The Buster Keaton Show: Unknown Episode Title 2 (1951)

Another episode of The Buster Keaton Show.  This one is quite a bit heavier on the physical comedy, with the sets and central premise both acting mostly as excuses for Buster to clown around.  It also borrows a fair amount from Battling Butler – as these things usually are, the original is funnier/cooler, but there’s still something delightful and a little heartwarming about seeing Buster still up to his old tricks, years later.

Buster’s friends have hired a trainer to help get him in better shape (I think for insurance reasons?  Like I said, whatever plot there is is just an excuse for Buster to do a lot of slapstick with gym equipment.)  Things go about as well as you expect, with Buster excelling athletically only when no one’s in the room to see it and failing spectacularly whenever anyone’s watching.  Also, as it happens, he’s due for a boxing lesson just after he’s inadvertently made his boxing instructor think he’s made a pass at his (the instructor’s) wife.  Because, come on – if it can go wrong, it’ll happen to Buster.

Some fun stuff here.  There’s a good sight gag with a rowing machine, Buster’s scene with the boxing instructor’s wife gets more and more hapless, and I really like an extended bit he does with a basketball.  With the latter, I just love Buster’s lamentable dribbling and overall form juxtaposed with the casual, almost dismissive way he makes increasingly-impossible shots, and the clincher (involving the trainer and a medicine ball) is terrific.  Even better is the studio’s audience’s reaction to this scene.  Years of single-camera sitcoms have made me wary of laugh tracks in general, but I enjoy hearing how completely they’re eating this up.

And yeah, I like the boxing sequence.  It makes me wonder if Battling Butler was a film audiences might have potentially seen in those days, or if it was still hiding in a stack of forgotten film cans somewhere.  Because for me, I view these gags as a fond echo from one of his silent films – even if it was middle-of-the-pack for that era of Buster’s work, it still has some fine comedy in it, and a lot of its best laughs are repeated here, albeit in a somewhat less impeccable fashion.  Regardless, that may be how the scene felt to people old enough to remember seeing the film in theaters.  But if Battling Butler hadn’t surfaced yet and been shown on TV, then that means this episode served as most viewers’ introduction to these gags.  Even though they’re not quite as impressive here as they were in the ‘20s, the sharp eye and quick wit behind them is just as good, and if this was the first most people had seen of them, it becomes more than just recycling; it’s Buster resurrecting pieces of his classic comedy, recreating them to give people a chance to see them in any way he can.

Still middling, but definitely better than the jungle episode.  While it’s certainly only for big fans of Buster, this episode is a pretty decent way to pass a bit of time.

The Buster Keaton Show: Unknown Episode Title 1 (1951)

Okay, so Buster had two TV shows that both aired in the early ‘50s, The Buster Keaton Show and Life with Buster Keaton.  If I understand it correctly, I think these were essentially the same show airing in different parts of the country, but I’m not positive (I know that some of the bits from one or both of these TV shows were also cut into a feature film that was shown in the UK.)  There are a few episodes from both floating around online, and I’m not always entirely certain with show they’re technically supposed to be “from,” so over the next few Buster Mondays, take the title with a grain of salt.

The basic premise of the show is that Buster works as a sales clerk at a sporting goods store, and I think also manages a community theatre on the side, if I have it straight (there’s no theatre stuff in this episode, but I know it plays a part in some of them.)  Regardless, either locale is a prop-filled excuse for him to get into trouble.  That’s how this episode starts, in the sporting goods store with Buster being a danger to himself and others as he tries to equip two professors for an expedition to Africa.

But as you can guess from the episode title, things don’t remain at the sporting goods store.  For reasons unknown, Buster is enlisted as an assistant to the professors in a soundstage version of Africa while they search for the “missing link” (since they’re looking for a live animal and not a fossil, it makes me wonder how widely-understood the idea of a missing link was at the time.)  In between wreaking his usual havoc, Buster of course stumbles upon the professor’s big prize – as it happens, the missing link is a university-educated gorilla who speaks with a plummy British accent (obviously.)

It’s made most definitely on the cheap, and the plot, as you can see, is pretty hokey.  Some of the jokes are off-the-wall in a good way, while others feel stale.  There are a few decent pieces of slapstick – especially Buster getting his hand caught in a trap and badly attempting to erect his tent in the jungle – and the odd bit of good business here and there, but not as much as you’d hope to see from Buster.

Also, this being 1951 and the characters of a sitcom making a trip to Africa, the portrayal of African people is decidedly lacking.  There are a few bits about “superstitious natives” and the like, and just a general insensitivity.  That said, there’s one English-speaking African character with whom Buster chiefly interacts, and I do appreciate that Buster always talks to him like a regular guy.  For all I know, that would’ve been comic in and of itself to audiences in the ‘50s, but I’m glad not see Buster speaking in exaggerated pidgin English or otherwise talking down to him, so that’s something.