101 Fun Facts About Laurel and Hardy

In which Lancashire town was Stan Laurel born in 1890?

Stan Laurel was born in Ulverston in 1890 and brought Hardy home in 1947 to cheer crowds from the Coronation Hall balcony; the town now has a Laurel and Hardy museum.

What was Stan Laurel's real surname?

Jefferson: born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, he was billed as Stan Jefferson on Fred Karno's 1910 American tour and only later switched his stage name to Laurel.

In which US state was Oliver Hardy born?

Oliver Hardy was born in Georgia in 1892; while running a cinema in Milledgeville he became convinced he could do better than the actors on screen, and left to try.

What was Oliver Hardy's nickname among friends and in his early film billing?

Babe was what friends, Laurel included, called him; born Norvell Hardy, he took the first name Oliver as a tribute to his father, who died when he was a baby.

Before films, Laurel toured with Fred Karno's troupe as understudy to which comedian?

Laurel understudied Charlie Chaplin in Fred Karno's company and sailed with it to America in 1910 and again in 1912, staying on in the United States after the second tour.

In which Florida city did Hardy begin his film career with Lubin Motion Pictures in 1913?

Jacksonville: Hardy moved there in 1913 on a friend's advice, and at Lubin his size got him cast mostly as the villain.

Before teaming with Laurel, Oliver Hardy played which Oz character in a 1925 silent film?

The Tin Man: comedian Larry Semon made the 1925 film, hired his old co-star Hardy for the role, and kept the Scarecrow part for himself.

In which 1921 short did Laurel and Hardy first appear on screen together?

The Lucky Dog cast Hardy as a bandit who robs Laurel's hapless hero, about six years before Hal Roach made the two a team.

Which physical trait kept Laurel off screen at first, according to Hal Roach?

His pale blue eyes photographed as white on the film stock of the day, Roach recalled, until the arrival of panchromatic film solved the problem.

What accident teamed Laurel and Hardy, according to Leo McCarey?

Hardy burned his arm cooking a leg of lamb, McCarey said, so Laurel took over his part in Get 'Em Young: 'All on account of Hardy had a little lamb.'

Film historian Wes D. Gehring names which 1927 short as Laurel and Hardy's first official film as a team?

Putting Pants on Philip is often called their first team comedy, though Laurel's kilted nephew is not yet the familiar Stan.

Besides themselves, whom do Laurel and Hardy play in the 1933 short Twice Two?

Women: Stan plays Ollie's wife and Ollie plays Stan's, with actresses Carol Tevis and May Wallace dubbing their voices.

What is Laurel and Hardy's famous theme tune usually called?

'The Dance of the Cuckoos', also known as 'Ku-Ku', began as the on-the-hour chime of the Roach studio's radio station; Laurel heard it and asked to use it for the team.

What kind of hat became as identified with Laurel and Hardy as their theme tune?

Both wore derby hats: Laurel's was narrower with a flattened brim, and he also took the heels off his shoes for a flat-footed walk.

What did Hardy do with his necktie when his character was embarrassed?

Twiddled it: Hal Roach said gestures like Ollie's tie twiddle and Stan's crying worked because Laurel and Hardy were adults playing children.

What did Laurel typically do at moments of shock, alongside screwing up his face as if crying?

Laurel pulled his hair up in moments of fright; he kept it long on top so that it would stand up like a fright wig.

Hardy's catchphrase is often misquoted as 'another fine mess', but which word did he really use?

Nice: 'Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into'; the 'fine' version comes from the title of their 1930 short Another Fine Mess.

What did producer Hal Roach say made Laurel and Hardy unusual among comedy teams?

Neither was the straight man, Roach said: one gag could get a laugh, then a second laugh on Laurel's reaction and a third on Hardy's.

Which supporting actor's exasperated 'D'oh!' inspired Homer Simpson's catchphrase?

James Finlayson, a Scot with a squint and a double-take, appeared in 33 Laurel and Hardy films; Dan Castellaneta has said Homer's 'D'oh!' is a shortened version of Finlayson's drawn-out 'D'ohhh'.

In their 1929 short Big Business, what are Stan and Ollie trying to sell door to door?

Christmas trees: selling them in California, the pair start a tit-for-tat feud with a homeowner that ends with his house and their car in ruins.

What was the title of Laurel and Hardy's first talking picture, in 1929?

Unaccustomed As We Are (1929) was their first talkie, and where many silent stars faltered once audiences could hear them, Laurel and Hardy thrived.

