Gallagher and Shean
Encyclopedia
Double act
A double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic pairing in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...
on vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Edward Gallagher
Edward Gallagher
Edward Gallagher was a vaudeville actor and half of the act Gallagher and Shean. Their story was told in an animated movie Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer who also created Koko the Clown and Betty Boop...
(1873 - March 28, 1929) and Al Shean
Al Shean
Al Shean was the stage name for comedian Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg, although other sources give his birth name variously as Adolf Schönberg, Albert Schönberg, or Alfred Schönberg. He is most remembered for being half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the Marx...
(real name Albert Schoenberg) (May 12, 1868 - August 12, 1949).
Career
The comedians led separate careers in the vaudeville tradition, but it was when they teamed up that they gained popularity. Gallagher and Shean first joined forces during the tour of The Rose Maid in 1912, but they quarreled and split up two years later. They next appeared together in 1920, through the efforts of Shean's sister, Minnie MarxMinnie Marx
Miene Schönberg Marx was the mother and manager of the Marx Brothers, wife of Sam Marx, and the sister of vaudeville star Al Shean...
(mother of the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
). This pairing lasted until 1925 and led to their fame.
Gallagher and Shean remain best known for their theme song "Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean
Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean
"Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean" is one of the most famous songs to come from vaudeville. First performed by the duo of Gallagher and Shean in the early 1920s, it became a huge hit and carried Gallagher & Shean to stardom....
", which was a hit in the 1922 Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
. Bryan Foy, son of stage star Eddie Foy
Eddie Foy
Eddie Foy, Sr. , was an actor, comedian, dancer and vaudevillian.-Early years:...
and eldest member of the "Seven Little Foys", claimed to have written the song, but it is officially attributed to Gallagher and Shean. The song endured in popularity and was regularly tweaked and updated with additional verses, so several different versions of the song are still extant. The song was recorded by Gallagher and Shean as two-sides of a 10" 78rpm record in 1922 for Victor records. It was also recorded on Okeh Records by The Happiness Boys
The Happiness Boys
The Happiness Boys was a popular radio program of the early 1920s. It featured the vocal duo of tenor Billy Jones and bass/baritone Ernie Hare who sang novelty songs.-Career:...
(Billy Jones
Billy Jones (singer)
William Reese Jones was a tenor who recorded during the 1920s and 1930s, finding fame as a radio star on The Happiness Boys radio program....
and Ernie Hare
Ernie Hare
Thomas Ernest Hare was a bass/baritone who recorded prolifically during the 1920s and 1930s, finding fame as a radio star on The Happiness Boys radio program.-Career:...
) and on Cameo Records by Irving and Jack Kaufman. When performed by other artists it was usually preceded with this introductory lyric:
- There are two funny men
- The best I've ever seen
- One is Mr. Gallagher
- And the other Mr. Shean
- When these two cronies meet
- Why it surely is a treat
- The things they say
- And the things they do
- And the funny way they greet...
The song was extremely popular and well remembered: a pastiche was included in The Cabaret Girl
The Cabaret Girl
The Cabaret Girl is a musical comedy in three acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by George Grossmith, Jr. and P. G. Wodehouse. It was produced by Grossmith and J. A. E...
, a 1922 musical produced in London, a parody of it was recorded by Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
and Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...
in the late 1930s, another parody was performed by Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
and Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
(who was Al Shean's nephew) on television in 1967, and Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
was able to make an offhanded reference to it in his nightclub act of the 1960s, all of them confident that audiences would recognize it right away.
