Bert Lahr remembered that on the tour, Laurel and Hardy were always first in the dressing room each day to get ready for each show, and aside from Charles Boyer, were generally the only ones who bothered to bring their own makeup.  Other performers would drift in one by one and crowd around Stan and Babe, sharing in the show-biz camaraderie as well as the bottle of whiskey the Boys always had on the table.  After shows, the fun continued as various stars would get together for impromptu singing sessions and private shows put on just for each other.  Most of these stars had never had the chance before to spend this much time with so many of their fellow performers, and they made the most of it.  Bert Lahr later wistfully described it as a "caravan of love".

     Late in life, Groucho confirmed the daily presence of alcohol on Laurel and Hardy's makeup table, remarking that the Boys were "pleasantly sloshed" most of the time.  It took some uncharacteristic humility for him to add  "This, I thought, would be the leg up I'd need to outshine them.  No way."  As far as Stan and Babe being "pleasantly sloshed", they were certainly not the only ones.  Through Groucho himself rarely indulged in hard liquor, drinking was surely one of the ways many of the other performers enjoyed themselves between shows.  Jimmy Cagney and Bert Lahr both picked Pat O'Brien as the tour's champion imbiber.  O'Brien would stay up most of the night drinking and chatting with whoever else was still up, and then fall asleep in a barber chair.  The tour's barber would wake him up early in the morning and after a shave and a hot towel, O'Brien looked more refreshed than anybody else on the tour!

 

     As the Victory Caravan arrived in each town, most of the stars received cheers and whoops upon exiting the train.  But a few drew nothing but confused silence, or, as Bert Lahr joked, cries of "Who's this bum?".  Lahr was thrilled to be invited on the tour, even though his name did not show up in a recent Top 100 favorite stars poll.  A bigger stage star than a movie star, Bert Lahr was of course famous as the Cowardly Lion from M-G-M's THE WIZARD OF OZ, but few film fans knew him outside of that costume (a problem that would plague him all his life). Groucho learned quickly that he could get no reaction until he painted on his famous greasepaint moustache. Laurel and Hardy, of course, had no such problem. They always looked like themselves.

      For the tour, the Boys once again trotted out the reliable Driver's License sketch.  Jimmy Cagney, who adored Laurel and Hardy, told L&H (and Cagney) biographer John McCabe that the Boys "...stole the show, and in the most gentlemanly way you ever saw.  Because there was no vanity there.  Just pure - very pure - comedy, and that's all there was."  Cagney's pal and Warner Brothers stablemate Frank McHugh told John Lahr, "When the orchestra played Laurel and Hardy's sign music, you've never heard such an ovation!"

     Bing Crosby (a golfing pal of Babe's since the early '30s) was another huge hit, especially when his stint on the tour overlapped with his pal Bob Hope's.  Jimmy Cagney, who admired Der Bingle tremendously, worried about following him, since Crosby's crooning drew loud ovations similar to those received by the Boys.  But Cagney's rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy", complete with Civil War costumes, chorus girls and much flag-waving, was a surefire patriotic crowd-pleaser.  In other star turns, Bert Lahr sang a comedy song in his inimitable style and performed a sketch with Cary Grant as his straightman, Groucho did a comic monologue, and Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh warbled and hoofed it up.  With other stars popping into the tour at various times when their schedules permitted, there was probably more real solid entertainment in 10 random minutes of any Hollywood Victory Caravan show than in either of the films Laurel and Hardy had appeared in for 20th Century Fox so far.
 

     John Lahr's book describes a poignant moment at the end of the tour in May, by which time many of the stars had forged new friendships.  As they were all saying their goodbyes and departing from the train for the last time, Bert Lahr spied...

   Having done their bit for the war, Laurel and Hardy were off to film AIR RAID WARDENS, their new film for M-G-M.  But their stage experiences during the war years would serve them well later, when they would return to touring when their movie career was over.