Who's On First? - Notable Performances and Derivatives

Notable Performances and 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!"
• Abbott and Costello also performed the routine with other partners. Sid Fields filled in for Abbott on a Walgreens anniversary radio special in 1945 when Bud was ill and was unable to perform. Fields also performed with Costello in Las Vegas in 1958 after Abbott and Costello split. Abbott did the routine with his new partner, Candy Candido, in 1961.
• 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 G. 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.
• Shearer additionally plays off of the bit occasionally during his weekly radio broadcast Le Show; while imitating the voices of famous politicians having fictional conversations with each other about diplomatic visits to China, confusion ensues when discussing Chinese President Hu Jintao ("who?") and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao ("when?").

• 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 (The 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.

• Mad #378 (February 1999) included the article "Abbott & Costello Organize the MTV Videotape Library," written by Desmond Devlin and illustrated by Mort Drucker. The piece included a series of contemporary bands and songs that suited the theme (e.g. U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" or No Doubt's "Don't Speak"). An example of the article's banter:

Costello: I'll write it down. Let's start with this Tracy Chapman video. Tell me the name of the song.

Abbott: "Give Me One Reason."

Costello: I told you, so I can write it down. Now, tell me which Tracy Chapman song this is, please.

Abbott: "Give Me One Reason."

Costello: We're six months behind on the rent. You need a better reason? ...Here's a bunch of Alanis Morissette tapes, but they're all mixed up. Which song is this one?

Abbott: "You Oughta Know."

Costello: I don't know the names of the songs. Which song is this!?

Abbott: "You Oughta Know!"

Costello: But I DON'T know! What about this other Alanis Morissette video?

Abbott: It's "Ironic."

Costello: It's ironic that I don't know the name of the video?

• 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.
• In the Newbery Medal-winning book The Westing Game, the restaurant in Sunset Towers owned by James Shin Hoo and his family becomes more successful when its name is changed to Hoo's on First. Hoo's partner in the eponymous game suggests the name change, but he rejects it at first because he feels it would only make sense if the restaurant was on the first floor of the building, rather than the top floor. Eventually the business grows to be a chain of ten restaurants named sequentially, i.e. Hoo's on First through Hoo's on Tenth.
• A sketch using video from the video game World of Warcraft reworks this classic, using tanks and mages, and other World of Warcraft terms. It is called "Who's the Tank?". This WoW Machinima was created by Mike Davis and Mike Schroeder.
• The sketch comedy show In Living Color parodied the popular skit. David Alan Grier and Damon Wayans played the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Minister Louis Farrakan respectively.
• The comic strip Get Fuzzy did a variation that used a telephone switch board instead of bases ("Hu's on First")
• A question the fictional Quiz show Up Your Ante in the HBO Series Oz was asked about the routine. Omar White says he hates baseball while Augustus Hill says he hates Abbott & Costello.
• The World Wrestling Federation based a gimmick around the routine and gave it to Jim Neidhart, who was renamed 'Who'. The angle proved unpopular with fans and did not last long.
• The US Acres episode "Who Done It?" from the show Garfield and Friends shows a variation of the "Who's on First" routine, with three dogs hired as farmhands named Who, What, and Where causing similar confusion among the main characters (especially Roy Rooster).
• When Australian federal politicians Peter Costello and Tony Abbott sued Bob Ellis for allegations made about their sex lives in his book Goodbye Jerusalem, the Australian radio comedy drama How Green was my Cactus made a parody of the sketch using the comedians' voices, not the politicians. Abbott tries to explain to Costello that they've been called next ("I thought you were called "Abbott"?) to go before the Judge ("What time does he go?") to sue the book publisher ("Why do we have to go to her?").
• In 2009 Mark Esslinger produced a three minute short film "Who's on First?" based on the routine. It starred Mark and his eight year old daughter Lana Esslinger in the Costello role. The film went on to win Best Family Short at the 2009 Garden State Film Festival.
• Zach Weiner, in his comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, did a variation based on the Periodic table. He also composed a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Theater Short parodying the same skit.
• The popular TV show How I Met Your Mother adapted the routine for a sixth season episode titled "Hopeless" where the group is trying to decide which night club to go to. However, the names of the clubs, such as "Was," "Where," "Lame," etc. lead to nothing but confusion. The skit references the Abbott and Costello routine when the oldest character, played by John Lithgow blurts out, "I don't know. Third base!"
• 30 Rock characters Tracy Jordan and Jenna Maroney perform an adaptation of the skit, but much like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man, do so without understanding the joke.
• On an episode of the TV show The Big Bang Theory, called The Alien Parasite Hypothesis, Amy Farrah Fowler is explaining to Sheldon Cooper her attraction to a boy named Zach. When she first saw him, she let out the noise "hoo" uncontrollably. Sheldon gets confused when Amy tries to explain this, since he thinks that she is asking him the question "Who?" This leads to an altercation similar to the "Who's on First" routine.
• The routine has been referenced twice on Family Guy:
  • In "Extra-Large Medium", Peter is needed to use his "psychic" abilities to find a missing person with a bomb strapped to him set to go off within moments. He channels the spirit of Lou Costello and learns from Joe the name of the guy they're looking for - Melvin Who. They do the first part of the routine before the bomb goes off, killing the missing person, and Peter admits he's not psychic.
  • In "You Can't Do That on Television, Peter", Peter tries to do the routine with a puma, but it viciously attacks him, leading Meg to try and save him. When Peter's in the hospital at the end of the episode, the puma visits him as a gesture of apology, and gets that "Who" is the name of the person on first base.
• David Foubert, Jason King Jones, and Jay Leibowitz have written a parody of this routine in the style of William Shakespeare entitled Who Doth Inhabit The Primary Position. The parody is described as "An adaptation of the classic vaudeville routine made popular by Abbot and Costello -- in iambic pentameter."
• On the TV show The PJs, superintendent Thurgood Stubbs and Smokey do a comedy act based on the routine, with Thurgood playing a cop trying to clean up the neighborhood of its drug addicts and Smokey playing a drug-addicted informant. The routine is changed to "Who's on crack, Say What's on smack, and I Don't Know freebases", with Thurgood ending the routine with an irate "Shut up, you damn stupid crackhead!".