With occasional exceptions, each verse of the song ended with Gallagher speaking a punchline, followed by Shean singing "Absolutely, Mister Gallagher?" and Gallagher replying "Positively, Mister Shean!". This cross-talk format continues to be imitated, parodied and referenced for audiences who may have no knowledge of the original. Cartoonist Bobby London
Bobby London
Bobby London is an American underground comix and mainstream comics artist.-Biography:London created his underground newspaper comic strip Merton, in his native New York in 1969 and the raunchy Dirty Duck strip in 1971...
depicted his characters Dirty Duck
Dirty Duck (comix character)
Dirty Duck is a fictional character created by underground comix artist Bobby London. He first appeared in an unsigned "basement" strip that ran underneath Dan O'Neill's syndicated Odd Bodkins strip in 1970, and later in Air Pirates Funnies #1 .-Publication history:London created the Dirty Duck...
and Weevil telling each other "Posilutely, Weevil!" "Absotively, Mr. Duck!". In the 1960s an Australian cleaning product "Mister Sheen" launched a successful TV campaign using the original tune with new lyrics ("Oh, Mr. Sheen, Oh, Mr. Sheen"); as did a 1990s radio commercial for Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes Inc. is a Stamford, Connecticut-based manufacturer of software and hardware and a provider of services related to documents, packaging, mailing, and shipping, collectively referred to as mailstream. The company has approximately 36,000 employees worldwide. It is one of 87 existing...
office equipment: "Absolutely, Mister Pitney!" "Positively, Mister Bowes!"
Capitalizing on the post-King Tut craze for everything Egyptian, Gallagher and Shean appeared in Egyptian dress (Gallagher in the pith helmet and white suit of the tourist, Shean in the fez and oddly skirted jacket of a "native" Egyptian colonial).
Later life and career
In 1921, they were sued by the Shubert organization for breach of contract. According to Shubert, they could not perform for the competing Ziegfeld Follies. The case claimed that Gallagher and Shean's act was "unique and irreplaceable". The comedians' defense was that their act was mediocre, and the judge initially found in their favor, although the decision was later reversed.For a time in the 1920s, Gallagher was involved with his protegee, vivacious French-Canadian dancer Fifi D'Orsay
Fifi D'Orsay
-Biography:Born Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Quebec, as a young typist, filled with the desire to become an actress, she went to New York City. There, she found work in The Greenwich Village Follies after an audition in which she sang the song "Yes, We Have No Bananas' in French...
. In 1925, inventor Theodore Case
Theodore Case
Theodore Willard Case known for the invention of the Movietone sound-on-film sound film system, was born into a prominent family in Auburn, New York.-Family history:...
made a short film of them in his sound-on-film
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
process at his Auburn, New York
Auburn, New York
Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 27,687...
studio --however, the film was lost in a fire at the Auburn studio in the mid-1950s. In August 1931, Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
released a short cartoon Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean as part of the Fleischer Screen Songs
Screen Songs
Screen Songs is the name of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. They were revived by Famous Studios in 1945 starting with the Noveltoon Old MacDonald Had a Farm....
series. In this short, Jack Kenny (1886-1964) did the voice of Gallagher.
Gallagher and Shean often had personal differences during their partnership. The constant backstage hostilities inspired Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
to incorporate them into his successful show-business-themed comedy The Sunshine Boys
The Sunshine Boys
The Sunshine Boys is a play by Neil Simon that was produced on Broadway in 1972 and later adapted for film and television.-Plot:The play focuses on aging Al Lewis and Willy Clark, a one-time vaudevillian team known as "Lewis and Clark" who, over the course of forty-odd years, not only grew to hate...
.
Ed Gallagher died in 1929; Al Shean worked occasionally thereafter as a solo character actor. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
musical Ziegfeld Girl
Ziegfeld Girl (film)
Ziegfeld Girl is a 1941 American film starring James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, and Lana Turner, and co-starring Tony Martin, Jackie Cooper, Eve Arden, and Philip Dorn. Released by MGM, it was directed by Robert Z...
(1941) features a re-creation of Gallagher and Shean's act, with Al Shean in his familiar role and costume, and character actor Charles Winninger
Charles Winninger
Charles Winninger was an American stage and film actor, most often cast in comedies or musicals, but equally at home in drama.-Biography:He began as a vaudeville actor...
portraying Gallagher.