Two years ago, I published a blog post entitled “British Sketch Comedy in the Golden Age of Snooker.” The post began with a review of the uproarious 1973 “Pot Black” sketch from The Benny Hill Show. At the time of my publication, it was the only billiard sketch prior to 1980 that I had watched.
But, since then, my curation of billiard sketch comedies has expanded considerably and surfaced numerous jewels from 1930 to 1979. While some of the humor is now dated, these sketches and scenes represent a half-century of billiards inserting itself into mainstream culture and becoming a part of our popular vernacular.
Brats (1930)
Any definitive list of early billiards sketches should kick off with the brilliance of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, a duo that paved the way with their childish nature, physical exaggerations, and perfect timing for everyone from Lou Costello and Jerry Lewis to Peter Sellers and Jim Carrey. Brats is a 1930 short film in which Stan and Ollie take a break from their children by playing a game of pool. A mixup involving marshmallows and pool cue chalk leads both players to have issues that then become heated arguments, leading to an armoire breaking and pool felt ripping. The full film is available to watch here. Enjoy, and then experience its influence on modern billiards comedy, such as this pool-playing scene between Kramer and Fran Costanza from “The Doll” episode of Seinfeld.
Harry Tate – “Billiards” (1934)
Along with “Fishing” and “Motoring,” “Billiards” was one of several sketches centered on fads and trends that made the British music hall performer Harry Tate famous. Each sketch presented him as a mustachioed, blustering incompetent whose good intentions only contribute to the surrounding chaos. In “Billiards,” a game played for 10 pounds becomes a magnet for absurdity and calamity, as some balls appear stuck together, a drunk temporarily takes over the table, a man in an apron steps on the table to take measurements, and a high break leads to the ceiling collapsing and the wager getting called off. The full sketch is available to watch on YouTube, though we can thank British Pathé for their film preservation efforts.
I’ll Never Heil Again (1941)
Curly, Larry, and Moe – aka The Three Stooges – made 190 short films for Columbia Pictures, each with their trademark style of physical, farce, and slapstick comedy. In I’ll Never Heil Again, the Stooges are military commanders who have taken over the country of Moronica. In a scheme to usurp their power, Princess Gilda replaces the 13-ball on the billiards table with an explosive replica, hoping the next shot will lead to their detonative death. But, the plan backfires as the new ball causes all sorts of unintended consequences on the table, with the cue ball never able to find its mark. Not surprisingly, the extended scene’s humor lies less in the supernatural shot-making and more in the Stooges’ waggery and banter. Favorite line from the scene is Moe accusing Curly of “using too much English,” and Curly replies, “Never speak that word in this house!.” The full episode is here, with the billiards starting at 7:20.
The Red Skelton Show – “Bums Rush” (1952)
The remainder of the 1940s proved barren for billiards, but in the early 1950s, billiards reemerged on the comedic circuit, first starting with “The Sultan” episode of The Red Skelton Show. The “Bums Rush” sketch (which starts at 17:48 here) features the inaugural appearance of Skelton’s hobo clown character, Freddie the Freeloader. There’s no pool played, as all the action is situated outside a nameless pool hall, after Freddie gets ejected by the owner for pickpocketing several billiards balls. Most of the sketch involves sight gags (e.g., Skelton diving head first into a trash can) or zinging one-liners (e.g., “I was born very poor…I didn’t even have a father or a mother.”) that would induce Dad-joke groans today. The sketch ends with Freddie outwitting the owner and running back into the pool hall, only to exit again, this time drenched, having experienced first-hand that the “pool” refers to a swimming pool. Ba dum tss!
The Abbott and Costello Show – “Las Vegas” (1953)
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello cemented their comedic immortality in the early 1940s with their radio sketch, “Who’ On First?,” that displayed their trademark ratatat wordplay, misunderstandings, memorable catchphrases, and impeccable timing. A decade plus later, they pivoted from baseball to billiards in the “Las Vegas” television episode, where Lou Costello competes in a hotel pool game. His opponent, Julius Caesar, keeps suggesting spectacularly-sized wagers that cause Costello to – literally – lose his cue stick. It’s a sight gag that wouldn’t work today, but under the physical contortionism of Costello, it’s perfect. And, when the side-betting gets subsumed by a conversation about horse racing terminology, in which Costello mistakes a horse who can run well in the mud (a mudder) as ‘mother’ and the food that is fed to a horse (its fodder) as ‘father,’ well, now we’re in the Billiards Comedy Hall of Fame. The scene, which starts at 18:30, is available here.
The Colgate Comedy Hour – “Pool Hall” with Martin and Lewis (1955)
While “Pool Hall” may be best remembered for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’ heartfelt rendition of the popular standard “Side by Side,” it also offers a very entertaining billiard sketch that is classic Martin and Lewis interplay and humor. Inside a nameless pool hall, Dino is preparing to make his final shot, when a rain-drenched Jerry enters and unwittingly proceeds to make a mess of the game. Ever the innocent man-child, Jerry accidentally interferes with shots, pours water on the table, and gets chalk powder everywhere. Straight-man Dino can barely hold it together, subtly fuming (while in character) and almost cracking up (out of character, as entertained by Lewis as the audience is). The full episode is available to watch here. “Pool Hall” was among the last sketches from The Colgate Comedy Hour before the series changed its name to The Colgate Variety Hour to reflect a move away from pure comedy.
