In this never-aired radio pilot episode for a proposed Laurel and
Hardy weekly radio series that never came to fruition, Laurel and Hardy are butchers who work
for Mr. Slayer. On a delivery run, they mistakenly wind up at the home
of some gangsters, who mistake them for a pair of hired hit men they've
been waiting for. Soon after, the police arrive and arrest everybody,
including The Boys.
As in the films they were making at Fox
at the time, The Boys are once again cast as mental midgets who
unwittingly get mixed up with gangsters. A few gags from their later
films pop up in a police grilling scene. When an officer tells The Boys
they'd better start talking, they immediately begin to chat with each
other ("What do you want to talk about, Stan?" - "I don't care, what
would you like to talk about?"), which was one of the more amusing gags
from THE BIG NOISE.
They also reprise the song "Mairzy Doats" from the same film.
It doesn't sound like Stan
wrote the script. Too much of the dialogue is devoted to descriptions
of killings, cutting off heads, and dipping bodies in boiling water,
and most of this talk comes from Stan and Ollie. At the same time,
there is a nice feeling behind the sketch, in that Stan and Ollie
drive everybody
else crazy while they remain blissfully unaware of the reality of their
situation. There are also a few funny lines lines, such as when Stan
asks
the Warden for an extra key to his cell; he likes to take a walk
after
dinner, Ollie helpfully explains.