Saturday, October 22, 2011

Comedy Capers


Country: USA
Comedy Capers was a TV series produced in the USA in early 60ies, which aired some short films, both silent and talkies. This program was aired in many countries worldwide, one of then was Brazil. Therefore the video above has the audio and credits dubbed in Portuguese. Anyway, my intention here was to pay a homage to all great comic actors of silent era.


Comedy Capers, also known in Brazil as “Reis do Riso” was a TV serie composed of a package of sequences of short movies of the so-called “silent era” produced by Mack Sennett e Hal Roach within 20ies and 40ies.


They were produced and distributed by National Telepix, which in 1960 had already reissued with a narration series like “Our Gang” by Hal Roach and released under the title “Mischief Makers”.


One year later, in 1961, the same film producer started again to transform short films by Sennett and Hal Roach under the denomination “Comedy Capers” in two reels called "Christie comedy", that were divided in 108 episodes of approximately 12 minutes each one, in 16 mm films in black and white, that were distributed to many TV channels worldwide.


The opening song of the serie was published by National Telepix (BMI), as well as the closing theme “Comedy Capers End Title” also known as “End Theme That´s All, neighbors”, both with music by Jack Saunders and lyrics by Phyllis Brandell together with Jack Saunders.


The sequences were starred by famous comic artists like Snub Pollard, Ben Turpin, Billy Bevan, Harry Langdon, The Keystone Cops, Laurel & Hardy, among others. Some data found suggest that the series was originally presented in syndicated, in the United states this same year. In Brazil it was found information by some authors that this series was presented by Rede Globo de Televisão in the 70ies, under the name “Reis do Riso”.

2 comments:

  1. Thankyou for this post. Brings back a lot of early tv memories. Tothink this was once 6:00pm prime tv viewing! love it.

    Peter

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for this. It's great to think that the 3-year-old me and the 60-year-old me share the same sense of humour.

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