Who's On First?

Who's on First? is a legendary comedy routine made famous by the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, and for which they are arguably now best remembered. The premise of the routine is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team to Costello, but their nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello's questions.

Bonus: Hear the routine in MP3 format courtesy of VOANews

"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). By the early 1930s, a "Baseball Routine" had become a standard bit for burlesque comics across the country.

Shortly after Abbott and Costello teamed up, they honed the sketch, using the nicknames of then-contemporary baseball players like Dizzy and Daffy Dean (and their alleged French cousin, Goofé) to set up the premise. Later, burlesque producer John Grant, who became the team's head writer, helped them refine it further. By 1944, Abbott and Costello had the routine copyrighted. Still, there have been dubious claims by at least half a dozen others to the authorship (or co-authorship) of the sketch. It is worth noting that these "collaborators" only began appearing after Bud's death in 1974, when they couldn't be challenged.

It was said that Abbott and Costello had performed "Who's On First?" 15,000 times in their careers, and rarely was it performed the same way twice. Once, they did the routine at President Roosevelt's request. It 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 TV series 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. (Abbott and Costello are not, as some urban legends have it, members of the Hall of Fame itself.)

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' National Recording Archives in 2003.

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

Canada's first ever all comedy radio channel CFHA located in Saint John NB chose this routine as the first sketch aired on their station. 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 Give a Darn

The name of the shortstop is not given until the very end of the routine, and the right fielder is never identified, though an interpretation of the transcript could give his name as Naturally.

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.

Cultural References

The theme has been reprised many times. In particular:

• 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?), and replacing Hu Yaobang with Hu Jintao.
• The 1960s comedy group The Credibility Gap recorded a variant in which a rock concert promoter (Harry Shearer) attempts to advertise a concert, headlined by The Who, The Guess Who, and Yes in the Los Angeles Times. When the advertising manager David L. Lander asks him why he doesn't simply write the ad copy down, Shearer closes the routine by saying, "If I could write, I wouldn't have had to steal this bit!"
• In the animated series Animaniacs, a musical variant was performed with Slappy and Skippy Squirrel having a similarly confusing conversation at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 about the rock bands, The Who, The Band, and Yes.
• The 1988 Oscar-winning movie Rain Man also heavily references the sketch. The movie's main character, Raymond (played by Dustin Hoffman), who is autistic, uses the comedy routine as a defense mechanism when others become upset with him or something doesn't go his way.
• On The Simpsons, in the 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 seconds into the act, putting the act to a quick end. ("Not the pronoun but a player with the unlikely name of Who, is on first.")
• On another episode of The Simpsons entitled "Insane Clown Poppy", Krusty the Klown provides entertainment for soldiers in the Gulf War (where he himself is a parody of Bob Hope). He indicates Saddam Hussein cannot be assassinated because he is an integral part of Krusty's comedy act. He then begins with a sample: "Hussein's on first, Ayatollah's on second..."
• 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 soundlike questions.")
• In 2000 the new restaurant, "Momo's", across from then Pac Bell Park in San Francisco, featured in several billboard ads the phrase "What's On Second [Street]?"
• CanWest Global Park, a baseball stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba, features a Chinese restaurant down the first-base line called "Hu's on First."
• British comedy double act Vic and Bob have also adapted the concept into their quiz show Shooting Stars which involved variants of the skit, including Mortimer asking the questions, "A dog has puppies, but what was the name of the mother" and "What (i.e. Watt) is the unit of electrical power?" which naturally serves as its own answer. Reeves takes on Costello's role in utterly missing the point of the trick question.
• On their ESPN Classic series Cheap Seats, Randy and Jason Sklar performed a parody of the routine in response to a clip about the planned community of Rotonda, Florida, in which seven golf courses were in development, to be named after the days of the week. Confusion ensues, with one brother tricking the other into thinking that he won't be able to find out the names of the courses until the designated day ("What's the name of the second course?" "I'll tell you...Monday."). Fed up, he unleashes a string of bleeped profanities, to which the straight man replies, "Oh, that's the name of our driving range!"
• The sketch is a popular piece for oral interpretation classes and courses.
• Garfield and Friends paid tribute to the sketch in a U.S. Acres segment titled "Who Done It", in which Orson hires the services of three canine brothers named Who, What, and Where. The trio's odd names cause much confusion and aggravation when they introduce themselves to Royand Wade, and later Orson's brothers.
• MAD magazine printed a modernized version of the sketch in which the duo attempt to organize MTV's music video library, which proves to be difficult because Costello takes Abbott's stating the song titles and band names literally.
• Comedy duo Slovin & Allen performed a parody of the routine in the late 1990s using real names of New York Yankees players - Tino Martinez, Chuck Knoblauch, and Scott Brosius. The routine was otherwise unchanged.
• In Living Colour did a parody with this involving Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan.
• In the Invasion of the Neptune Men episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, similar confusion arose between Mike, and Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. Mike is trying to explain the concept of Japanese Noh theater, without much success. ("They have lots of theater, including Noh theater!" "So they have lots of theater and they have no theater?" "Exactly!")