"Into the distance, and into memory...
We will never see their like again."
Robert Youngson, Filmmaker
LAUREL
AND HARDY CENTRAL SITE GUIDE
Updated January 2007
Now entering its ninth year on the web, Laurel and Hardy Central is undergoing an overhaul (or overgoing an underhall, as Stan Laurel might put it). Although we are not going to be losing any content (we think), sections of this site will be folded into other sections. At the moment, the plan is to reduce the site to four sections - Introduction, The Films, The Hal Roach Wing and the Fun Factory, with the Fun Factory being the catchall house for Links, The LHC Museum, the LHC FAQ, Accolades, etc. But this is not set in stone yet, so currently we cannot offer a comprehensive guide to this site. Sorry. But the site is easy enough to figure out for yourself.
A SHORT AND TEDIOUS HISTORY OF THIS SITE
Revised January 2007
By John B.
Okay... so there we both wuz, in a fox hole. It was 1919. I was headin' over the hill with the rest of the division, while John L.stayed behind to guard our post. John L. sez to me, he sez, "If ya comes back, John B. we'll put a Laurel and Hardy website together, you and me, kid." And I sez to him, I sez, " "Don't worry, John L. --- I'll be back... we'll all be back!". Then I rushed over the hill... cannons to the left of me... cannons to the right of me...
If only it were that dramatic.
Here's the real scoop, as I first wrote it many moons ago (with revisions here and there through the years):
I first met John Larrabee online in 1995 or so, when he saw a post of mine in the Laurel and Hardy Internet Newsgroup and e-mailed me a message about the upcoming Marx Brothers Newsgroup. I answered him back by saying something like "I can't wait until it is up, so that I can reveal my theory as to why A NIGHT AT THE OPERA is a better movie than DUCK SOUP." A few days later I got another message from John L. inquiring as to what my theory was.
Well, I was cornered, as I never actually developed a theory. I thought that on the Internet, protected by the fortress of anonymnity, you could say anything you wanted. But "Chicago John" would have none of that. So my reply was basically "It just is 'cause I say so". I guess he must have liked that answer, because he never stopped sending me e-mails and I never stopped replying.
We met, as I said, in a newsgroup that discussed Laurel and Hardy, but in our electronic correspondence, we very rarely talked about "The Boys". We did talk comedy, of course. We spent weeks on Bob and Ray and decided they were probably the only other comedy team in history with the same eerie, God-given, Two Minds without a Single Thought chemistry as Stan and Ollie. And we talked music, and while he theorized on why John Lennon's songs became less universal after he left the Beatles, I tried to convince him that Bob Dylan's work in the eighties and nineties was as good, if not better, than his work in the sixties (even though, in my heart, I knew I was lying). He talked about Ann-Margret, I responded with Winona Ryder. At the time we created this page (Feb, 1998), we were also chatting about the movie TITANIC (John L's a a big boat buff), Woody Allen's life and art (love his art, not crazy about his life), and why Teri Hatcher is such a Superbabe. (We both love LOIS AND CLARK and "She just is 'cause I say so!" was my theory on Hatcher's Superbabeness.)
But in the fall of 1997, in the middle of a typically warm and funny letter where we were (finally) discussing Laurel and Hardy, John L. wrote this:
"Now then, how about this: let's go through the L&H catalogue. The Roach sound films, anyway. What the hell, if we tackle about ten shorts per letter, we'll get through them all in five or six letters. I'll start with the first ten, you can offer your typically scintillating follow-up commentary, then you can do the next ten in your next letter, I'll comment on those and do the next ten, etc. etc. This will be fun, trust me..."
We started with Unaccustomed as We Are (I liked it, he not so much) and we were off to the races, as they say. John soon realized, after the aforementioned five or six letters, that we had the beginnings of a nice web page, and that we should include the features and silent shorts in our discussions too.
