Dec 21, 2015 2 min read

Jan. 10

Laugh Challenge

Chad Hunter thinks we’re not laughing as much as we used to. To prove it, the executive director of the Hollywood Theater is issuing a “Laugh Challenge.”

“Anyone who can sit through our Jan. 10 matinee without laughing at least once will get a ticket refund plus a large popcorn.”

Hunter isn’t worried about losing either money or popcorn. He hedged his bets by asking comedy expert Dan Kamin to select the program. Kamin not only created comedy moves for both Robert Downey, Jr. (“Chaplin”) and Johnny Depp (“Benny and Joon”), he’s also an internationally-celebrated comic performer in his own right, currently performing, a la Victor Borge, with symphony orchestras around the globe.

Kamin chose what he calls “a program of irresistible rib-ticklers” for the Challenge. In “You’re Darn Tootin'” the boys are fired from their jobs in a band and become street musicians, resulting in one of the funniest scenes of mob mayhem in movie history. In “Big Business” they’re going door-to-door to sell Christmas trees- in July. Their first customer treats them rudely, and before long their trees, his house and their car have been destroyed. In “Liberty,” they are escaped convicts who end up stranded on the girders of an unfinished skyscraper, where thrills alternate with the laughs.

Hunter added, “We’re so confident that there will be no refunds that we’re bringing in Jay Spencer, house organist of the Canton Palace Theatre in Ohio, to accompany the films on our Rodgers Theater Organ. Jay’s accompaniment makes the films even funnier.”

Kamin will introduce the films and lead a post-film conversation with another Laurel and Hardy fan, David Newell, aka Mr. McFeely from “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” “If there’s anyone who can keep a poker face for these films I want to meet them,” Newell said.

Showtime is 3 p.m., and doors open at 2:15.

Tickets are on sale now at www.showclix.com/event/LaurelandHardySilents.