As I watched the new Laurel & Hardy DVD collections reviewed on this page, it occurred to me that comedy teams have gone the way of VHS tapes.
In fact, unless parents have shared their favorites, I wonder if young people today even know what a comedy team is.
Something like "The Benchwarmers" doesn't really cut it, although the film is an obvious attempt to do a modern Three Stooges-type farce. It's really just a one-time teaming of three solo comic actors — David Spade, Rob Schneider and Jon Heder.
In that regard, it's more akin to the "Ghostbusters" films, which teamed Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson as a foursome, which was a one-shot (well, OK, a two-shot).
A great many "Saturday Night Live" alumni besides Spade and Schneider, and Murray and Aykroyd, have occasionally gotten together for movies, but the closest thing to a real comedy-team effort was "Spies Like Us" (1985) with Aykroyd and Chevy Chase.
That picture was an acknowledged homage to the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope "Road" movies. But Hope & Crosby weren't really a team either; they were solo performers who occasionally got together for a film franchise.
In fact, the last comedy teams to achieve any real fame were Rowan & Martin and Allen & Rossi back in the 1960s. And their claim to fame was television.
In fact, Dan Rowan & Dick Martin did only two movies — and they were 11 years apart: "Once Upon a Horse" (1958) and "The Maltese Bippy" (1969). And Marty Allen & Steve Rossi did only one film, "The Last of the Secret Agents?" (1966).
Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, on the other hand, made 100 movies as a team over 23 years, 27 features and many silent and sound shorts (usually about 20 minutes each).
The Three Stooges — with Larry Fine and Moe Howard, and a third Stooge played by various actors over the years (Curly Howard, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser and Joe DeRita) — came to films in the early sound era and made 190 shorts over the act's 50-year tenure, though they also showed up in occasional features.
The Marx Brothers hit it big in the movies in the 1930s, first as a foursome (with Zeppo), but mostly as a trio — Groucho, Chico and Harpo. And though there are only 13 Marx Brothers films, they remain one of the most popular teams ever.
Burns & Allen — George & Gracie — made a handful of films but earned their greatest stardom on radio and television.
Abbott & Costello, like the Stooges and the Marxes and Burns & Allen, came out of vaudeville and burlesque and had some radio success before taking the film industry by storm in the 1940s. Bud Abbott & Lou Costello were together for 25 years and starred in 36 films.
And the last major movie comedy team was Martin & Lewis — and they were the only team where each went on to solo superstardom after breaking up. In their decade together, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis starred in 16 films.
Other popular teams that made movies include the Ritz Brothers, the Wiere Brothers, Olsen & Johnson and Wheeler & Woolsey.
It's true that Oliver Hardy, Moe Howard — even Lou Costello — had solo movie roles here and there, but they remain beloved by legions for their team work.
It's a long-lost art form that is sorely missed. Each team listed above had a magical comic chemistry that we may never see again.
E-mail: hicks@desnews.com