Take a Good Look (1960)
From 1959-1961, ABC aired the game show Take a Good Look created by and starring comedian Ernie Kovacs. An odd show in which a panel of celebrities attempt to guess a secret about a seemingly ordinary person brought onstage, the clever spark was the short comedy sketches that vaguely revealed hints to the guest’s identity. Such is the case in this sketch where Frankenstein (Kovacs) and Dracula (Bobby Lauher) compete in a game of billiards. Dracula talks a big game and shows off his knowledge of spin to Vampiress, but it’s Frankenstein who turns out to be the real pool shark. He pockets 14 of 15 balls on the break. The last one bounces out of the overstuffed pocket only then to be crushed by a monster’s hand that emerges from the table.
A Shot in the Dark (1964)
It only took one year for Peter Sellers to follow his side-splitting performance in The Pink Panther with its sequel, A Shot in the Dark. Reprising his role as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, Sellers doubles-down on the character’s ineptitude, pompous personality, and exaggerated French accent. This time, those traits are on glorious display as he competes in a game of three-cushion billiards against the millionaire Monsieur Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders). Sellers is a master of sight gags; nobody can quite make a mess of a billiards cue stick stand like he can, and his attempts to play with a curved cue stick remain brilliant 60 years later. But, it’s his genteel observation – “I appear to have grazed your billiard table” – after slashing the baize with his cue stick that makes this scene positively memorable.
Turn-On (1969)
Cancelled before the first episode aired on the West Coast, Turn-On was the ahead-of-its-time brainchild of George Schlatter, producer of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In. The conceptual TV show was packed full of short clips, rapid movements, and controversial topics. But, after a horrified programmer at WEWS in Cleveland shut off the show on live television, stating the remainder of the program would “not be seen this evening…or ever,” the lights were permanently turned off for Turn-On. Those banned episodes have since surfaced on YouTube, and scattered among the non-linear sketches, multimedia assaults, and nonsensical nonsequiturs, are random clips – just a few seconds each – of a well-endowed woman shooting pool and making the balls obediently march in all sorts of directions. (An example is at 0:46 in the first episode.) Variations of this sketch (?) appear throughout the short-lived series. Hey, it was 1969 – what better time in billiards history to Turn-On, tune in, drop out, and pocket a shot.
The Tommy Cooper Hour – “Tommy Cooper’s Christmas” (1973)
Today, the 6’4” fez-wearing Welsh comedian and magician Tommy Cooper may be best remembered for suffering a fatal heart attack on live TV, but in the mid-1970s, he was one of the most recognized entertainers in the world, due to his popular TV shows. The Christmas episode of the short-lived The Tommy Cooper Hour features the “Make or Break” sketch, which is intended to pit two Scottish snooker players against one another. However, there is a mix-up, and Thomas Cooper, amateur golf champion, shows up, instead of Terrence Cooper, amateur snooker champion. The sketch mocks the formality of snooker and its peculiar lexicon and rituals, and then draws comparisons between snooker and golf. (“Snooker is a game with balls and a sort of stick.” “That’s golf,” replies Cooper.) Such jokes elicit a grimace, maybe a chuckle, and then a half-gasp after Cooper magically balances two billiard balls on the tip of a cue stick. But, the skit ends on a high note when the real retired world snooker champion Joe Davis shows up (in all his Tartan glory) and proceeds to play the sport as if it’s golf by standing on the baize and swinging at the balls. The full episode is here. The sketch starts at 24:16.
The Carol Burnett Show – “1908 World Championship Match” (1978)
With 70 Emmy nominations and 25 Emmy wins, The Carol Burnett Show helped cement Carol Burnett as a comedian supernova. Buried within the variety show’s 279 episodes is a brief billiards sketch that unfortunately does not feature the eponymous star. As the name suggests, “1908 World Championship Match” is a competition between two players, TCBS regular Ken Conway and special guest Ken Berry. With its sepia filter and vaudeville music, the sketch harkens to the silent film era and re-introduces the physical antics of earlier sketches referenced in this post. Conway and Berry never actually play pool; the attempt to determine who should shoot first (this was before lagging for break became a norm) goes awry as Conway keeps accusing Berry of cheating. Tempers flare, and soon the players are antagonizing one another with an escalating assortment of dirty tricks. The sketch is amusing, though the real prize is watching Berry’s effortless acrobatics as he somesalts off the billiards table or into a crowd of onlookers. The sketch is available to watch here.
Laugh-In (1978)
Unfortunately, the original Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a countercultural landmark in sketch comedy, does not feature any billiards; however, Laugh-In, the short-lived revival series from the late-’70s does, and it’s pretty unfunny. It seems the series’ producer, George Schlatter, opted to fish in the well of his cancelled show Turn-On and recycle the random billiards snippets. Throughout the February 1, 1978 episode are a running series of 5-second clips (i.e., 05:17, 19:29, 35:55, 42:45) with Ben Powers attempting to play pool, and the balls thwarting his efforts by splitting apart, popping out of pockets, and getting stuck on his cue stick. It’s just bad. There is nothing risque or amusing. The episode was at least somewhat saved by a young unknown cast member named Robin Williams (before he blew up on Mork & Mindy), the singing of Tina Turner, and special guest Jimmy Stewart.
As the 1970s faded into memory, the Me Decade would usher in a whole new set of billiard sketches, including The Muppet Show – “Cross Country Billiards” (1980), Not the Nine O’Clock News – “Smith and Jones: Snooker Tournament” (1981), and The Cannon & Ball Show – “Invisible Snooker” (1982), but that’s a topic for a different day’s blog post.
