{"id":54673,"date":"2026-08-28T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54673"},"modified":"2026-08-26T21:09:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:09:32","slug":"the-bootleg-files-fun-on-the-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/28\/the-bootleg-files-fun-on-the-run\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Fun on the Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 946: <\/strong>\u201cFun on the Run\u201d (1949 short incorporating sequences from Abbott and Costello\u2019s feature \u201cHere Comes the Co-Eds\u201d). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> Only available in 16mm and 8mm formats.
\n
\nCHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> None. <\/p>\n

One of the most contentious political issues today involves the presence of biological men who identify as transgender playing in women\u2019s sports. But back in 1945, the idea of a man playing on a woman\u2019s sports team was strictly the stuff of comedy \u2013 specifically, the Abbott and Costello feature \u201cHere Comes the Co-Eds.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

In 1949, \u201cHere Comes the Co-Eds\u201d was sliced and diced by Castle Films for distribution to the home movie market in 16mm and 8mm formats. Three segments from that film were edited and packaged for one-reel release: \u201cOysters and Muscles\u201d (1948), which featured a wild wrestling match; \u201cKitchen Mechanics\u201d (1949), which showed Abbott and Costello doing a disastrous job in cleaning the caretaker\u2019s cottage; and \u201cFun on the Run\u201d (1949), which is featured here.<\/p>\n

\u201cFun on the Run\u201d focused on the final stretch of \u201cHere Comes the Co-Eds.\u201d In that section of the film, the basketball team for the all-women\u2019s Bixby College plays against their rival Carleton College. However, racketeers trying to fix the game hire a professional women\u2019s team to play against the Bixby amateurs. These ringers are tough Amazons who have no problem roughing up their opponents.<\/p>\n

When too many Bixby players are forced out of the game due to injuries from the ringers, Lou Costello dons a blonde wig (covered by a football helmet) and pretends to be one of the girls. But when he suffers temporary amnesia due to a foul, he is tricked into thinking he is Daisy Dimple, the top female basketball player. Costello in his amnesiac state becomes a one-man (or one-faux woman) scoring machine, tying the game. Alas, he gets knocked back to reality and accidentally loses the game for Bixby.<\/p>\n

However, Costello accidentally discovers that the game was fixed. He grabs the racketeers\u2019 ill-gotten gains and joins his partner Bud Abbott in a wild chase through the streets in a sailboat on a trailer. <\/p>\n

The basketball game is one of the most amusing segments in any Abbott and Costello caper, due in large part to Costello\u2019s highly unlikely femme disguise. The idea that anyone who look at Costello and mistake him for a college-age female reaffirms the wonderfully warped logic of comedy films. And aside from feigning a vaguely effeminate twang to his voice, Costello makes no attempt to act in a feminine manner.<\/p>\n

Costello was a basketball star during his high school years and did many of the trick shots that appeared in \u201cHere Comes the Co-Eds.\u201d His athletic feats are impressive and fit well into the farcical nature of the story, with the professional women\u2019s basketball players who tower over him. <\/p>\n

The chase with Abbott and Costello careening through the streets and into a railroad tunnel on a sailboat atop a trailer is very clever and well staged. It helps if one forgives the obvious use of studio-based rear projection in shots involving the comics and some obvious stuntmen doubling for them in the split-section footage shot outdoors.<\/p>\n

The head racketeer in this film is Joe Kirk, who was Costello\u2019s brother-in-law. He mostly did miniscule parts in their films, and this was among the rare times he had a substantial role. Kirk would later find his most memorable role as Mr. Bacciagalupe on Abbott and Costello\u2019s television show. Also present in \u201cFun on the Run\u201d is Lon Chaney Jr., who played the comics\u2019 caretaker boss and nemesis in \u201cHere Comes the Co-Eds,\u201d and Peggy Ryan, who was a musical comedy star at Universal Pictures during the 1940s.<\/p>\n

\u201cFun on the Run\u201d was released in both silent and sound versions. Mercifully, the sound version is available in an unauthorized upload to YouTube:<\/p>\n