Good thread Rick, but your opener took almost all of my favorites, so I'll just throw in a comment or two here and as we go along.

I'm obviously a HUGE Marx Brothers fan and that "timing" you mention in the movies......Most of the routines were rehashed from Vaudeville bits they had cone for almost 20 years and for much of the new material they took it "on the road" before a live audience before filming the scene. This was mainly true during the period of the Thalberg movies ("Night at the Opera," "Day at the Races") but they did it to some degree on several other movies too. It not only gave them the general timing and "laugh" timing, but also they'd change small things and lines to see which got the biggest laugh.

Loved Burns and Schreiber! Know what I mean, know what I mean,huh?Huh?.............Allen and Rossi..."Hello Dere!"

Can't leave out Burns and Allen either.....Gracie Allen was truly genius......She could ad lib the stuff as well as do the rehearsed material. George Burns said on many occasions, all he had to do was say "Gracie, how's your cousin," and stand back. Old george deserves a lot of credit too though, because part of the visual laugh was from his sardonic reactions.

Burlesque was different in a lot of ways. Individual comics would band together for the run of a show doing old bits as well as their individual routines so tou saw "teams" come and go quickly. What was unique here was the ability of a comic to be a solid team player as well as a single. I think we saw a "window" into that history and style watching Morey Amsterdam on the Van Dyke show.

Spaw