My grandparents got me a copy of
Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection for my birthday. It must have been a preorder, because I didn't get it until yesterday.
Anyhow, the thing's spendy but fucking gorgeous. It's 10 DVD's, featuring the entire Hal Roach run of talkies, and the packaging is really nice, resembling a bound book with discs between the pages. Each page has a description of the shorts and features on the discs, their basic plot and their significance. Really, really nice stuff.
Last night I watched
Night Owls, and it was delightful. It's clearly one of their early talkies, and it's striking in its contrast between silence and sound -- in this short, the duo are trying to break into a house, and keep making loud noises. The setup's about as simple as they come, but it's a wonderful little time capsule, combining silent-era physical comedy with gags that could only work in a talkie.
Brilliant shit and still funny 80 years later. Dunno when Netflix will have this available but it's worth checking out when they do, and if you can spare $65 it's recommended.
It's funny -- my girlfriend's sister had a baby some months back, and I think the biggest compliment I can offer all-ages media is "In a few years, I'm going to share this with my nephew."
My nephew will be the only kid on the playground who knows who Laurel and Hardy are. I am cool with that.