Talk:Who's on First?/Archive 1

Right Fielder

I believe the right fielder is never mentioned because Costello is joining the team and will be playing right field.

No, I would say that the right fielder's name is Naturally. If you read the transcript, Abbott says that the catcher would throw the ball not to Naturally (who Costello unwittingly mentions) but to Who at first. This seems to fit because for one, Abbott does not say that Naturally is not on the team, and right field is directly behind first base. Also, at the same time Costello mentions that he plays catcher. Eightball 07:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

No, Naturally is not a member of the team; it is Abbott's confirmation that Costello is stating things correctly:

• BUD: Well, that's all you have to do.
• LOU: Is to throw it to first base?
• BUD: Yes.
• LOU: Now who's got it?
• BUD: Naturally.

If Costello throws it to first base, Who would indeed have the ball. Bud wouldn't say naturally if that was the right fielder's name. But Costello thinks Naturally is the name of a player, and he is wrong:

• LOU: I pick up the ball and I throw it to Naturally.
• BUD: No you don't, you throw the ball to first base.
• LOU: Then who gets it?
• BUD: Naturally!

Plummer 03:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, "the right fielder is never identified, though an interpretation of the transcript could give his name as Naturally" should be removed. Theories may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. --PseudoChron 12:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

At best Lou thinks the first baseman's name is Naturally.

• LOU: When you send the first baseman his check, who get's it?
• BUD: Naturally.
• LOU: Naturally?
• BUD: The man's entitled to it!
• LOU: Who is?
• BUD: Yes.

However, Lou expressly wants to be the catcher, not the right-fielder.

• LOU: I'm a good catcher and me being a good catcher I want to throw the guy out at first, so I pick up the ball and throw it to who?
• BUD: Now you got it!
• LOU: I don't even know what I'm talkin' about!!

I updated the article to say that Who would NATURALLY catch a ball bound for first base. 24.83.3.54 01:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Padillah 20:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Variations

I have the poster from the Baseball Hall of Fame that has the transcript for the routine and it lists the shortstop as "I Don't Give a Damn!" It also has several references to "the St. Louis team" but the external references all refer to New York. Does anyone know where the "I Don't Give a Damn" version came from?--CrazyTalk 05:34, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Click on the link to the transcription from the film "The Naughty Nineties." That's the one that references "the St. Louis team." Plummer 03:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It's possible it was just an 'update' made when the poster was made, because "I don't give a damn" is a lot more common now than darn. Of course, it might not have even been intentional, just someone typing damn instead of darn because that's what he or she's used to. --Author X 19:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC) +++ Naturally, I'm more likely to think Where's the right fielder since that is the likely question we're all going to ask when we find no one's in that position in the classic routine. But what do I know . . ..

Actually, the shortstop was originally called "I Don't Give a Damn" in their vaudville routine and that is the way they said it for 1000's of performances. When it came time to perform this in the two movies that they used it in they were forced to replace the word due to the restrictions of the Hays Code. Another example of this is when the song lyric "New York, New York a helluva a town" was changed to "New York, New York a wonderful town" in the movie On the Town. I have heard a recording (made for radio I think - though it was awhile ago that I heard it) where damn was used.User:MarnetteD | Talk 22:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Text?

Could we include the text for the routine and/or a recording (there are plenyy available on the 'net), or is it still under copyright?

Krusty parodies who?

In the cultural references, the reference to the parody of the routine on The Simpsons by Krusty has a parenthetical sidenote explaining that Krusty himself is a parody of Bob Newhart. Is this correct? I always thought that he was a parody of Bob Hope in that episode. JustAddPeter 07:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Bob Newhart doesn't make any sense. Bob Hope is famous for his USO shows. —Wrathchild ^(talk) 21:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Writing Credit

I added the writing credit for Will Glickman. He wrote for them when they worked in vaudeville and in radio. He polished and honed their act and was instrumental in transforming The Baseball Sketch into Who's on First. Will Glickman did this kind of specialzed writing for comics his entire career, working for Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, Red Buttons and Jim Henson (Muppets) among others.

There is no original or final version of the sketch - it varied with every performance.

