Hal Roach production L-15 began principal photography on Thursday, August 23, 1928, and finished on Saturday, September 1, 1928. Randy Skretvedt's book Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies details the subsequent history of We Faw Down as a key gag sequence - Laurel and Hardy attempting to change their pants after exiting the girls' apartment - had to be cut in order to keep the running time within the parameters of two reels; this gag sequence then became the core of the next Laurel and Hardy short, Liberty. To create a more logical narrative after this sequence had been excised, retakes and revisions were shot on Friday, September 7, and Thursday, September 13, 1928. We Faw Down was then released into theaters by M-G-M on December 29, 1928 and registered for copyright on the same date. WE FAW DOWN was the first Laurel and Hardy film to receive a synchronized music score, played on discs accompanying the film; subsequent productions for the 1928-1929 season and two of those shorts held into the 1929-1930 season would utilize the same technology. WE FAW DOWN's music track opens with a rendering of "That's My Weakness Now" by Bud Green and Sam Stept, a 1928 hit which cues this saga of marital weakness quite well; the same recording is used to open 1929's The Hoose Gow and is featured as opening music to several other Hal Roach shorts.
Some debate has arisen as to whether what we see in Liberty are the scenes removed from We Faw Down, or if these scenes were largely reshot for the subsequent film. Analysis of the locations used for both films suggests that at the very least, the scene in Liberty in which Laurel and Hardy walk along a sidewalk around the corner of a building into an alley, attempt to change their pants, and are followed out of the alley by a policeman, were very likely part of We Faw Down; the same building and alley appear in both films, albeit from opposing angles, a result of the retakes shot on September 7 and 13.
We Faw Down is a watershed film in the Laurel and Hardy canon because, although a relatively modest effort from the team in 1928, most of its key gag sequences and indeed its entire basic storyline were re-used and embellished over the years. The storyline, derived from an early Keystone of 1914 called Ambrose's First Falsehood and starring Mack Swain (cf. Leonard Maltin's Laurel and Hardy), would be developed to its fullest extent in 1933's Sons of the Desert, but many particular scenes find their way into later Laurel and Hardy films (for example, Ollie's repeated exclamations of "Boss" in the opening scenes are reused and embellished in 1932's Their First Mistake, when Ollie, in taking a phone call from Stan, repeatedly calls Stan "Mr. Jones" to allay the suspicions of the eavesdropping Mrs. Hardy). In that respect, We Faw Down is a key film in the development of Laurel and Hardy's teamwork, for though by the summer of 1928 the team had worked out many of the fine points of its specific characterizations, they were still in search of frameworks expansive enough to display those characterizations to their fullest extent. One way in which this development may be discerned is in comparing the final scenes of We Faw Down to their equivalents in Sons of the Desert: here, Stan and Ollie rely largely on pantomime in order to act out the vaudeville show they've supposedly attended, a somewhat awkward ploy even for a silent film, while Sons gives them a framework that shows off Stan's penchant for word play, puns, non sequiturs, and improbabilities, as well as permitting the characterizations of the wives more richness through their interactions and reactions with the increasingly absurd tale the comedians are concocting. Here, there is nothing all that imrobable about what Laurel and Hardy retail, other than its palpable falsehood.
00:16 title: From the popular song "I Faw Down and Go Boom" by James Brockman and Leonard Stevens, published in 1928 and thus very contemporaneous with the making of this film. The phrase is repeated, with variations, at 09:40 of the film, at 10:40, and at 11:38. It also is referenced several times in FROM SOUP TO NUTS (1928), and in the title of their 1929 short THEY GO BOOM. The refrain of the song runs:
"I played horsy down the street
With my broom, down the street
When somebody moved the street
I faw down an go boom!
"I got right back on my horse
Broom of course
Was my horse
When somebody moved my horse
I faw down an go boom!
"I cried, and I cried, and I ran home to ma.
It's all right now,
But how that certain place was hurtin'!
"Mother put me straight to bed
Straight to bed
Ooooh my head!
(or: Great big bump
On my head)
In my dreams they moved the bed
I faw down an go boom!"
In the United Kingdom, where the song was not well known, We Faw Down was released under the title We Slip Up. Robert Youngson's 1958 compilation The Golden Age of Comedy, which excerpts scenes from this short (Laurel and Hardy leaving their home, part of the girls' apartment scene, and the climactic chase), refers to the film by this British title.
