High Class Jokers

Do you know what's funny?
A black silk top hat.

 

 

 

With a white tie and tail coat
it gives a fella a very high-class style.
It might look serious,
but trust me,
it's funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So if one top hat is laughable,
then three more
must produce
four times the mirth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if you combine
a bushy mustache with a top hat
the effect is positively hilarious.

 Today, to prove my point
about why a top hat is so amusing,
I present a small collection
of high class comedians
from the early 20th century.

Each one is so well dressed
and yet so preposterous,
you'll be laughing
before you can translate their punchline.
 

Which you may have to do
because it will be in German.

* * *

 

 

 

The first gentleman is Georg Tornell, humorist, as captioned on his postcard photo portrait. From his top hat to his knees he appears a very model of high society. Unfortunately, since the photographer has cut off his legs, we must assume his shoes gleam enough to match his elegant outfit, which he amply fills out. Herr Tornell performed in German music halls as a kind of comedian, but history has left few clues to measure his popularity. All I can say is that he looks the part of a dashing raconteur.

4 December 1918
Der oberschlesische Wanderer,
Gleiwitz, Poland

In December 1918 he was the headliner at the Trocadero club in Kattowitz, the capital city of Upper Silesia in eastern Germany, which is now in Poland. The advert appeared in Der oberschlesische Wanderer which labeled Georg Tornell's act as not just a humorist but a Schriftsteller, a writer, too. Presumably of humorous stories. His postcard was signed by German soldiers, possibly 3 or four, who sent it using the free Feldpost! to another officer.

 

 

 

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My second high-hat funny man is Max Götze, a Frack-Komicker, a tailcoat comic. Again, like Herr Tornell, Herr Götze is dressed to the nines, even down to the white carnation in his lapel. By a curious coincidence Max Götze sent this postcard as a notice about his current gig playing at the Kabarett "Trokadero" in Dresden until 1 March, when he would then be free for other engagements. His postcard was addressed simply to a Kabarett in Nordhausen, a city in the German state of Thuringia. The postmark date is 15 January 1921, a time of relative peace in central Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

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The four men in Zylinders, the German word for a top hat (which is also used for the geometry shape–cylinder), are the Süddeutsches humoristische Männerquartett, that is the South German humorous men's quartet. Their names are captioned beneath their photo, left to right,  C. Dummeldinger, F. Humblet, S. Mauermeier, and O. Siegel. They were a vocal group that sang humorous ballads and German traditional songs in a jocular manner. 

 

The Süddeutsches quartett's group portrait in matching top hats, velvet coats, and black bow tie was printed only on the upper half of the postcard leaving room for a lengthy message written in pencil. The postmark from Wiesbaden, Gemany is dated 5 September 1900 which was during the first era of picture postcards when messages were permitted only on the front. The so-called "divided back" postcards, where the address on the back was pushed over to the right allowing more room for a writer's message, were introduced around 1904-1906 after the postcard's popularity forced postal services to reconsider the restriction.

 

 

 

 

 

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Another colorized German postcard shows an unnamed vocal group of four men singing from songbooks. All are dressed in black suits with white ties and black top hats. The postmark is dated 12 September 1909 from Jülich, a town in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, very close to the Netherlands border. The back has an imprint of Greetings from the Restaurant of Wm.? Th. Fickentscher in Jülich, but no mention of the quartet. 

 

 

 

Singing has always been a part of German culture and even today there are male vocal groups that maintain this tradition while dressed in high-class white tie and tailcoats. Here is the Karlsruher Männerquartett, also known as the "Barbershop Sixpack", singing "Aus der Traube in die Tonne" – "From the Grape to the Bin". Here is my translation of the first two choruses:

From the grape to the bin
from the bin into the barrel.
Then from the barrel, O bliss,
into the bottle into the glass.

From the glass into the throat,
into the stomach into the throat,
and then as blood into the soul,
and as a word up to the mouth.

