George Jeske

In this one-hour special taped between March 9-17, 1981, Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore join the Muppets in a tribute to film classics. Kermit the Frog hosts the program, which begins with an all-cast rendition of "Hey a Movie!" from The Great Muppet Caper.

Two criminals chase a plainclothes policeman who, while taking out his dog, witnesses their crime.

Two rivals for Mabel's hand play a series of dirty tricks on each other. Finally, one of them gets Mabel alone and is about to marry her, but his rival comes up with a strange scheme to stop them. Soon the Keystone Kops arrive on the scene, and chaos quickly ensues.

The Tramp, a film Johnnie (someone who loiters near theaters or studios to meet stars or get a job), attempts to meet his favorite movie actress at the Keystone Studio, but does not win friends there.

Fatty's Flirtation is a 1913 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand.

When Fatty Arbuckle accidentally hits on the rajah, he declares, "Death to all flirts!" and hijinks ensue.

When a new reformist mayor refuses to cave to corruption, his opponents plot terroristic reprisal. Their efforts go awry in very goofy ways (including some wild stunts). This rambunctious comedy from Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios features his stars Charles Murray as a scheming campaign manager and Louise Fazenda as the the fiancee he unwisely scorns in favor of the mayor's daughter.

In a dance hall, two members of the orchestra and a tipsy dancer fight over the hat check girl.

Two old tars, retired from service, live alone in a cottage by the sea. They sail along on an even keel, until a buxom and comely widow projects herself on the scene when one old tar breaks one of their unwritten laws and falls in love with her. The other old fellow objects strenuously.

A girl, Anita Wayne, finds herself an heiress of her mother's estate, but learns that her father lives in Alaska. Determined to find her father she travels to a mining town in the Klondike, but runs into "Cash" Gynon, a villainous saloon keeper, who claims to be her father.

Billy is on the bum. He sees a copper writing a ticket to a driver parked in front of a fire hydrant. The driver slips the cop some money to tear up the ticket. Billy acquires a fake fire plug and a policeman's badge, and sets out to make some money.

Fatty rescues the daughter of the police commisioner and is given a job as an officer as a reward, but its not all its cracked up to be!

Mabel has two suitors - an oily con man, whom she mocks in a very funny scene where she is shown twiddling a fake moustache and making her feelings very clearly felt. Even in this early comedy her natural fun comes through. The one she really loves is clumsy yokel Ford Sterling, who is determined to buy an oil well that the con man has for sale. The conman gets a local fellow to pour oil over the property. Ford falls for it and buys it - Mabel and he are to be married. Then the fellow confesses that it was just a scam - there was no oil.

A very plastered fella follows a pretty woman home, and proceeds to make a nuisance of himself.

In the Clutches of the Gang is a 1914 movie starring Ford Sterling and George Nichols.

Mother's Boy is a 1913 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Alice Davenport.

short subject comedy - fun at the gym!

After being discharged from the 372nd infantry, on account of a bean shortage, smithy seeks employment. He finds a job on a construction site, where he helps to build a house, and soon causes havoc amongst the other workers. The construction company owner leaves for a week, and tells his secretary to send a letter to Mr. Smith telling him to complete the construction of the house while he (the owner) is away. The letter is accidently sent to Smithy who manages to complete the house. When the owner returns the house is complete, and Smithy is commended until the last support beam is removed...

Wide Open Spaces is a 1924 Western silent film starring Stan Laurel.

The misadventures of two intrepid explorers in the Egyptian desert.

The setting is a shoe store and the action is pretty frenetic. You get to see Paul lose the store's money, catch a shoe thief, knock down a bunch of shelves and more.

Pursued by the law, a street cleaner finds refuge by impersonating a dentist.

A feckless young man who wishes to switch from one streetcar to another is told to follow a pretty young lady-- so he follows her all over town.

'Snub' Pollard as a eccentric movie director.

Collars and Cuffs is a 1923 silent comedy film starring Stan Laurel.

Edgar is running for county supervisor against his mother-in-law. Edgar, whose campaign is going nowhere, decides to try some dirty-tricks style tactics but, as usual, everything backfires on him.

'Snub' Pollard wants to hang himself but figures joining the circus was better idea.

A pigeon breeder is hired to train a racehorse that wins only when it drinks beer.

A beautiful woman goes to Las Vegas in a scheme to make her husbnd jealous, but once she gets there she becomes involved with another man.

Donald Drake, a deep sea gondolier ex soda jerk, arrives at the All Nation Cafe in Shanghai. The proprietor believes he's a penniless ne'er-do-well - which he is - but he unexpectedly comes into a small windfall. So the proprietor orders slightly rough around the edges Maud and Mollie, two of his American good time girls working their way around the world, to get him to spend all his money while there. As Donald ends up telling the two good time girls his life story - most specifically about the blonde he let slip through his fingers, she who was the love of his life - a few revelations and the errant coin he left at the roulette wheel betting table change his life.

Stan is a lazy employee at a lumber company. Much of the first portion of the film has to do with Stan trying to sneak into work late--past the violent and rather insane supervisor. Later, however, Stan walks into a plot to steal the company away and frame the owner for a crime he did not commit.

After getting into a scuffle with his boss and some co-workers, an orange packer tries to help another co-worker, only to wind up in a conflict with him as well. Trying to elude his boss, he heads inside the packing house, and visits with the women who are packing fruit into cases. Then he heads to a storage area, and tries to use the machinery to escape his pursuers.

A cub reporter rashly makes a promise to solve a murder mystery within 24 hours, then must make good on his boast.

Inventor Ignatius Pollard develops a new "Pavement Polisher" to clean the streets, but a demonstration of the device does not go as planned.

Billy is on the bum. He sees a copper writing a ticket to a driver parked in front of a fire hydrant. The driver slips the cop some money to tear up the ticket. Billy acquires a fake fire plug and a policeman's badge, and sets out to make some money.

A pilot and his dog crash-land on an island run by a psycho who owns a motel--and most of the locals.

Pick and Shovel, also known as The Miner, is a 1923 silent comedy film starring Stan Laurel.

Professor Brawn has been swinging a dumbbell for so long he looks like one!

Edgar Kennedy is over-joyed when told he has won a $5,000 prize in a "How To Be Happy Though Married" contest. A reporter interviews Edgar and his wife Vivien who tell him about their engagement and elopement. Then Viviens father tells them that according to a law he has found in a law-book, they aren't legally married. After a series of misadventures, they learn that the law is a new one and that the Kennedy marriage is legal.

Well executed but unexceptional one-reeler about a couple of incompetent paperhangers. James Parrott, brother of Charley Chase, was an equally skilled man behind the camera, later writing and directing some of Roach's best two-reelers, before he died too young, but while the gags here are well done, he never really developed much of a personality in these pieces and they are not, somehow, quite as sharp as the stuff he was co-starring in with Sid Saylor two or three years before. The extended gag with the plank of wood seesawing is typical.

Noted child psychologist Errol marries a widow with a nasty brat, and finds none of his theories seem to work when trapped in a pullman car on the way to his honeymoon at Niagara Falls.