The Waiters Ball

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The premise of 1914's Fatty's Magic Pants/Fatty's Suitless Day is ported to a hash house, where the cook and the waiter are in fierce rivalry for the fickle affections of the cashier, both trying to be the one chosen to go with her to The Waiters Ball. Along the way, the restaurant is used as a stage to showcase Roscoe's kitchen acrobatics and a variety of fast-paced comic skits.

This gem feels like a milestone in Arbuckle's growth from the often limited and flimsy material of Keystone to the wild and unhinged inventiveness of Comique. Most of the best elements of Comique-style comedy are here - even though Buster hasn't arrived yet. There's more craziness than the eye can keep up with, so the more this is viewed, the better it gets.

Metatheatrics rating (Number of smiles, winks, and other asides to the audience): 13 (Roscoe 6, Al, 6, Kate Price 1)

NOTE: Restoration posted on Internet Archive is visually better, but reconstruction posted on YouTube has additional scenes.

Online: YouTube

Related:

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.