Turner Classic Movies Alert

Saturday, July 21 at 7:38 a.m., Turner Classic movies will be showing Buzzin' Around, a 1933 Vitaphone short starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, his nephew Al St. John, and Pete the Pup, formerly with the Our Gang comedies.

Buzzin' Around was one of 6 comeback shorts that Arbuckle did after being offscreen for over a decade after the scandal that most people today remember him for (despite his being found not guilty 3 times in court). Unfortunately, the comeback did not do him much good, as Roscoe Arbuckle died of a heart attack a few months after this film was released.

The film was shot on location in Brooklyn, and includes some great location shots near the Avenue M subway station. As far as I know, this is the first time any of the Arbuckle talkie shorts have been shown on Turner Classic Movies, though back in the day that TNT showed old films there were shown then.

Anyway, there is a nice write-up about vintage shooting on the NYC subways at this site from which the great frame blow-up of Al, Roscoe and Petey at left comes from. So set your Tivo, DVD-Rs or VHS recorders for this.

Another great site devoted to Roscoe Arbuckle is Arbucklemania.

To find out what shorts are being squeezed into the TCM schedule between their regular films, check out the forum on TCM's website.