Sunday, July 20, 2008

To really understand our family, you have to know...

...we are HUGE Olly and Stanley fans around here. We are actually big movie fans, in general, and have a particular soft spot for many of the classics ~ and highly regard a long list of classic actors. But, Laurel and Hardy... Well, the boys have a particularly high place of honor in our family heart. For starters, my uncle was pen pals with Stan Laurel until Stan's death in 1965, so we feel we have a kind of family link with them. But, even without that, their brand of humor is the greatest entertainment value on the block to us.

We've watched our vhs marathon tapes so many times, they're wearing out. We have almost every one of the boys' skits and movies memorized. We know which short is coming on before the first couple of seconds have aired. Their dialogue has become inextricably enmeshed in our daily conversation. ("You snake in the grass!" "You toad in the hole!") We value their slapstick routines and pecadillos as the highest of art forms. We just love those guys!

And so you can only imagine the glee that met this creative sync we found on the net this afternoon...

2 comments:

Maria (also Bia) said...

Lisa, you're not going to believe this...we live 30 minutes from where Oliver Hardy was born in Harlem, Georgia. He lived there for all of two seconds, but that doesn't matter because every year Harlem holds THE OLIVER HARDY FESTIVAL complete with hometown parades (w/ cheer leaders, fire trucks, vintage cars, etc.). They also have the Laurel and Hardy Museum in which, on the day of the parade, is free to the public as they show their old films all day long. Oh, they also have a Laurel and Hardy look alike contest so there are Larel and Hardys walking around everywhere!!

We go almost every year because this is a good way to experience a true southern, smalltown parade and festival. We always have fun (and the boys enjoy the candy that is thrown from the fire trucks and vintage cars during the parade!)

Here's the web site for their museum:
www.laurelandhardymuseum.org

And here's the date for the next festival(let me know if you come!):
20th Annual Oliver Hardy Festival
Saturday, October 4th
9:00am - 5:00pm
Downtown Harlem

Laura said...

This is so clever- and made me smile. Is it real or digitized?
It's crazy how it goes right with the music.
My brothers loved these guys and the Marx brothers.
Perhaps I need to re-visit the pair.
Thank you for sharing.