John L. was a teacher, and had a much better grasp of the nuances of the English language than did I (then I did? then did me?), so we mutually decided that he would do most of the writing as far as taking care of story capsules and background histories of the films. I had taught myself how to create websites by running my own humor page, so we mutually decided I would design and code the site. Things began to fall into place and we realized very quickly that, hey kids, we could put on the Show right here on the Internet!
Once we had closed the book on every Laurel and Hardy film we had seen, which included all of the Roach talkies, all of the later films, and a goodly amount of the silents, John frantically worked on writing an entry on each film. He also took the comments he and I made about each film and edited them into a simulated dialogue meant to enlighten and possibly annoy fellow fans. Whenever he had finished ten or so films, he sent them to me, to turn into aesthetically pleasing, surfable HTML thingies. Later on, when we had finally seen all the silents, we added more reviews.
The result is LAUREL AND HARDY CENTRAL (HARD BOILED EGGS AND NUTS), written and developed by two deeply devoted (and slightly off-kilter) fans of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
We update LHC periodically with new reviews, new or expanded sections or just breaking Laurel and Hardy news. Or sometimes just a note letting the world know that we are still around and have not abandoned the page. As stated above, this year (2007) LHC is being redesigned.
If you feel any particular film has been neglected, or if you have any opinons pro or con about our page, you will drop us a line at lhcntrl (at) aol.com. (Please note the missing "e" in our email address - this is not a mispelling). We enjoy e-mail, especially if you attach Ann-Margret or Teri Hatcher pictures to them. (Pix of Jennifer Aniston and Neve Campbell are acceptable too. We're very flexible in these matters.)
B.S. - You may be wondering by now what is the official name of this site. Is it LAUREL AND HARDY CENTRAL or HARD BOILED EGGS AND NUTS? The answer is simple: Neither do I too.
B.S.S. - Some of our more recent correspondence (Winter 2006) includes discussions about Tom Waits, the strange and wonderful land of Japan, the Beatles' LOVE album, and, strangely, no reference to Jennifer Aniston.
As always, we are putting both of our Doctor of Thinkology degrees to good use.
--- John V. Brennan (alias John B.)
Updated January 2007
Now entering its ninth year on the web, Laurel and Hardy Central is undergoing an overhaul (or overgoing an underhall, as Stan Laurel might put it). Although we are not going to be losing any content (we think), sections of this site will be folded into other sections. At the moment, the plan is to reduce the site to four sections - Introduction, The Films, The Hal Roach Wing and the Fun Factory, with the Fun Factory being the catchall house for Links, The LHC Museum, the LHC FAQ, Accolades, etc. But this is not set in stone yet, so currently we cannot offer a comprehensive guide to this site. Sorry. But the site is easy enough to figure out for yourself.
A SHORT AND TEDIOUS HISTORY OF THIS SITE
Revised January 2007
By John B.
Okay... so there we both wuz, in a fox hole. It was 1919. I was headin' over the hill with the rest of the division, while John L.stayed behind to guard our post. John L. sez to me, he sez, "If ya comes back, John B. we'll put a Laurel and Hardy website together, you and me, kid." And I sez to him, I sez, " "Don't worry, John L. --- I'll be back... we'll all be back!". Then I rushed over the hill... cannons to the left of me... cannons to the right of me...
If only it were that dramatic.
Here's the real scoop, as I first wrote it many moons ago (with revisions here and there through the years):
I first met John Larrabee online in 1995 or so, when he saw a post of mine in the Laurel and Hardy Internet Newsgroup and e-mailed me a message about the upcoming Marx Brothers Newsgroup. I answered him back by saying something like "I can't wait until it is up, so that I can reveal my theory as to why A NIGHT AT THE OPERA is a better movie than DUCK SOUP." A few days later I got another message from John L. inquiring as to what my theory was.
Well, I was cornered, as I never actually developed a theory. I thought that on the Internet, protected by the fortress of anonymnity, you could say anything you wanted. But "Chicago John" would have none of that. So my reply was basically "It just is 'cause I say so". I guess he must have liked that answer, because he never stopped sending me e-mails and I never stopped replying.