--Teneriff 02:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Would like to contact user 69.118.195.172 RE: Who's On First

I'd appreciate it if user who goes by 69.118.195.172 (i.e. not registered) would get in touch with me regarding his/her edits for Who's On First. -- teneriff 02:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be me, Plummer, now registered. I don't know how else to contact you except on this page. If there is another way, please instruct. I am a published Abbott and Costello biographer, and Glickman's name is completely new to me in this context. Please tell us your source for the claim that he worked on the routine; the A&C families have always maintained that John Grant worked on it when he was brought in as their writer after they joined the Kate Smith show. Similar claims of authorship have been made by a handful of other writers, all of them after Bud's death. I think that this last fact should be included in the article. Thanks, Teneriff. Plummer (talk · contribs · logs) 04:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello Plummer - Thanks for your note. I'll either email you in some detail this evening or put the information here. If you look on the left on this page, under Toolbox, you'll see the link: Email this user. That will send an email to my Hotmail address. I would email you, but you didn't quite finish your registration - i.e. adding your email address. I did the same thing when I started here! I'm looking forward to corresponding with you. Will Glickman was my father. Yours, Teneriff (Arthur Glickman). - teneriff 16:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Will Glickman and Who's on First

Hello Plummer – I was initially struck by your note about other writers claiming to have written the sketch. I knew most of the comedy writers of that period – from Woody Allen and Mel Brooks to Neil (Doc) Simon and Sid Zelinka (A to Z, I guess) and none of them ever claimed to have written it. Professional writers didn’t boast about their work and never claimed someone else’s work. I wonder if you could tell me the source for the statement or who actually made the claim. It’s pretty brazen. I learned a lot about show business history from the Wikipedia article and from your additions – particularly the role of John Grant.
My father - My father’s career began about 1932 – as Billy K. Wells’s secretary [1] Wells had an alcohol problem at this point and my father, over time, had to help to finish sketches to get the work done. He moved on to WPA radio projects, and then to The Shadow and many other shows of that decade. In 1938 he was working for Kate Smith. Later he went on to work on Fibber McGee and Molly, The Camel Caravan with Vaughn Monroe, with Durante, Clayton and Moore, and, eventually, his first love, Broadway. [2] He made the transition to television in the 1950s, working on The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Red Buttons Show, The Jackie Gleason Show (he did similar work for Gleason’s Honeymooners as he did for Abbot and Costello)and many others. He retired in 1964 after a heart attack. He wrote for a vast range of entertainers and comics – from Perry Como and Bing Crosby to Martin and Lewis, Jimmy Dean and Garry Moore. He never worked in Hollywood, only New York.
One of his particular talents was working with young comics, writing material for them that used their basic “shticks” - amplifying, deepening and broadening them so they became durable, long lasting and elastic performers. Often the material he wrote entailed word-play and repartee/patter. The four best known examples that I can think of off hand are Abbott and Costello, Minnie Pearl (Grand Old Opry), Jackie Gleason and Jim Henson’s Muppets.
My father adored baseball – particularly the Brooklyn Dodgers. He knew a vast amount about the game, and because he traveled across the country with shows like Kate Smith’s and The Camel Caravan he got to see a lot of games. In recognition of the depth of his adoration for the game, combined with his role in writing Who’s on First, friends, in 1954, got him an actual contract to play for the Dodgers, signed by Walter F. O’Malley and Buzzy Bavasi. The “salary” was $13.98. It was real – 4 pages, numbered and signed, with a check. He had it framed and it hung on a wall near his typewriter until his death.
Who's on First - This is all by way of background for his part in Who’s on First. I was initially unfamiliar with John Grant’s name, but I looked him up on the net and learned about him. I gathered that either he was writing for Abbott and Costello in the mid-1930s and went with them to The Kate Smith Show in 1938 or, as you state they had him come in after they were hired by the show. Abbott and Costello had been performing The Baseball Routine for some time before this. The show’s producer was not terribly impressed with the routine but Grant knew it had potential and asked my father to work on it because he, among the staff writers, knew baseball best and could handle the repartee easily. The key for me was that it makes sense that Grant would hand this job over to a younger man (by 20 years) who knew the subject matter intimately, could extend the contemporaneous references and was good at repartee and patter.
My father kept no records and very little of his work. But he did have his copy of Who’s On First. I read it many times as a child (i.e. 1950-55. I’m 64 now). I am always surprised that written transcripts of it leave out, by way of not recognizing, the large number of baseball player names from the period that are included in the sketch. Some day I plan to work on a transcript using the several recorded versions I have and player rosters from the period. As a final footnote on the provenance of the sketch – after World War II my father bought my mother a pair of diamond earrings. He was now a successful comedy writer. She immediately called one Abbott and the other Costello. It was not that he made a lot of money from the sketch – he was on a weekly salary and didn’t control the copyright – but my mother knew that it made my father’s career, as well as Abbott and Costello’s.
RequestI hope this gives you some information about my father and his role in writing Who’s on First. I’m really pleased that you were able to get in touch with me and I’d be glad to discuss this further with you in any aspect. Could you tell me the name of your Abbot and Costello biography? Yours, Arthur
P.S. Unfortunately his copy of Who’s on First was given by my mother to an older cousin who claims to have lost it. I doubt this and expect to see it surface some day at an auction. He never received any awards in his lifetime, but after he died an award was set up in his honor in San Francisco, CA. [3] -- teneriff 03:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Animaniacs version

