Who's on First?

Who's on First? is a comedy routine made famous by Abbott & Costello. The premise of the routine is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team to Costello, but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello's questions. In this context, the first baseman is named "Who"; thus, the utterance "Who's on first" is ambiguous between the question ("which person is the first baseman?") and the answer ("Who is the name of the first baseman.").

History of the skit

The skit was first performed in 1937 while the pair was in a touring vaudeville revue. In February 1938, Abbott and Costello joined the cast of a radio program entitled The Kate Smith Hour and the skit was performed on the radio for the first time that March. The skit was improved upon by writers on the radio show, and it became known as "Who's on First?". Abbott and Costello had the routine copyrighted in 1944.

"Who's on First?" was performed by Abbott and Costello several times in their careers, though rarely done the same way twice. The skit was included in their 1940 film debut, One Night in the Tropics, and was also seen in their 1945 film The Naughthy Nineties (the 1945 film version is considered to be their finest recorded rendition). The skit was also performed numerous times on the radio and on television.

A gold record of "Who's on First?" was added to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY in 1956 and a video of the piece plays continuously on screens in the Hall; this video is taken from "The Naughthy Nineties".

Cultural and Historical Significance

The skit was made into a board game in the 1970s, and was named the Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th century by Time Magazine in a 1999 issue.

An early radio recording of the piece was placed in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2003, and in 2005 the line "Who's on First?" was included on the American Film Institute's list of 100 memorable movie quotes.

The skit has been done and re-interpreted several times by other comedians in the movies and on television.

Team

• First Base: Who
• Second Base: What
• Third Base: I Don't Know
• Left field: Why
• Center field: Because
• Pitcher: Tomorrow
• Catcher: Today
• Shortstop: I Don't Give a Darn

The Right fielder is never named.

Some or all content from this article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Who's on First?".