We met, as I said, in a newsgroup that discussed Laurel and Hardy, but in our electronic correspondence, we very rarely talked about "The Boys". We did talk comedy, of course. We spent weeks on Bob and Ray and decided they were probably the only other comedy team in history with the same eerie, God-given, Two Minds without a Single Thought chemistry as Stan and Ollie. And we talked music, and while he theorized on why John Lennon's songs became less universal after he left the Beatles, I tried to convince him that Bob Dylan's work in the eighties and nineties was as good, if not better, than his work in the sixties (even though, in my heart, I knew I was lying). He talked about Ann-Margret, I responded with Winona Ryder. At the time we created this page (Feb, 1998), we were also chatting about the movie TITANIC (John L's a a big boat buff), Woody Allen's life and art (love his art, not crazy about his life), and why Teri Hatcher is such a Superbabe. (We both love LOIS AND CLARK and "She just is 'cause I say so!" was my theory on Hatcher's Superbabeness.)
But in the fall of 1997, in the middle of a typically warm and funny letter where we were (finally) discussing Laurel and Hardy, John L. wrote this:
"Now then, how about this: let's go through the L&H catalogue. The Roach sound films, anyway. What the hell, if we tackle about ten shorts per letter, we'll get through them all in five or six letters. I'll start with the first ten, you can offer your typically scintillating follow-up commentary, then you can do the next ten in your next letter, I'll comment on those and do the next ten, etc. etc. This will be fun, trust me..."
We started with Unaccustomed as We Are (I liked it, he not so much) and we were off to the races, as they say. John soon realized, after the aforementioned five or six letters, that we had the beginnings of a nice web page, and that we should include the features and silent shorts in our discussions too.
John L. was a teacher, and had a much better grasp of the nuances of the English language than did I (then I did? then did me?), so we mutually decided that he would do most of the writing as far as taking care of story capsules and background histories of the films. I had taught myself how to create websites by running my own humor page, so we mutually decided I would design and code the site. Things began to fall into place and we realized very quickly that, hey kids, we could put on the Show right here on the Internet!
Once we had closed the book on every Laurel and Hardy film we had seen, which included all of the Roach talkies, all of the later films, and a goodly amount of the silents, John frantically worked on writing an entry on each film. He also took the comments he and I made about each film and edited them into a simulated dialogue meant to enlighten and possibly annoy fellow fans. Whenever he had finished ten or so films, he sent them to me, to turn into aesthetically pleasing, surfable HTML thingies. Later on, when we had finally seen all the silents, we added more reviews.
The result is LAUREL AND HARDY CENTRAL (HARD BOILED EGGS AND NUTS), written and developed by two deeply devoted (and slightly off-kilter) fans of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
We update LHC periodically with new reviews, new or expanded sections or just breaking Laurel and Hardy news. Or sometimes just a note letting the world know that we are still around and have not abandoned the page. As stated above, this year (2007) LHC is being redesigned.
If you feel any particular film has been neglected, or if you have any opinons pro or con about our page, you will drop us a line at lhcntrl (at) aol.com. (Please note the missing "e" in our email address - this is not a mispelling). We enjoy e-mail, especially if you attach Ann-Margret or Teri Hatcher pictures to them. (Pix of Jennifer Aniston and Neve Campbell are acceptable too. We're very flexible in these matters.)
B.S. - You may be wondering by now what is the official name of this site. Is it LAUREL AND HARDY CENTRAL or HARD BOILED EGGS AND NUTS? The answer is simple: Neither do I too.
B.S.S. - Some of our more recent correspondence (Winter 2006) includes discussions about Tom Waits, the strange and wonderful land of Japan, the Beatles' LOVE album, and, strangely, no reference to Jennifer Aniston.
As always, we are putting both of our Doctor of Thinkology degrees to good use.
--- John V. Brennan (alias John B.)