [Back]

  B2. Were they friends?... Yes.  By all accounts, they got along famously.  Ironically but happily, their friendship grew deeper as their movie career faded.  When they were making films, "Babe" Hardy would often leave at the end of shooting to play golf while Stan Laurel stayed at the studio to edit, write and prepare for the next day's work.  When their movie career was over, they established a second career as music hall performers, and spent many weeks on the road together, a circumstance which made them better friends than ever before.

    There are some sources that say Laurel and Hardy's relationship became "strained" in the mid-thirties.  This is not an accurate assessment of the situation.  While it is almost certain that, like any two people, Laurel and Hardy may have had occasional disagreements, nothing approaching a team-threatening situation ever developed during their thirty years together.  In the 1930's,  Laurel's relationship with producer Hal Roach was certainly strained due to disagreements about the film Babes in Toyland, and in 1939, when Stan Laurel's contract ran out, he decided not to renew with Roach until it was time for Babe Hardy to renew (thus forcing Roach to negotiate with them as a team rather than individuals.)  During this time, Babe Hardy appeared solo in the Roach film Zenobia, co-starring Harry Langdon.  At the time, this caused some rumors to arise that Stan and Babe were fighting with each other, but there was a much simpler explanation: Babe was still a contract player at Roach, and thus continued to work while Stan waited for the proper time to return to the fold.  As Babe once remarked to a reporter, people tended to confuse Laurel and Hardy with other teams (a situation that still exists today - see the FAQ question "In what film did Laurel and Hardy do Who's on First?").  [Back]

  B3.  Names, births, deaths... Whoa!  Way too many questions?  For the answer to these and other questions, we refer you to John L.'s excellent "The Golliwog and the Lobby Watcher" in our Articles section. [Back]

Site Questions Answers

  C1. Created when?... February 1st, 1998.  It was conceived (in liberty) by John Larrabee in the fall of 1997, and took six months of writing and coding to get it online. [Back]

  C2.  Other sites?... We also run a site called Stuff You Gotta Watch, which is actually a subsite of LHC devoted to movie reviews of all kinds.  It began in August 2005 and we add to it, bit by bit, every week or so.  In the past, we have considered creating similar sites devoted to the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields and The Honeymooners.  But at the moment, Laurel and Hardy Central and Stuff You Gotta Watch are our only sites.  And thank you for calling us "cool", even though, obviously, we wrote the question ourselves. [Back]

  C3.  How and why?... We refer you to John B.'s musings in our Site Guide section. [Back]

  C4. Emails... No.  One or both of us reads every letter we get, and many are eventually published, but some are merely questions which we answer privately, and others accidentally slip through the cracks after we read them and never get published even though they should. John L. is in charge of reading the mail, and then he forwards the more promising ones to John B., with comments and suggestions, at which point John B. either decides to publish them in the Letters section, or gets distracted and forgets. [Back]

Misc. Questions Answers