The New Humor: Ethnic Acts and Family Acts

Abstract

Standard vaudeville acts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries comprised a series of specialty turns; two of the most popular were ethnic acts and family acts. These acts included a wide range of comic routines, such as the straight and the Jew; the single, double, or triple “Dutch,” “Irish” or “Wop” act; the Five Columbians; the Happy McNultys; and the Three Dolce Sisters.¹ According to vaude-villian turned historian Joe Laurie Jr., the acts popular in the early 1900s “followed a pattern of our immigration.” These ethnic immigrant acts combined Irish, Italian, German, and Jewish character types derived from popular stage entertainments of the middle to late nineteenth century, as discussed in chapter 2. Ethnic humor was not necessarily thought of as offensive in and of itself, and if we can believe Laurie’s account, the performers were aware of the stereotypes that they were perpetuating and commenting on:

And let me tell you right now that in early variety and vaude nobody took exception to the billings of the different character acts, like “The Sport and the Jew,” “Irish by Name but Coons by Birth,” “The Mick and the Policeman,” “The Merry Wop,” “Two Funny Sauerkrauts.” It was taken in good humor by the audience, because that is what everyone called each other in everyday life.²