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The Rounders (1914)

Mr. Full (Charlie Chaplin) and Mr. Fuller (Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle) are shabby gentlemen who dress in battered formalwear. However, they are both unapologetic drunks who commit acts of mischievous violence against anyone who cross their paths. They are neighbors in a hotel, where their long-suffering wives wait for them with irritation and intimidation. The men respond to this display of spousal anger with greater agitation – Mr. Fuller going so far as to choke his spouse. The pair grow tired of their domestic chaos and steal money from their wives’ purses, heading off to a restaurant where they wreak havoc on the unsuspecting patrons. The wives and the restaurant patrons chase the duo to a park, where they abscond with a rowboat and sail off across a pond, only to fall asleep in their pilfered vessel as it slowly sinks beneath the water’s surface.

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Bud and Lou (1978)

Biopics of legendary entertainers rarely work, if only because it requires actors to achieve the impossible effect of duplicating the charisma and nuances of the stars they are supposed to be imitating. The classics of this genre work when the headliners give their own personalities and quirks into their roles rather than trying to create a reasonable facsimile of the stars they were hired to reenact. Thus, James Cagney did a great James Cagney in “Yankee Doodle Dandy” while Barbra Streisand was the perfect Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” – no one ever confused them for George M. Cohan and Fanny Brice, even though they were supposed to be recreated the performing styles of those respective talents.
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I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song (1933)

During the 1930s, several animated shorts presented silly caricatures of celebrities in unlikely situations. The 1933 Warner Bros. offering “I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song” is among the most interesting of this mini-genre, with some genuinely amusing gags involving the big names of the day.

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Pecos Pest (1955)

I don’t know how many people would agree with me on this, but I think that “Pecos Pest” is the greatest of the Golden Age Tom and Jerry cartoons. I am enthralled with this short because it deviates from the usual knockabout of the series with the inclusion of an audacious new character who shakes up the comedy with inventive humor.
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