Who's on First?

For the Blackford Oakes novel, see Who's on First (novel).

Who's on First? is a vaudeville comedy routine made most famous by Abbott and Costello. In Abbott and Costello's version, the premise of the routine is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team to Costello, but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello's questions. In this context, the first baseman is named "Who"; thus, the utterance "Who's on first" is ambiguous between the question ("which person is the first baseman?") and the answer ("The name of the first baseman is 'Who'").

History

"Who's on First?" is descended from turn-of-the-century burlesque sketches like "The Baker Scene" (the shop is located on Watt Street) and "Who Dyed" (the owner is named Who). In the 1930 movie Cracked Nuts, comedians Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey examine a map of a mythical kingdom with dialogue like this: "What is next to Which." "What is the name of the town next to Which?" "Yes." In English variety halls (Britain's equivalent of vaudeville theatres), comedian Will Hay performed a routine in the early 1930s (and possibly earlier) as a schoolmaster interviewing a schoolboy named Howe who came from Ware but now lives in Wye. By the early 1930s, a "Baseball Routine" had become a standard bit for burlesque comics across the United States.

After they formally teamed up in burlesque in 1936, Abbott and Costello continued to hone the sketch. It was a big hit in 1937 when they performed the routine in a touring vaudeville revue called "Hollywood Bandwagon".

In February 1938, Abbott and Costello joined the cast of the The Kate Smith Hour radio program, and the sketch was first performed for a national radio audience that March. The routine may have been further polished before this broadcast by burlesque producer John Grant, who became the team's writer, and Will Glickman, a staff writer on the radio show. Glickman may have added the nicknames of then-contemporary baseball players like Dizzy and Daffy Dean to set up the routine's premise. This version, with extensive wordplay based on the fact that most of a fictional baseball team's players had "strange nicknames" that seemed to be questions, became known as "Who's on First?" By 1944, Abbott and Costello had the routine copyrighted.

Abbott and Costello performed "Who's on First?" numerous times in their careers, rarely performing it the same way twice. Once, they did the routine at President Roosevelt's request. The routine was featured in the team's 1940 film debut, One Night in the Tropics. The duo reprised the bit in their 1945 film The Naughty Nineties, and it is that version which is considered their finest recorded rendition. They also performed the routine numerous times on radio and television (notably in The Abbott and Costello Show episode "The Actor's Home").

In 1956 a gold record of "Who's on First?" was placed in the Baseball Hall of Fame museum in Cooperstown, New York. A video (taken from The Naughty Nineties) now plays continuously on screens at the Hall.

In the 1970s, Selchow and Righter published a Who's on First? board game.

In 1999, Time magazine named the routine Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th century.

An early radio recording was placed in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2003.

In 2005, the line "Who's on First?" was included on the American Film Institute's list of 100 memorable movie quotes.

Sketch

The names given in the routine for the players at each position are:

• First Base: Who
• Second Base: What
• Third base: I Don't Know
• Left field: Why
• Center field: Because
• Pitcher: Tomorrow
• Catcher: Today
• Shortstop: I Don't Care/I Don't Give a Darn/I Don't Give a Damn

The name of the shortstop is not given until the very end of the routine, and the right fielder is never identified. At a point in the routine, Costello thinks that Naturally is the first baseman (because naturally, Who would get the ball if it was thrown to first base). It is possible that Naturally is the right fielder, as an errant ball to first base could be fielded by the right fielder. However, in the board game, the right fielder's name is "Nobody". The skit serves as a climax for an Abbott and Costello radio broadcast which begins with Costello receiving a telegram from Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio explains that he is recovering from an operation on his foot and asks Costello to take over for him. One could infer that Costello is the unmentioned right fielder, and that the unnamed team is the New York Yankees.

Abbott's explanations leave Costello hopelessly confused and infuriated, until the end of the routine when he finally appears to catch on. "You got a couple of days on your team?" He never quite figures out that the first baseman's name literally is "Who". But after all this he announces, "I don't give a darn!" ("Oh, that's our shortstop.") That is the most commonly heard ending, which varied depending on the perceived sensibilities of the audience. The even milder "I Don't Care" was used in the version seen in the film The Naughty Nineties. A recording of the obvious "I Don't Give a Damn" has also turned up on occasion.

Writing credit

Numerous people over the years have claimed credit for writing the sketch, but such claims typically lack reasonable corroboration.

For example, in a 1993 obituary of writer Michael Musto, it stated that shortly after Abbott and Costello teamed up, they paid Musto $15 to write the script.

