Monday, June 19, 2006

Wayne & Shuster


Welcome to that well-known comedy team of Wayne and… er… the well-known comedy team of Wayne and… er…
Shuster
Well I guess you're not that well-known.
Will you get on with it, Frank?
Hey I'm John, you're Frank.
Well, I guess you're not that well known, either.
We'll be right back, whoever we are…

Ah yes, the mid 1980's, and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) had a TV Formula. Once you have a Formula, no need to change a thing, just stick with it and everything will be A-OK. Thus it was that an entire generation or two of Australian kids could come home from school, turn on the TV and expect to see half an hour of comedy (Metal Mickey, The Goodies, Spike Milligan's Q8, Degrassi Junior High…) followed by half an hour of being scared out of their wits by Doctor Who.

And the greatest of these comedies was… Wayne and Shuster.

It seems strange now that we as kids never realised that Wayne & Shuster were old then. It was funny, you couldn't miss it, and you could tape record it in audio format (video recorders - who had them!? They cost the same as a car!) It was only some years later I was browsing the web and discovered that Wayne & Shuster were famous radio comedians who used to broadcast during the second world war! At first I thought I had the wrong Canadian Comedy Duo but no, it was them alright. It is a tribute to their skill at their craft that all those years later, a new generation still found them very funny.

So, here's the begging part: I have managed to track down four of their most famous recordings, to which I have provided links at the bottom of this post. Listen to them, download them, whatever, I'm sure you will enjoy them immensely. In return, please please please please, someone out their in cyberspace must have more of their comedy skits. I particularly want to listen to 'The Quiet Stranger' western spoof again, but I'd be grateful for any of their skits. No huge bandwidth requirements, don't worry about the video, just the audio track will do. Please please please please, someone out there, take pity on me and send some more Wayne & Shuster my way.

Links
Museum of Broadcast Communication entry
Wayne & Shuster - Shakespearean Baseball Game
Wayne & Shuster - I Was a TV Addict
Wayne & Shuster - Rinse the Blood Off My Toga
Wayne & Shuster - Frontier Psychiatrist

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You posted a comment in my W&S entry (the hockey one).

Unfortunately, I only have that one and "I Was a TV Addict" on cassette tape. A friend had sent them to me after taping them off a set she borrowed from the library.

But thanks very much for the links to those W&S ones. I've been wanting to hear more, but they're hard to come by!