As regular readers are painfully aware, I'm trying to get rid of eight medium-sized cardboard boxes containing thousands of promotional photos from the past. And until someone comes and takes them off my motherscratchin' hands for free, I'm going to post selections from the archive from A to Z as often as I can (which, considering I'm only on "C" is not very often). I don't know how someone could hear that and then look at a picture like this one of the Comedian Harmonists, and not come rushing down to The Pitch office to grab this treasure trove right up.
I know that to the modern eye, these crooning funnymen look like Boris Karloff at various stages of his life (and death), but back in the day, these fellas could bring the house down, punchline by melodious punchline. Their blend of close-harmony singing and joke telling paved the way for acts such as "Weird Al" Yankovic and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. In fact, they were so hilarious that King George of America decreed that they could only sing in German when they came Stateside lest they cause pregnant Protestant women to miscarry.
After the jump, a rare video of the Comedian Harmonists performing their gut-busting classic Mit jemandem ein Hühnchen zu rupfen haben. (Den Fürherfrau nehmen müssen!), or "Vy did ze chicken cross the road? (Because diener Führer's vife vas after him vit ein cleaver!)"
Other hits included...
Aus seinem Herzen keine Mördergrube machen? (Jemandem in den Sack stecken!)
"Meiner dog has no nose! How does he smell? (Awful!)."
Emandem die Hühnchenfuhrer Suppe versalzen? (Sich keine grauen Haare über etwas wachsen lassen!)
"Vat did das Führer get ven he crossed einer chicken mits einer rooster? (A bird zat gets up at ze qvack of dawn!)"
Indeed, the Comedian Harmonists discovered that the easiest way to get a German to laugh was to work in a chicken and the Führer somehow. Gets 'em every time.
Here's to these brilliant pioneers of comedy. Without them, humor simply would not have survived the Great Depression.
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