00:46 Wives playing cards: The card playing is used to heighten the mood of connubial tension, and factors in the 1930 short BLOTTO, where Mrs. Laurel's frustration with Stan is expressed by her (repeatedly interrupted) game of solitaire. Here, in a short where both comedians are portrayed as married, the card game permits the wives a logical opportunity to reflect on their husbands' restlessness - another aspect of plot which is found in BLOTTO. Interestingly, while the wives have no qualms about playing cards with each other, they not only do not include Stan and Ollie in their card game, but obstruct the men from joining a card game in which they would be welcome. Thus the card game, much like the Game of Chess in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, functions as a baromtere of the basic marital situation in the film, setting the stage for subsequent suspicions: we see the wives as allied, and Laurel and Hardy as forced into the roles of co-conspirators. The cards are also an important prop, in that they will be utilized during the concluding scene of the film by Stan as a visual cue for part of the explanation for the comedians' whereabouts.
00:46 set decoration: painting: Hanging on the wall behind Mrs. Laurel and Mrs. Hardy is a painting which appears to be of gondolas in a Venetian canal. This same painting adorns the wall behind the pool table in BRATS (1930).
00:54: George Stevens' inventive camerawork permits Ollie, seen full-frame, to move back slightly, thus revealing Stan sitting literally in his shadow.
00:54 set decoration: sofa: Also seen in Ollie's living room in THAT'S MY WIFE (1929) and the living room in PERFECT DAY (1929); in the latter film it's the sofa on which Edgar Kennedy is seated with his gouty leg extended, at the very beginning of the film.
01:05 prop: pipe: Stan is smoking a calabash pipe, the underslung type associated with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. This is the first Laurel and Hardy film in which we see Stan with this type of pipe: other examples are found in THAT'S MY WIFE, BLOTTO, SONS OF THE DESERT, OUR RELATIONS, A CHUMP AT OXFORD, and THE BIG NOISE. Presumably the contrast is being made between the brilliance of Conan Doyle's mastermind and Stan's dim, slow-moving mind. Ollie takes the pipe and tosses it over the back of the sofa.
01:15 pantomime with hands: Stan's and Ollie's use of hand gestures to convey an idea can also be seen in THE FINISHING TOUCH (1928), and is a good example of the team's ability to communicate an intelligible thought via pantomime to the audience.
01:33 title: "Telephone Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy....": A similar ploy occurs in BE BIG, when Laurel and Hardy's fellow lodge members call Ollie to insist on the team's presence at a stag party. It's interesting that even at this relatively early point in the team's work, their characters were already indelibly "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy", joining their real names with their screen characters.
01:50 business with phone: Stan's reluctance to take the call and attempt to pacify both wives out of their suspicions are greatly developed in the opening scene of BLOTTO, where it's Ollie who's placing the call.
02:06 : Stan can be lip-read saying "It's for you" to Ollie.
02:24 title: "Hello---BOSS!": Another unconvincing attempt to ease the wives' suspicions that something is afoot, Ollie pretends to be taking a call from his boss. As developed further in THEIR FIRST MISTAKE (1932), Ollie's wife implicitly believes the call is actually coming from Ollie's boss, and is embellished by Ollie adding a false tale of a promotion at work. Here, the possibilities are somewhat thrown away, although the punch line of "That was the boss" which is given to the wives and not the comedians, is substantially the same. This repetition of one name or identifying noun with a deliberately lame windup was an old vaudeville ploy, and also figures in Laurel and Hardy's first talkie, UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE (1929).
02:54 Ollie runs finger around telephone mouthpiece in circular motion: Ollie repeats this gesture in the phone booth in BLOTTO, when addressing Mrs. Laurel. It's a typically florid Hardy piece of expression: the generic name for Ollie's reaction here, in comedy parlance, is a "fig bar".
