“Who’s on First?” is a comedy routine made famous by American dou Abbott and Costello. The premise of the sketch is that Abbott is identifying the players on a Baseball team for Costello, but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello’s questions. For example, the first baseman is named “Who”; thus, the utterance “Who’s on first” is ambiguous between the question (“Which person is the first basemen?”) and the answer (“The name of the first baseman is ‘Who'”). It has been parodied and copied many times. It was a favourite of David’s and we would often recite it together.
“Who’s on First?” is descended from turn-of-the-century burlesque sketches that used plays on words and names. Examples are “The Baker Scene” (the shop is located on Watt Street) and “Who Dyed” (the owner is named “Who”). In the 1930 movie Cracked Nuts, comedians Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey examine a map of a mythical kingdom with dialogue like this: “What is next to Which.” “What is the name of the town next to Which?” “Yes.” In British music halls, comedian Will Hay performed a routine in the early 1930s (and possibly earlier) as a schoolmaster interviewing a schoolboy named Howe who came from Ware but now lives in Wye. By the early 1930s, a “Baseball Routine” had become a standard bit for burlesque comics across the United States. Abbott’s wife recalled him performing the routine with another comedian before teaming with Costello.
In February 1938, Abbott and Costello joined the cast of The Kate Smith Hour radio program, and the sketch was first performed for a national radio audience in March of that year. The routine may have been further polished before this broadcast by burlesque producerJohn Grant, who became the team’s writer, and Will Glickman, a staff writer on the radio show. Glickman may have added the nicknames of then-contemporary baseball players like Dizzy and Daffy Dean to set up the routine’s premise. This version, with extensive wordplay based on the fact that most of the fictional baseball team’s players had “strange nicknames” that seemed to be questions, became known as “Who’s on First?” Some versions continue with references to Enos Sluaghter, which Costello misunderstands as “He knows” Slaughter. By 1944, Abbott and Costello had the routine copyrighted.
Abbott and Costello performed “Who’s on First?” numerous times in their careers, rarely performing it exactly the same way twice. They did the routine for President Roosevelt several times. An abridged version was featured in the team’s 1940 film debut, One Night in the Tropics. The duo reprised the bit in their 1945 film The Naughty Nineties, and it is that longer version which is considered their finest recorded rendition. They also performed “Who’s on First?” numerous times on radio and television (notably in The Abbott and Costello Show episode “The Actor’s Home”, widely considered the definitive version). In 1999,Time named the routine Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century.
As you might imagine, the Shakespearean version is my all time favourite.
