My Favorite Blow Offs

In all my years as a clown with Ringling Brothers and other circuses, the one thing that eluded my grasp -- the Holy Grail, if you will, or will-o-the-wisp just beyond my reach -- was the creation of an original and unique blow off for a clown gag. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t conceive of any smash ending that would leave ‘em rolling in the aisles that hadn’t already been done by better buffoons than I.

At various times while inhabiting clown alley, to end a gag, I had my head blown or chopped off; my rear end set on fire or filled with smoking buckshot; been doused with water; smacked with pies; been conked by foam rubber pile drivers and mallets; been smashed down to midget sized or elongated into a two-storey beanpole; chased remorselessly by skeletons and devils; been deprived of my pants; shot up and suspended in the arena rafters; and painted fire engine red from stem to stern. And that’s just a listing from off the top of my head!

Could I but find Aladdin’s lamp, I would command the genie to give me an original idea for a blow off. But since that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, I will, instead, share some of my favorite cinematic blow offs with you -- for the great clowns of Hollywood stole all their best blow offs straight from the circus ring. Feel free to contact me if I pass over any of your own personal favorite blow offs, and I’ll add it to the list. There are so many to choose from:

In Laurel & Hardy’s silent film You’re Darn Tootin’ there is a gigantic ruckus at the end, where every man devotes manic energy to pulling the pants off of whoever passes by -- as the cops close in to collar Stan & Ollie, they make their escape by both jumping into the temporarily empty pants of a gigantic fat man who is frantically waving his hands in despair. As the camera irises in, we see the immortal duo briskly walking away from the camera ensconced in the single pair of pants, politely tipping their hats to us as the “End” title comes up. I remember seeing this movie at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis when I was a teenager -- the gust of gut-busting laughter that greeted that blow off was the equivalent of a small atomic bomb.

A few years later, in Blotto, the boys think they’re having a wild night out on the town with a bottle of illicit hooch -- but Stan’s wife shows up to tell them the bottle contains nothing but cold tea and ipecac. As the boys scram from Stan’s irate wife, she follows with a huge shotgun, takes aim, and literally blows them out of the taxi cab they are inhabiting -- turning the vehicle into a mass of smouldering tin foil.

And my favorite L & H blow off occurs at the end of their last American-made film, The Bullfighters.  In this opus the boys are constantly menaced by a gangster who threatens to ‘skin them alive.’ At the end of the film he does just that, offscreen mercifully, and the movie ends with two clanking skeletons, with Stan and Ollie’s heads respectively perched on top of them, walking towards the camera, while Ollie intones one last time: “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”   

A colleague of Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase made two-reelers from 1925 until 1945 -- and his invention never seemed to flag. In 1940’s The Heckler Charley plays an obnoxious sports fan who heckles the players at every sports event he attends. His refrain never changes -- he hollers “Watch him miss it!” He finally gets his comeuppance at the end of the film when a gangster backs him up against the wall with his gun, ready to drill him. As the camera pans away from Chase and the thug to the crowded sports arena, we hear Charley’s motto one last time -- “Watch him miss it!” -- followed by a loud gunshot that has undoubtedly found its mark.

The Grand Guignol endings of Three Stooges movies, of course, could engage the attention of comedy aficionados, as well as psychiatrists, for an eternity. My personal Stooges favorite comes from their send up of Hitler in I’ll Never Heil Again. Moe plays Hitler, with Larry and Curly as his demented henchmen. They get blown to smithereens at the end of the film -- but not quite. The last shot shows their heads on a trophy wall in the study of the new ruler!

One last blow off before I quit . . .

Although I never thought it was all that hilarious, Buster Keaton claims in several interviews that the biggest laugh he ever got in his films was the blow off from his 1921 film Hard Luck. At the end of the film he jumps from the high dive and misses the swimming pool. He crashed through the cement patio, leaving a gaping hole. A title appears: “Years later . . . “ and Buster emerges from the hole in Chinese garb with a Chinese wife and several little kids in black silk pajamas and pigtails in tow. Go figure.

Ah well, to paraphrase Shakespeare:  “All's funny that ends funny.”