03:08 Orpheum Theatre: The Orpheum circuit of vaudeville theaters was founded in 1919 by Martin Beck. Around the time WE FAW DOWN was filmed, Beck marged his organization with those owned by Benjamin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II to form Keith-Albee Orpheum, which in turn became the film studio Radio-Keith-Orpheum, or RKO. Laurel and Hardy would work for producer Boris Morros, who released through RKO, in 1939. Although Los Angeles is not specifically named as the backdrop for WE FAW DOWN, the Los Angeles Orpheum Theatre was one of the most prestigious showcases in Beck's circuit; completed in 1926, the theater stands at 842 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, very close to where Laurel and Hardy would film the skyscraper scenes for their next short, LIBERTY. This Orpheum Theater never suffered a fire and is in fact still used for the showing of films and for live stage presentations.
03:12 Stan kisses Mrs. Laurel, then Mrs. Hardy: Stan commits this faux pas in BE BIG, and again in OUR RELATIONS, where in a variation of the gag he kisses his wife's friend Mrs. Addlequist, much to his wife's displeased amazement.
03:27 hat mixup: The first of two in the film. Presumably this acted as foreshadowing for the later pants mixup intended as the central sequence of the film, but with that sequence's excision, it becomes instead another repetition of one of the team's most familiar routines.
03:53 title "One-Round Kelly's girlfriend....": "One-Round" signifies that the character is a boxer, who is proficient enough in the sweet science that his fights seldom last beyond the first round, hence his ring name. The actor portraying Kelly, George Kotsonaros, enhances this characterization with his stocky build and broken nose. He was often typecast as boxers or wrestlers in films of this period.
03:58 setting: shoeshine stand: This may be the shoeshine stand located just within the entrance of the Culver Hotel, at Washington and Culver in downtown Culver City, though it might possibly be part of the standing New York Street set on the Hal Roach back lot. It is identical to the shoeshine stand seen in Charley Chase;s 1926 MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE. A sign visible above the two women's heads displays an advertisement for "Union Leader Tobacco - 10 Cent Cigars". Union Leader Tobacco was a brand marketed by Lorillard. Ten cents was an average price for a cigar in 1928, neither the cheapest (which retailed for a nickel) nor the most expensive.
04:12 exterior: street: The street scene, unlike the shoeshine stand, is looking northwest along Van Buren Place to Washington Boulvard. The Culver Hotel can be seen at center of frame in the background. To the left of frame in the background the rail lines running along Culver Boulevard can be seen; as Ollie is speaking at 04:29, a train, comprised mostly of gondola cars, is visible moving along the railway. To the left of the Culver Hotel, in the triangular plot of land formed by the intersection of Culver and Washington, is a Standard Oil service station. Although the hotel still stands, the service station is now gone and the rail lines have since been paved over. Throughout this scene Laurel and Hardy are standing in front of the 3900 block on the northeast side of Van Buren Place. The building out of which the women have emerged is still standing, but this part of Van Buren has been demapped and is now part of the plaza which surrounds the Culver Hotel.
04:32 exterior: street and water truck: The water truck is heading northwest on Van Buren Place, with the camera looking roughly southeast. The large hotel at 3927 Van Buren visible on the other side of the street as the water truck passes was constructed in 1923 and is still standing; the unusual assortment of odd-sized windows and exterior fire escapes remains remarkably intact. Although still listed as a hotel, the building is now mostly apartments, with businesses on the ground floor. It's exterior is painted a dark pink or rose colored shade, which is possibly the same color it bore in 1928, based on its appearance in WE FAW DOWN. In the distance, past the empty lots along Van Buren (some of which are still empty, albeit paved, in 2009) we can see the Baldwin Hills crested with oil derricks.
04:40 floating hat: This little scene appears to be improvised: as Stan and Ollie both notice Stan's derby floating past on a current towards the drain, both react at the same time. Contrast this scene with the much more carefully worked out hat mixup in the fountain in THE MUSIC BOX.
04:56 exterior: sidwalk and building: The 3900 block of Van Buren is more visible as the background to this shot. At the left is a store marked "Gallery", presumably an art gallery. This block still contains stores featuring local arts and crafts, although the "Gallery" store is no longer occupied by anything artistically-related.
05:10 stock footage: horse drawn fire engine/interior theater on fire/exterior of building on fire: The use of stock or library footage is relatively rare in Laurel and Hardy films, and this montage illustrating the conflagration which has overcome the Orpheum may comprise its most extensive use in a Laurel and Hardy film (another example is the montage ofor the journey from the U.S. to Oxford in A CHUMP AT OXFORD). Despite the depiction of the horse-drawn steam fire engine, Los Angeles, as well as most urban centers in the United States, had by 1928 converted to gas-powered fire equipment with internal combustion engines.