I can't resist adding another of their videos which was performed from a small cabaret stage in front of an audience. Here is the Karlsruher Männerquartett, "Barbershop Sixpack", singing "Die Fischerin vom Bodensee" – "The fisherwoman from the Bodenzee (Lake Constance)". As a way to see how they compare to the men in my postcards, it nice is that this rendition generates some laughs from people who, naturally, understand the German lyrics.

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My last top hat joker is Heinrich Köllisch, the Hamburger Volks-Humorist, whose portrait occupied one third of a postcard that includes printed lyrics to his song "Treu und fest zusammen!"  – "Faithful and firmly together!" Heinrich Köllisch, (1857–1901), or Hein as he was known, was a native of Hamburg, Germany and son of a shoemaker who built a successful business making shoe polish. Hein began his show business career by singing his self-composed songs at his local pub in Plattdeutsch, or Low German, one of the dialects in North Germany, closely related to Frisian, Dutch, and English. His quirky lyrics sung to popular Viennese melodies attracted the attention of an owner of an amusement park who hired Köllisch for his theater. By 1892 he was playing to large audiences in the Spielbudenplatz, Hamburg's theater district and earning 300 marks a month. Two years later he bought his own theater originally named "Hein Köllischs Universum", and later called "Köllischs Lachbühne", where he established a reputation of always performing in tails and top hats. "The best suit is just good enough for my mother tongue," he supposed to have said.

 

 

The Spielbudenplatz, Hamburg, Germany, circa 1900
Source: Wikipedia

 

The postmark on the back of Hein Köllisch's postcard is from Buxtehude, Germany and dated 27 March 1900. Tragically, just a year later on April 18, 1901, Köllisch died of pneumonia in Rome while on holiday with his family. He was only 43.

 

 

 

Heinrich Köllisch wrote over 100 songs as well as parodies and plays during his short career. Hamburg honored his memory by naming a city square after him, Hein-Köllisch-Platz, located in the Hamburg district of Hamburg-St. Pauli. Köllisch's grave in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery is marked with a sculpture portrait of him wearing his trademark Zylinder top hat.

 

 

Gravestone for Heinrich Köllisch (1857–1901)
Ohlsdorf Cemetery, Hamburg, Germany
Source: Wikipedia

 

As I have said in my previous posts about humor, jokes are the most ephemeral component of culture. Humor is like fresh bread from a bakery, after a few days its amusement goes stale. And after a century, a joke becomes as fossilized as a rock. For these top hatted humorists we can only guess at their individual wit, silliness, and general jocularity, but clearly many people in their time thought they were funny.

For high-class comedic entertainers like these men, a top hat and tailcoat was a theatrical costume not much different than a circus clown's wild getup. As I illustrated in my stories Four Musical Jokers and The Merry Brothers, many German and Austrian comics pretended to be a daft country rube. For my well-dressed jokers, their audience's laughter probably was triggered by seeing their absurd nonsense expressed and sung  by men in aristocratic garb. In other words, foolishness can't be disguised. It's a trait found in every class of society.

 

I finish with an excerpt from Bob Fosse's 1972 movie, Cabaret. It's a scene where Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles and Joel Grey as Master of Ceremonies sing "Money, Money". Joel Grey's terrific performance in the film perfectly captured the decadence and licentiousness of 1930s Berlin. But ever since I began collecting postcards of early music hall entertainers, I've recognized that his character, played in top hat, white tie and tails, was actually more true to the history of German theater and cabaret entertainers than is usually given credit. 

 

 

 

The year the film was released, my high school put on the Broadway stage version for our spring musical. Being an aspiring thespian at the time, I was chosen to play Herr Schultz, a German grocer, whose part was cut from the film. That opportunity to be on stage playing in a fantastic musical ensemble was one of my best experiences during my formative high school years. Now in hindsight I recognize how it helped inspire me to pursue music as a career. Perhaps if my drama teacher had let me wear a silk top hat I might have chosen to work in theater instead.

Warning!
This is just a start
on my collection of well-dressed funny men.
Stay tuned to this station for more.

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone asks,
"How's the fishing?"