Two tropes walk into a bar: Summer Comedy Vinyl Albums
W,C, Fields + Mae West
This $13.99 discount record combines the vaudeville forces with W.C. Fields on Side A (he’s a man afterall) and Mae West on Side B. Recordings produced at Proscenium Records in New York.
These two vaudevillians are caricatures of themselves. I have no idea why they are in an album together. Their material is unrelated. But they are a pleasure. Glad I bought this vinyl album.
Side A features W.C. Field’s “The Temperance Lecture” and “The Day I Drank A Glad of Water.” Here you hear his drawn-out phrasing, grandiose vocabulary, and references to his real-life alcoholism.
In “The Temperance Lecture,” for example, he claims his grandfather could have discovered electricity but was too poor to buy a kite. “He had to go out and hire one. … I have a picture of him at home, standing in front of the town tavern. He was high-ering a kite. Much higher.”
Side B features Mae West speak-singing eight suggestive songs, “including “My Man Friday.” She leans into rhythm and double entendre. Here’s a sample of how funny and brave she was as a writer:
But Friday's apple pie day, cause the guy I see on Friday serves me with a seven course meal. Oh, my man Friday, he can really fill me, guaranteed to thrill me every Friday.
W.C. Fields started his career as a juggler. Silent films opened him up to a wider audience, one that could more easily “borrow” bits. To prevent “joke theft,” Fields began copyrighting his material. In 1919, he warned other performers with this ad in Variety:
I enjoyed spending time with W.C. of Pennsylvania and Mae West of Brooklyn. They’re inventive with props, exceptional performers with a strong sense of themselves. I always enjoy West’s wiggle-walk in tight-fitting dresses and platform heels. Fields knows how to wear a hat, raked, with an expression of careless arrogance.
They appeared together in My Little Chickadee (1940). Very satisfying to see them spoof each other, with Fields asking “to see her sometime” and West calling him a “little chickadee.” They essentially swapped each other’s catchphrases.
West reportedly wrote the screenplay with Fields contributing a scene. They got equal billing, part of the reason West vowed never to work with him again.