Furthermore, in the 1996 obituary of songwriter Irving Gordon, a claim was made that he had written the sketch.

Derivatives

The sketch has been reprised, updated, alluded to, and parodied innumerable times over the years in all forms of media. Some notable examples include:

• Abbott and Costello occasionally referred to the skit. In their film Who Done It? when their characters are trying to sort out watts and volts ("What are volts?" "That's right."), Lou cuts it short with, "Soon you'll be telling me What's on second base!" Also, at the beginning of their later film Mexican Hayride, when Costello catches up with Abbott, Costello says, "Who told me there was oil in my backyard? Who got me to sell phony stock to my friends? Who ran away with the money? Who got Mary mad at me? And if you're tired of hearing 'Who', I got a 'What' for you... on second base!"

• For a performance on June 20, 1945 Bud Abbott was ill and was unable to perform on the Walgreen's 44th anniversary radio special. Sidney Fields, in the his role as Professor Mellonhead, was the "fill-in" manager in the absence of Abbott and performed the straightman role with Lou Costello.

• Late night television host Johnny Carson gave a memorable rendition showing President Ronald Reagan being briefed by an aide. Puns were made with the names of Chinese leader Hu Yaobang (who?), of Yasser Arafat (yes, sir) and of Interior Secretary James Watt (what?). In 2003, an updated version of the routine circulated on the Internet featuring George W. Bush, replacing Watt with Kofi Annan (coffee?), identifying the aide as Condoleezza Rice (with eggroll?), Yasser Arafat ("Yes, sir." "Yassir?") and replacing Hu Yaobang with Hu Jintao.
• The comedy troupe The Credibility Gap did a rock group variation on this routine involving a promoter, played by Harry Shearer, and a newspaper advertising salesman, played by David L. Lander. The acts were The Who, The Guess Who and Yes.

• Eugene Levy and Tony Rosato also performed a variation on this theme on the TV series SCTV, with the rock groups The Band, The Who, and Yes. The final punchline changed to "This is for the birds (Byrds)!" "Oh, they split up years ago!"
• Similarly, in an episode of Animaniacs, Slappy and Skippy Squirrel attend the first Woodstock Festival, where they pay homage to the routine by confusing the names of the bands The Who, The Band, and Yes.

• An episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 features a sketch in which Mike Nelson tells Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot that his favorite form of Japanese theater is Noh theater in a way that is similar to the routine.

  Mike: No, no, wait a minute. Noh theater started in Japan.

  Servo: Oh, so now you tell us Japan doesn't have any theater whatsoever!

  Mike: They have lots of theater, including Noh theater.

  Crow: So they have lots of theater, and they have no theater?

• In Who's on First (1980), the third of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Blackford Oakes novels, the title phrase represents Sputnik 1.
• A sketch in an episode of the Canadian TV series The Kids in the Hall features an attempt to stage the act, which is foiled by a straight man (Dave Foley) who is at first inattentive, and then outsmarts the joke by explaining, in tedious detail, why the other comedian was confused. ("No no, Watt is on—oh, I see what your problem is! Look, you're confused by their names, because they all sound like questions.")

• Similarly, on The Simpsons, in the 1999 episode "Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers'", Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner try their hand at being Abbott and Costello, but Skinner botches the routine six seconds into the act with delivery of the line, "Not the pronoun but a player with the unlikely name of Who, is on first."

• In the 1988 film Rain Man, autistic protagonist Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman in an Academy Award-winning performance) repeatedly mumbles this routine when nervous or frightened.
• A Turok comic had Joshua Fireseed freeing a tribe enslaved by the evil Campaigner on the basis that he ask a riddle that the Campaigner could not answer. Fireseed, a college athlete yet unprepared for his duties as a Turok, decides to fool the Campaigner by reciting Abbott & Costello's routine then asking what is the name of the player on second base. The confused Campaigner answers "I Don't Know", to which Josh responds "Third base!"
• Broken Lizard's Kevin Heffernan and Erik Stolhanskehave done the Routine as part of their 2009 comedy tour.

Real-life parallels

• During the 2007 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers added an infielder named Chin-Lung Hu. After Hu singled in a game against the San Diego Padres, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully remarked "And Hu's on first."
• In 1920, Allie Watt played one game at second base for the Washington Senators.

External links

• Video of Abbott and Costello performing "Who's On First"?
• "Who's on First?" by Abbott and Costello - on Baseball Almanac - accessed 2008-08-28