Which 1932 Laurel and Hardy short won an Academy Award?

The Music Box won the 1932 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Comedy); its staircase in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, became a landmark for fans.

How did Roach adapt early talkies for foreign audiences?

The pair spoke their lines phonetically in other languages, often reading from blackboards hidden off camera, while native speakers took the supporting parts.

Laurel and Hardy's first feature, in 1931, began as a two-reeler set where?

A prison: Roach planned a short spoofing MGM's The Big House, but it kept growing during shooting until it became their first feature.

In a 1933 Laurel and Hardy feature, where does Ollie tell his wife a doctor has ordered him to go?

Honolulu: the fake cure lets the pair sneak off to a convention in Chicago, until the wives learn that the Honolulu ship they were supposedly aboard has sunk.

Which 1934 fantasy film caused a lasting rift between Laurel and Roach?

Babes in Toyland, based on the Victor Herbert operetta, saw Laurel reject Roach's story treatment outright, and Roach later said he no longer wanted to produce for the team.

What did Laurel call the surreal streak in their comedy, like lighting a pipe with his thumb?

Laurel called these impossible gags 'white magic'; in Block-Heads he pours tobacco into his fist and smokes it like a pipe, and in Way Out West he lights his thumb.

What did Roach call his four-reel, 40-minute featurettes, tested with A Chump at Oxford and Saps at Sea?

Roach called them streamliners, meant to balance double bills, but United Artists insisted on full features, so A Chump at Oxford gained about 20 minutes of new opening scenes.

After leaving Roach, Laurel and Hardy made eight features for MGM and which other studio?

Six of the eight were made at 20th Century-Fox and two at MGM; the pair were treated as hired actors in the studios' B units and at first were not allowed to touch the scripts.

What was Laurel and Hardy's last feature film, shot in 1950-51?

Atoll K, shot in France in 1950–51 and released in America as Utopia, was the team's last film; Laurel was seriously ill throughout the shoot, which ran months over schedule.

Which Hollywood friend hired Hardy to co-star in The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) while Laurel was ill?

John Wayne produced and starred in the film and cast Hardy as his sidekick Willie Paine; the two had already shared a stage in a charity production of What Price Glory?

When their transatlantic liner arrived in 1953, which Irish port's cathedral bells played Laurel and Hardy's theme tune?

Cobh: as the SS America anchored in 1953, the cathedral carillon rang out their theme tune, and Laurel later said he and Hardy both cried.

In which English city did Laurel and Hardy give their last live stage performance, in May 1954?

Their final stage appearance was at the Palace Theatre, Plymouth, on 17 May 1954, when illness cut the tour short; since 1952 they had toured Britain with sketches Laurel wrote himself.

On which live NBC programme did Laurel and Hardy make their only American TV appearance, in 1954?

This Is Your Life surprised them live on 1 December 1954, when an NBC camera crew caught them at Hollywood's Knickerbocker Hotel.

Minutes before he died in 1965, Laurel told his nurse he wouldn't mind doing what?

Going skiing: surprised, the nurse asked if he skied, and Laurel said he didn't, but he'd rather be doing that than this.

Which 1963 comedy did Laurel decline a cameo in, having refused to perform after Hardy's death?

Laurel turned down Stanley Kramer's offer of a cameo in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, having vowed never to perform after Hardy's death; he did go on passing gags to admirers such as Jerry Lewis for The Bellboy.

Who accepted Laurel's special 1960 Academy Award on his behalf when he was too ill to attend?

Danny Kaye accepted the honorary Oscar at the April 1961 ceremony while poor health kept Laurel at home, where he still answered his fan letters himself.

The official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society takes its name from which of their films?

Sons of the Desert: Laurel sanctioned the society and suggested its motto, Two Minds Without a Single Thought.

Which 1927 Laurel and Hardy short has vanished, one of only three of their films that are lost?

Hats Off sent its washing-machine salesmen up a huge flight of steps and ended in a street brawl of knocked-off hats; no print of it is known to survive.

Which cover of a 1967 Beatles album features cut-outs of Laurel and Hardy?

Peter Blake's collage for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band includes cardboard cut-outs of both Laurel and Hardy among the crowd; Maurice Sendak later drew three Hardy-like bakers in In the Night Kitchen (1970).

In Way Out West, whose bass voice does Laurel mime while singing 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine'?

Chill Wills: Laurel mimes his bass lines, and later lip-syncs Rosina Lawrence's soprano, for comic effect.