I would remind others that the charactors Slappy and Skippy Squirell did a routine similar. The set is Woodstock and the band "Who", "The Band" and others are used in the joke. I shall leave it to others with dvd collections to fill this in.

sincerly David Fleshman of Anderson, SC 

• note* If anything is done wrong, I apologize as that this is my first time of doing this.

ESPN Baseball Tonight commercial

Does anyone remember the commercials Baseball Tonight ran a few years back? They had the various hosts re-enacting scenes from baseball movies (ex: Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own, etc.). They also had a "Who's On First?" commercial. I'm pretty sure Peter Gammons was in it.

If someone has more specific info, and a source, perhaps that could be added. 75.34.39.39 06:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)Tom

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Goofe Dean and Other Versions

(1) I always thought Goofe was a reference to the Disney Character Goofy.

(2) A variant of the "Who, Guess Who, and Yes" version was performed on the TV Series "Eight Is Enough" with Dick Van Patten and the youngest boy (Nicholas ?) performing the routine. As I recall, Dick Van Patten took the Costello part. I do not have a reference for this but remember seeing it on the original show. 134.243.211.185 14:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've never understood the Goofe Dean joke. I assume there's a French phrase which sounds like "Goofe Dean"? The article should explain this joke.

Best guess - it's intended to be a sort of humorous name trio - and/or a reference to animated comic characters Dizzy, Daffy and Goofy (transformed into "Goofé" as a silly frenchism. Asherett 03:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

But, off the top of my head, I can't think of a 1930s animated character named "Dizzy".

• Dizzy Dean and Paul Dean ("Daffy" Dean) were actual baseball players. Whether they were also rendered in cartoon form, I couldn't say. It would be a fair guess that "Goofe" is a play on the Disney cartoon character "Goofy", but guesses don't really belong in the article. Wahkeenah 14:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Speculation by anonymous editor

205.251.53.6 has added speculation ("Other possibilities for the right fielder's name are words that were not used in the routine, such as Where, How, When, or Yesterday.") to this article four times. The first time, I reverted. The second time, I requested a citation for this speculation. The third and fourth times, I reverted again. Every time, this editor has reverted my edits. I have just reverted his edits again. Others need to also watch this page and take care of this editor adding in this speculation again. — Val42 17:18, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

They are possibilities because there is no "Where", "How", or "When" in the routine, these are question words like "Who", "What", and "Why". As for "Yesterday" this is also a possibility because the Pitchers name is "Tomorrow" and the Catchers name is "Today" so why couldn't it be "Yesterday" 205.251.53.6 01:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As you said, "They are possibilities." Unless this speculation is given by a citable, reputable, third-party, published source, this equates to original research. Please read the Wikipedia policies on original research to see why this isn't allowed in articles. — Val42 04:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyone with half a brain could think of a couple of other ways in which the joke could work. They do not warrant inclusion in a wikipedia article. It's like saying "John Lennon's frisrt solo album was called Two Virgins. Other possible titles Lennon could have used for this album are A Pair of Virgins or My Fisrt Solo Album, by John Lennon, age 29." No need.--Crestville 14:45, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Other names for right fielder

Other possibilities for the right fielder's name are words that were not used in the routine, such as Where, How, When, or Yesterday

I will just leave this on the talk page for now, but if anyone can back me up I would be grateful. 205.251.53.6 01:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/whose-on-first/77914036