05:28 stock footage: newspapers: Another common cinematic device - newspapers coming off printing presses - figures here. Although we're subsequently shown the headline "Orpheum Theater Burns", the newspapers in this stock footage clearly display a head line (in large block lettering or "scareheads") reading "$20,000 Graft Scandal".
05:36 insert shot: newspaper: The "scarehead" of "Orpheum Theater Burns!" is emphasized by a "letterbox" style lens which cinematically directs the viewer's attention to the words, a somewhat atypical use of camerawork in Laurel and Hardy films.
05:40 costuming: Ollie's bathrobe/Stan's bathrobe: Ollie wears the same bathrobe in THEY GO BOOM (1929). Stan had previously worn his bathrobe when entering the ring in THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY (1927).
05:51 Stan pours the beer from bottle into Ollie's lap: A similar lapse of attention can be found in BLOTTO (the gag was cut from the 1937 reissue of the film, but can be seen intact in the Spanish language version), and in ONE GOOD TURN, where Stan pours coffee into Ollie's lap.
06:12 Ollie opens beer: Whereupon the bottle foams over. A gag repeated in A CHUMP AT OXFORD when butler Ollie opens a champagne bottle, causing the champagne to spurt out and sending the cork into James Finlayson's fruit cocktail, where it is consumed. Also found in THE DANCING MASTERS (1943), where the beverage is ginger ale and the result is much the same as here.
07:22 Stan's nose and eyebrows: Stan's girl chum, played by Kay Deslys, flirts by pressing Stan's nose, and later his adam's apple, precipitating a neurological reaction in which Stan's left eyebrow lifts. This becomes a running gag repeated at intervals throughout this scene, and again during the close of the film. Stan's muscular dexterity in raising one eyebrow rivals that of John Belushi, who was adept at the same visual reaction.
07:38 adam's apple and eyebrow: The pacing of the pressing of the adam's apple increases here.
08:15 Kay undoes Stan's bow tie: This looks like a prelude to a "tit for tat" sequence in which the destruction of clothing escalates (as in YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN'), but the escalation is toned down. At any rate, the gesture does serve to heighten the risk factor inherent in the possible discovery of such actions either by Laurel and Hardy's wives or the boxer, creating an interesting polygonal tension.
08:21 title: "Be Bohemian - Make Whoopee": Ollie's statement relects the 1920s sensibility of "whoopee" as mild sexual flirtation, and the equivalence of "bohemian" (deriving from Puccini's opera La Boheme) behavior as unconventional, daring, outside the norms practiced by such bourgeois domestic types as Laurel and Hardy are portraying here. The contrast of "bohemian" with such bourgeois, middle-class mores as represented by Stan and Ollie here formed one of the themes of Sinclair Lewis' 1922 best-selling American novel, Babbitt, which helped to make "bohemian" a mainstream phrase for unconventionally artistic, romanticized behavior. (My thanks to Harry Smith for pointing out the Babbitt/Bohemian contrast to me).
08:55 Stan's tie is back on: Either a continuity lapse or a reversal of some of the shots in this sequence in the eduiting process; Stan's tie is shown to be re-tied without any corresponding action indicating he'd done so.
09:05 Kay toppled out of chair: It's interesting to note that Stan's ideas concerning "bohemian" unconventionality are more aggressive than sexual: "Laurel's notions of 'play' do not extend beyond giving her several happy, increasingly hearty shoves, the most exuberant of which quite topples her from her chair" (Walter Kerr, The Silent Clowns, p. 331). Kay is actually toppled out of her chair more than once. Contrast this scene of mildly drubnken byplay with that found in the 1932 short SCRAM! for another example of how Laurel and Hardy could refine, and render even more subtle, this concept of unconventional domesticity.
10:00 title: "I don't like her!": Together with the following subtitle, "She's too fat!" at 10:10, these may be a reference to the novelty song "The Too Fat Polka" by Ross McLean and Arthur Richardson, though the song did not gain popularity (or notoriety) until the 1940s. Or possibly the composers had this film in mind when penning the lyrics.
