{"id":2122,"date":"2026-10-18T22:12:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T15:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2026-10-18T22:12:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T15:12:51","slug":"how-whos-on-first-became-a-comedy-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/?p=2122","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Who\u2019s on First?\u2019 Became a Comedy Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2018Who\u2019s on First?\u2019 Becomes a National Hit<\/h2>\n

The sketch followed a vaudeville tradition of skits featuring discombobulating wordplay and confusing names. Abbott said it grew out of one called \u201cWho\u2019s the Boss?\u201d But the rapid-fire delivery, Abbott\u2019s imperturbable demeanor and Costello\u2019s increasingly manic frustration combined to make it a breakout hit that surpassed its predecessors and propelled the duo to stardom.<\/p>\n

But, like Rege, not everybody took to it immediately. In February 1938, Abbott and Costello were signed as cast members for the popular \u201cKate Smith Hour<\/a>\u201d radio program. Despite Costello\u2019s entreaties, Smith\u2019s manager, Tom Collins, resisted his pleas to perform the routine.<\/p>\n

As Chris Costello, Lou\u2019s daughter and the author of the memoir\u00a0Lou\u2019s on First<\/i><\/a>, explains, her father decided to be devious:<\/p>\n

\u201cDad said, \u2018Well, guess what, Ted? I\u2019m so sorry. We\u2019re not going to be able to go on tonight because we\u2019ve exhausted every routine we brought with us.\u2019 And Ted said, \u2018No, you\u2019ve got to go on tonight. I don\u2019t care what you do. Do that stupid baseball thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That performance, on March 24, 1938, introduced the routine to a national audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to the woman who ran the switchboard for the radio station, and she told me it lit up like a Christmas tree,\u201d says Chris Costello.<\/p>\n

Joe DiMaggio Was a Fan<\/h2>\n

Among the skit\u2019s fans was none other than\u00a0Joe DiMaggio<\/a>, the legendary New York Yankees center fielder who would later\u00a0marry Marilyn Monroe<\/a>. DiMaggio\u2019s own major league career was getting underway around the same time Abbott and Costello were gaining popularity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI interviewed Dorothy Arnold, who was DiMaggio\u2019s first wife, for my book,\u201d Chris Costello says. \u201cShe said, \u2018Joe had no sense of humor. None at all. The only time that man laughed was when he would put the record on of Who\u2019s on First, and then he would just be bellowing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The duo\u2019s success on the \u201cKate Smith Hour\u201d helped propel them to Hollywood, where Universal Pictures cast them in their first film, \u201cOne Night in the Tropics<\/a>\u201d (1940). Although the movie was ostensibly a vehicle for leading man\u00a0Allan Jones<\/a>, Abbott and Costello stole the show with a performance that included an abbreviated version of \u201cWho\u2019s on First?\u201d<\/p>\n

On occasion, explains Chris Costello, they would adapt the material for their audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they went to London the first time to do the London Palladium back in 1950, they realized, \u2018Hey, wait a minute, the Brits aren\u2019t gonna know about baseball,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cDad would say that you could take any sport and it would still work. Well, they didn\u2019t know soccer enough to use the positions in a soccer team, so they used the members of the orchestra at the Palladium instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of the sketch launched Abbott and Costello into stardom. Their second movie,\u00a0Buck Privates<\/i><\/a>\u00a0(1941), featured the\u00a0Andrews Sisters<\/a>\u00a0and earned $4 million (approximately $91 million in 2026 dollars) at the box office. In total, they made 36 motion pictures between 1940 and 1956, including a series of comedy-horror films in which they encountered\u00a0Frankenstein\u2019s monster<\/a>, the Invisible Man and the Mummy. They had their own radio show throughout the 1940s and a TV show from 1952 to 1954.<\/p>\n

By the mid-1950s, Abbott and Costello\u2019s star had waned. A combination of overexposure and the rise of new comedy duos, notably\u00a0Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis<\/a>, shunted them out of the spotlight. They formally split in 1957. Just two years later, Costello, who had battled rheumatic fever since 1943, died of a heart attack at age 52.<\/p>\n

The Legacy of \u2018Who\u2019s on First?\u2019<\/h2>\n

Their legacy, however, endures, and their most famous skit is celebrated to this day.<\/p>\n

In 1999,\u00a0Time<\/i>\u00a0magazine named \u201cWho\u2019s on First?\u201d the best comedy routine of the 20th century. In 2005, the American Film Institute\u00a0included<\/a>\u00a0the line \u201cWho\u2019s on First?\u201d on its list of the 100 most memorable movie quotations. In 1956, Abbott and Costello donated a gold record of the sketch to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where a video of the performance from\u00a0The Naughty Nineties<\/i>\u00a0has long played on a continuous loop.<\/p>\n

Finally, in 2007, the sketch came true. When Taiwanese infielder Chin-lung Hu reached first base on a single for the Los Angeles Dodgers, legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully\u00a0declared<\/a>, \u201cShades of Abbott and Costello, I can finally say, \u2018Hu is on first base.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Who\u2019s on First?\u2019 Becomes a National Hit The sketch followed a vaudeville tradition of skits featuring discombobulating wordplay and confusing names. Abbott said it grew out of one called \u201cWho\u2019s the Boss?\u201d But the rapid-fire delivery, Abbott\u2019s imperturbable demeanor and Costello\u2019s increasingly manic frustration combined to make it a breakout hit that surpassed its predecessors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chua-phan-loai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2123,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}