Who played Stan and Ollie in the 2018 biopic Stan & Ollie?

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly played them on their 1953 British tour; off screen the pair had long kept separate private lives, and touring is what finally made them close.

The man who bought the rights to Laurel and Hardy's likenesses in 1961 was famous for playing which clown?

Bozo the Clown: Larry Harmon licensed Bozo shows across America, then gave Laurel and Hardy the same treatment with toys, coloring books and a cartoon series.

How did Laurel and Hardy usually end a working day?

Laurel stayed at the studio to finish production work, while Hardy, who left the details to his partner, went golfing.

Who composed Laurel and Hardy's theme tune, originally a radio station's time signal?

Marvin Hatley, the Roach studio's musical director, wrote it for KFVD, the radio station on the Roach lot, and Laurel liked it so much he made it the pair's theme.

In which 1933 short do Stan and Ollie work at a sawmill?

Busy Bodies (1933) sends the pair to work at a sawmill, and their disastrous day ends with their own car sliced in half by a giant band saw.

Oliver Hardy and Billy Ruge made 1916 'Plump and Runt' comedies for which Florida studio?

Vim: Hardy played Plump beside Billy Ruge's Runt, and the studio closed after he found its owners stealing from the payroll.

Which independent producer made the 1939 Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces?

Boris Morros, Paramount's former music director, produced it for RKO release, reworking the premise of their 1931 Foreign Legion short Beau Hunks into a feature.

In which sport do cartoon versions of Laurel and Hardy take on Mickey Mouse's team in a classic Disney short?

Polo: Walt Disney, a keen polo player, pitted their caricatures against Mickey, Goofy and Donald in Mickey's Polo Team.

Blake Edwards dedicated which comedy to 'Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy'?

The Great Race: Edwards dedicated it to the pair and gave it a slapstick pie fight lasting about four minutes.

Which studio co-produced the 1966 Laurel and Hardy animated series with Larry Harmon?

Hanna-Barbera made the 156 cartoons with Larry Harmon, who voiced Stan himself, with Jim MacGeorge as Ollie, because both comedians had died by then.

Which Queen single kept Laurel and Hardy's 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine' off the UK number one in 1975?

Bohemian Rhapsody blocked a recording lifted from a 1937 film soundtrack, which climbed to number two years after both comedians had died.

Which future blonde bombshell has an early bit part in Laurel and Hardy's silent short Double Whoopee?

Jean Harlow made three shorts with the pair before stardom, and her photograph later played the sweetheart who breaks Ollie's heart in Beau Hunks.

Which future Hammer horror star plays one of the students in Laurel and Hardy's A Chump at Oxford?

Peter Cushing joined the students who haze the pair, in a film where a bump on the head turns Stan into the brilliant Lord Paddington.

Which future star of another comedy duo sits at ringside in Laurel and Hardy's The Battle of the Century?

Lou Costello can be spotted in the prizefight crowd early in the film, long before he found fame alongside Bud Abbott.

Which television star, a friend and devoted imitator of Stan Laurel, gave the eulogy at Laurel's funeral?

Dick Van Dyke read The Clown's Prayer at the service, where Buster Keaton declared Laurel the funniest comedian of them all.

What do Laurel and Hardy haul up a long flight of outdoor steps in one of their most famous shorts?

A piano, which they finally get to the top before learning there was a road all along, so they carry it back down to drive it up.

In Block-Heads, which war's trenches does Stan Laurel guard for twenty years because nobody told him it had ended?

World War I had been over for two decades when Stan is found patrolling his post, surrounded by a mountain of empty bean cans.

In the short Brats, which extra characters do Laurel and Hardy play, on sets built with giant furniture?

Their own sons, Stanley and Oliver Junior, wreck a quiet night in while the fathers play checkers, the first of three films in which each star took a dual role.

At the end of Laurel and Hardy's The Flying Deuces, Stan meets Ollie reincarnated as which animal?

A horse that talks greets Stan in the final scene, paying off his earlier musings on reincarnation that had talked a lovesick Ollie out of despair.

In Swiss Miss, what do Laurel and Hardy hope to sell in Switzerland because the country makes so much cheese?

Mousetraps seemed a sure thing to Stan, since so much cheese must mean plenty of mice, but a shop owner pays for their stock in counterfeit money.

Stan Laurel spent his final years in a flat in which California seaside city, his number listed in the phone book?

Santa Monica's Oceana Apartments were his last home, and he took calls there from fans who found him in the telephone directory.

