Works by Phyllis Allen (6)

Fatty's Magic Pants/Fatty's Suitless Day

Fatty wants to take a dame to a tango whirl, but he has two problems. First, a dress suit is required and he has none. Worse, the dame's notion of dance seems limited to shimmying like a floozy. So when a dude comes along sporting formal duds, and who has no problem with the dame's shimmy, she drops Fatty to jump on this dude's jock. So good riddance, Fatty's problems are solved, and he lives happily ever after - right? Of course not. We paid to see Fatty suffer, and won't be satisfied until he's dragged down lower than us - so we can have a good laugh. Best of all, we get to see him dance.This was reworked into 1916's The Waiters Ball.

Fatty and Mabel's Simple Life

Modern science has yet to determine the precise sequence of events in the origin of the Loonyverse, but a general consensus has formed around this work. For the first 13 minutes of this remake of Those Country Kids, the humor stays around the level of Lumière's 1895 The Sprayer Sprayed (L'Arroseur arrosé): so slow and painfully corny that the cows protested that the stupidity was beneath their dignity. The only break in the drudgery is a rare glimpse at a dapper Al St. John (minus his clownish rube garb), who was surprisingly handsome beneath the makeup and mugging. But then, by some mysterious comic alchemy, the energy leaps exponentially as soon as Mabel dons a funny hat and cheerfully tosses a suitcase out one window, sending Roscoe crashing through another window, and the two of them steal Al's self-driving and self-willed car - starting a chase that pushes the silliness out of Keystone-realm into Comique-surreal. Clearly, this is such stuff as toons are made on.

Fatty's Plucky Pup

Starts with a clever sketch that was reused two years later in an extended, and even funnier, form in The Rough House. Then moves on to a dull rework of the 1895 The Sprayer Sprayed, and we're forced to wait 7 minutes before the pup in the title appears and shows off his speed, agility, and acting skills. Midway in the film, with no lead-in or link, the Rescued By Rover adventure finally begins, and the star shines with his dope speed, jumps/climbing, and enthusiasm. No doubt about it: Luke was The Dog. In addition, we get “special” effects that add the cartoonish touch that later characterized the Comique works.