10:52 hat mixup: The second hat mixup, as the boys attempt to don their clothing hurriedly. It was at this point Ollie put on Stan's pants, and Stan Ollie's, compounding the mixup. As edited now, we don't see the team putting on any pants at all; in the next shot, as Stan and Ollie climb out the window, their pants are partially on. The stove and oven seen in the right foreground of the shot, over which the clothing has been drying, is the same one seen in HELPMATES (1932).
10:56 exterior: building and street: The building on the east side of the intersection of Main Street and Culver Boulevard, and the alley on the building's northeast side, can be seen here, as well as in LIBERTY and PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP. This building (no longer standing) would have been a mere two blocks from the intersection of Van Buren Place and Washington Boulevard, seen earlier in the film. The wives conceal themselves around the corner in the alleyway.
11:09 exterior: street and hotel: The camera is here positioned looking southwest along Culver Boulevard, in the direction of the Culver Hotel, seen at left of frame beyond the building's corner. We are thus looking back in the direction Laurel, Hardy, Deslys, and Vera White would have "walked" from the scene where the boys were soaked with water, which is just out of frame to the left.
11:53 camerawork:: The close-up of Ollie, with Stan just out of focus behind Ollie, duplicates the shot of Laurel and Hardy at the very beginning of the film. This final sequence in WE FAW DOWN uses an unusual number of close-up shots, mostly of Laurel and Hardy, but also fairly tight two-shots of the wives seated on the sofa. This cinematic device makes the scene much more claustrophobic, and intimidating, than if it had been shot with fewer close-ups. It also, by separating Laurel and Hardy visually in many of the shots, emphasizes their disunified desparation, when faced with the wives' unified posture and countenance, heightened by the shots in which both wives are seated side by side - a contrast with the opening scenes, in which Laurel and Hardy were the ones on the sofa, unified in purpose if not in plan.
12:40 Stan snaps fingers at wives: A gesture of derision or contempt. Stan repeats this gesture in THE BULLFIGHTERS (1945) to express his opinion of Richard K. Muldoon's protest of innocence in the courtroom scene.
13:34 Wives halt Stan's explanation: Since they already know that whatever statements issue from Stan will be a falsehood, they derail his halting explanation before it really gets started. As in SONS OF THE DESERT, Ollie is presented as the more accomplished "liar" of the team, although here an explanation is almost forced out of him, whereas in SONS Laurel and Hardy have prepared their backstory ahead of time.
13:44 set decoration: piano and other props: Ollie seats himself at the piano - a visual metaphor for how he would like to "play" the wives. Atop the piano is a bronze miniature copy of the "Discobolus", or Discus Thrower, of Myron, as well as a crystal vase and some sheet music. The position of the Discobolus changes slightly from close-up to close-up of Hardy..
13:54 adam's apple/tongue : Stan repeats the flirtatious gesture from earlier in the film as a way of breaking the tension with his wife; he does not succeed, although he elicits the same reaction - the protruding tongue - Kay had elicited from him.
14:20 insert: Orpheum Theatre newspaper ad: The newspaper has been left on the table behind the sofa, although folded in such a way that the "scarehead" is not revealed to Stan until too late. The advertisement reads:
Orpheum Vaudeville / Smart! Smiling! Speedy!
The Great Navarro Trick Bicycle Rider
Hilo Hawaiian Dancers Native Hula Hula
Stuart and Oliver
Morrow and Green
Molly Harris - "Among Us Mortals"
Viola and Walter
Ollini Singing Band of 20 from the University of Ohio
It is unclear whether this is an actual advertisement or one prepared by the studio: one would olike to think Laurel and Hardy were so adept at pantomime they could essentially improvise the bicycle rider and hula dancer bits merely offhand by reference to whatever printed matter was at hand. Research has not turned up any acts as those listed on the advertisement, although the University of Ohio did sponsor a glee club singing group at this era. It is quite possible that the "Great Navarro" and the Hilo Hawaiian Dancers were therefore scripted inventions and not real acts at all.
14:26 lip reading: "Babe!": As Stan holds up the pack of cards, he can be seen calling Ollie by his offscreen nickname.