At the end of Helpmates, what happens to the house Stan Laurel has spent the day tidying for Ollie?

It burns down when Stan lights a fire in the hearth, leaving Ollie sitting alone among the ruins as the rain pours in.

In County Hospital, what gift does Stan Laurel bring Ollie, who is laid up with a broken leg?

Hard-boiled eggs and nuts were Stan's idea of a treat, and his visit ends with the doctor dangling from a window and Ollie's leg hoisted to the ceiling.

In Me and My Pal, which wedding present from Stan Laurel makes Ollie miss his own wedding?

A jigsaw puzzle proves so absorbing that a taxi driver, Ollie's butler and a telegram boy are all drawn in while the bride waits.

In Wrong Again, stable hands Laurel and Hardy confuse a stolen Gainsborough painting with an animal of which name?

Blue Boy is duly led into a millionaire's house on four legs, because the owner, thinking of his missing portrait, tells them to bring it inside.

In Them Thar Hills, what has got into the well water that Laurel and Hardy find so refreshing?

Moonshine was dumped there by bootleggers during a police shootout, so the mountain rest cure for Ollie's gout leaves everyone roaring drunk.

In Dirty Work, a mad professor's rejuvenation formula turns chimney sweep Oliver Hardy into what?

A chimpanzee climbs out in Ollie's place after he topples into the vat, soon after the professor had turned a duck into a duckling with a single drop.

What kind of pet is Laughing Gravy, hidden from a landlord by Laurel and Hardy in the 1931 short?

A dog, whose name is said to be Prohibition-era slang for liquor; the short remade the silent Angora Love, in which the forbidden pet was a goat.

Where in California stood the studio where Laurel and Hardy and the Our Gang kids made their comedies?

Culver City was where Hal Roach built his studio by 1920, after zoning rules stopped him expanding in downtown Los Angeles.

Stan Laurel's 1922 bullfighting spoof Mud and Sand sent up Blood and Sand, a hit for which silent screen idol?

Rudolph Valentino's bullring romance became pure farce, with the heroines Dona Sol and Carmen renamed Filet de Sole and Caramel.

Which Laurel and Hardy foil turned his comic sneezing routine into the voice of Sneezy in Disney's Snow White?

Billy Gilbert was spotted on stage by Stan Laurel, who went backstage and then introduced him to Hal Roach; Walt Disney later thought of him at once for the dwarf.

Local chapters of the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society take which name, each one also named after a film?

Tents each borrow the title of one of the pair's films, under a mock-serious constitution drawn up by founder and biographer John McCabe.

In which Scottish city did a 16-year-old Stan Laurel make his stage debut at the Panopticon?

Glasgow was where his father managed the Metropole Theatre, and the Panopticon debut let the teenager polish his pantomime and music hall sketches.

What opened in Oliver Hardy's hometown of Milledgeville in 1910 and soon had the teenager on its staff?

A movie theater called The Palace hired him as projectionist, ticket taker, janitor and manager, and he decided he could outdo the actors on its screen.

In Saps at Sea, a job in a factory making what gives Oliver Hardy a nervous breakdown?

Horns send Ollie into blind rages, so a doctor prescribes an ocean voyage, and on the boat Stan's trombone later turns that fury on an escaped convict.

In Hog Wild, what is Oliver Hardy trying to fix to his roof when the chimney comes down?

A radio aerial was the chore his wife insisted on, and British cinemas retitled the short Aerial Antics because the American phrase meant little there.

In the silent short Liberty, what gets into Laurel and Hardy's trousers and torments them up on a skyscraper's girders?

A crab slips in behind a seafood shop while the two escaped convicts swap trousers, then makes life miserable on the girders of an unfinished building.

Which future film noir tough guy has a small uncredited part as a gangster in Laurel and Hardy's The Dancing Masters?

Robert Mitchum plays a hoodlum posing as an insurance salesman, a brief early role long before his name went above the title.

In Their First Mistake, what does Stan Laurel suggest Ollie do to patch up his troubled marriage?

Adopt a baby is the advice, but by the time Ollie brings one home his wife has gone and is suing for divorce, naming Stan as co-respondent.

When the big top goes bust in The Chimp, what is Stan Laurel handed in place of his unpaid wages?

A flea circus is Stan's payoff, while Ollie is handed Ethel, the show's performing ape, and before long the fleas have got loose in their bedding.

In Bonnie Scotland, Stan Laurel expects a fortune from his grandfather but inherits only a snuff box and what else?

