The Abbott & Costello Show - The Complete Series Collector's Edition (1952) goes on sale on March 30th. The 9 DVD set of the complete series has recently had a price drop on Amazon from $59.98 to $38.99. This is an amazing price for the re-mastered complete set of the great TV series and is a must have for any Bud and Lou fan. It can be pre-ordered today.
The Abbott and Costello Show, a half-hour television sitcom starring the popular comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello that premiered in syndication in the fall of 1952 and ran until the spring of 1954. It is regarded among the most influential comedy programs in history. In 1998Entertainment Weekly praised the series as one of the "100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time." In 2007, Time magazine selected it as one of the "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME."
The show was a vehicle to bring the duo's tried and true burlesque routines to television in a format that the team could control. There were none of the musical interludes or love stories that marred most of their feature films. Basically, if a situation or gag was funny, they filmed it without regard to plot, character or continuity. As a result, the show became a valuable record of classic burlesque scenes performed by one of the greatest comedy teams to come out of burlesque.
The supporting cast included Sidney Fields as their landlord; Hillary Brooke as a neighbor and sometime love interest; Gordon Jones as Mike the Cop, a dimwitted foil for the boys; Joe Besser as Stinky, a 40-year-old man dressed in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit; and Joe Kirk (Costello's brother-in-law) as Mr. Bacciagalupe, an Italian immigrant caricature who held a variety of jobs depending upon the requirements of the script. Several episodes featured a pet chimp named "Bingo", who was dressed exactly the same as Costello. Bingo, who was a female chimp, was fired from the show after biting Costello. Brooke, Besser, and Kirk also left the cast after the first season.
The program lasted two seasons (52 episodes) and was directed and produced by Jean Yarbrough. The first season episodes are considered to be far superior to those of the second, which introduced a more traditional (and restrictive) sitcom approach, often featuring "unhappy" endings. Most of the scripts for the first season were written by Sid Fields after Eddie Forman wrote the early establishing episodes. Episodes in the second season were written by Jack Townley, Felix Adler or Clyde Bruckman.(synopsis from Wikipedia)
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