14:39 Bicycle playing cards: Stan's way of telegraphing information concerning the acts relies on visual cues and pantomime, easily misinterpreted by Ollie, who then indulges in an incorrect pantomimic embellishment of his own. The Bicycle brand of playing card originated in 1885 and was at the time the most popular brand of playing card in the world. Stan uses the card pack box as a cue for the bicycle act. Ollie mistakes this cue as that for a magician who does card tricks. This confusion is understandable in that the Bicycle cards were those most favored by magicians for such tricks, owing to their white-bordered backs. Stan then attempts to rectify matters by pantomiming a rider pedaling a bicycle and turning the handlebars around, a set of gestures Ollie then misreads as signalling a Russian dancer performing a traditional dance involving squatting kicks.
15:59 se decoration: ship on mantel: Seen in numerous Laurel and Hardy shorts, the ship model is of a caravel-like craft with a high stern and full sails. It's seen most prominently over the Hardys' mantel in SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME? and again in HOG WILD, but also appears in BLOTTO and ONE GOOD TURN.
16:18 Reaction shor: Stan: A long "take" as Stan tries to digest the sudden revelation that their entire flimsy story has just had its reality destroyed, as well as providing evidence of the wives hostility (though at this point Stan and Ollie only know that the wives have caught them in a a lie concerning their whereavbouts, not their actual activities). This long close-up compares with Stan's reaction shot in THEIR PURPLE MOMENT when his wallet turns out to contain cigar coupons, or the even more elaborate "take" at the end of BLOTTO where Stan first laughs over duping his wife out of her bottle of liquor, and then reacts (initially laughingly, then with sober exactitude and humility) when it's revealed she's been sitting directly behind him listening to the entire tale. The interplay of the reactions on Stan's face of confusion, fear, embarrassment, and hopelessness is remarkable proof of how Laurel could invest a range of emotions in a series of comedic "takes".
17:57 title: "It's a good thing we went to the Palace instead of the Orpheum--": There was a Palace Theater in Los Angeles, at 630 South Broadway, although much smaller and less prestigious than the Orpheum. It was constructed in 1911 and in the 1930s became part of Fox's West Coast
Theater chain. Very likely some of Laurel and Hardy's 1940s features for Fox played there, though by the mid-1940s the Palace was sold to the Principal Theatres Corporation of America.
lip-reading: "Hush! Hush!": Ollie can be lip-read ordering Stan to be quiet, as Stan laughs, utters "Whoopee!", and throws the newspaper into the air, referencing his behavior in the apartment scenes.
18:51 lip-reading "Sh! Be quiet!":Ollie seeks to deflect the wives attention from him by turning on Stan.
19:20 title "Here's your vest...": Ollie atypically wears a vest as part of his suit in this film; usually Stan is the only one who wears a three-piece suit. Of course the change in Laurel and Hardy's traditional costuming is so that Ollie can be di-vested for this plot point. The absence of the vest (Stan proudly indicates his is intact) betrays Ollie out of the last remnants of his dignity in facing the wives; the shotguns come out and Laurel and Hardy are forced to flee.
19:55 exterior: alley and buildings: On Olympic Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles, and also seen at the climactic moment of BLOCKHEADS, shot at the same location. "The alley is alive with errant husbands. But that, as it happens, is a joke about other men's sexuality. It is not about Laurel and Hardy's." (Kerr, The Silent Clowns, p. 331). Whereas Laurel and Hardy's involvement with the two women was only mildly flirtatious, and motivated more by gallantry than concupiscence, the denouement gives us dozens of husbands who are fearful of being caught in flagrante and who, alerted by the shotgun blasts, leap from windows and scurry off (one does a "108" pratfall before heading out of frame). The joke, as Kerr explains it, is that for every pair of innocent-but-suspect husbands in a Laurel and Hardy film, there are a dozen or more legitimate examples. This final shot benefits greatly from the tight framing of the close-ups and two-shots which had preceded it for its visual impact: all of a sudden the frame has widened out to an entire city block in which the frantic activities of many are visible as Laurel and Hardy run into the background. After the compressed emotional tension of the "explanation" scene, the relief offered by this visual expansion augments the laugh, a factor less prominent in BLOCKHEADS and one fo the reasons the gag works less well there and seems more arbitrarily inserted.
(sorry for bad english is not my native language)