A set of bagpipes and a snuff box are all he gets, and a wrong turn on the way to a tailor then enlists the two friends in a Scottish regiment bound for India.

Oliver Hardy met his wife Lucille on The Flying Deuces, where she was working in which job?

Script girl Virginia Lucille Jones married him the following year, and the two stayed happily together for the rest of his life.

Which Oscar-nominated 1935 short, a follow-up to Them Thar Hills, was Laurel and Hardy's only direct sequel?

Tit for Tat brings back the couple from the mountain trip as grocers, next door to the new electrical store Stan and Ollie have opened.

Which 1941 comedy, with Alan Ladd in a bit part, was Laurel and Hardy's first film after leaving Hal Roach?

Great Guns casts them as a chauffeur and gardener who follow their sheltered young boss into the army, where Stan keeps a pet crow called Penelope.

Which arm of government made The Tree in a Test Tube, Laurel and Hardy's only surviving professional colour film?

Department of Agriculture officials made the wartime short to show how much wood went into everyday items, with the two stars miming to a narrator.

Which 1935 comedy was Laurel and Hardy's last two-reel short before Hal Roach moved them into feature films only?

Thicker than Water ended a run of shorts stretching back to the silent days, after Roach decided the team's future lay solely in features.

Laurel and Hardy supplied the comic relief in which 1930 Technicolor operetta, of which no complete print survives?

The Rogue Song was MGM's first all-talking Technicolor film, and Hal Roach himself directed the comedians' scenes without taking a credit.

Our Relations was adapted from The Money Box, a story by which author best known for The Monkey's Paw?

W. W. Jacobs wrote no twins into his tale; the film added a long-lost double for each star, a mix-up plot as old as Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors.

What trade do Laurel and Hardy follow at the start of the 1934 short Oliver the Eighth?

Barbers by trade, the two partners run a grandly named tonsorial parlor, where Stan clips the newspaper advert that sets the plot moving.

Whose sudden death, two days into the shoot, halted production of the 1934 comedy short Oliver the Eighth?

Stan Laurel's brother Teddy, aged 33, died of heart failure after an anaesthetic at the dentist, and filming stopped for the funeral and the holidays.

Which regular Laurel and Hardy foil plays the murderous widow who invites Ollie to her mansion in Oliver the Eighth?

Mae Busch took over the part after the holiday break, replacing Phyllis Barry, who had begun the shoot as the vengeful widow.

What is the name of the widow's eccentric butler, played by English comic Jack Barty, in Oliver the Eighth?

Jitters was played by a British variety comic whom Stan Laurel had admired on a trip home, and Hal Roach signed him on a later visit to London.

What is odd about the dinner the widow's butler serves Stan and Ollie in the short Oliver the Eighth?

The meal is invisible, plates and all, yet the guests feel obliged to play along; one critic likened the scene to the mimed ending of Blow-Up.

How does the comedy short Oliver the Eighth end, just as the widow is about to murder her intended victim?

Ollie wakes up back at work, where he had dozed off after posting his letter; the whole murderous adventure was only a nightmare.

In Oliver the Eighth, why has the widow sworn revenge on every man named Oliver?

A namesake jilted her on the eve of their wedding, and she has since married and murdered seven men so called, making Ollie the intended eighth.

In Oliver the Eighth, what does Stan Laurel accept in exchange for the business he and Ollie own together?

A gold brick was a topical joke: the buyer tells Stan to hold on to it until America returns to the gold standard, which it had abandoned in 1933.

In Oliver the Eighth, how does the widow plan to kill Oliver Hardy once he has fallen asleep?

Cut his throat is the plan, as she has with seven earlier husbands, and the knife-wielding widow routine was reused a decade later in The Big Noise.

The title of Laurel and Hardy's Oliver the Eighth spoofs a 1933 royal drama that won which actor an Oscar?

Charles Laughton played the much-married king in The Private Life of Henry VIII, and British cinemas showed the short as The Private Life of Oliver the Eighth.

Which force do Laurel and Hardy join in Beau Hunks and The Flying Deuces so Ollie can forget a woman?

The French Foreign Legion proves no escape in Beau Hunks, where every soldier in the barracks is nursing a broken heart over the same sweetheart.

In The Midnight Patrol, policemen Laurel and Hardy arrest a man locked out of his mansion who turns out to be whom?

Their own chief is hauled in as a burglar by the two rookies, who wreck his house in the process; he had merely locked himself out.