Take a look at this footage of Joe Penner (which starts after the musical number featuring thousands including Jack Oakie and Franklin Pangborn) from the 1934 film College Rhythm and tell me that Jerome "Curly" Howard wasn't studying and absorbing Penner's unique physicality the way that Lou Costello was absorbing Curly's just a few years later.
Penner strikes me as the early talkies manic answer to the silent persona of Harry Langdon.
Penner died very young (in 1941 at the age of 37) after his popularity had run it's course. It would have been very interesting to see him, had he lived, hosting children's afternoon television in the 1950s (a la Pinky Lee), finding a new audience and asking a whole new generation of kids if they'd wanna buy a duck.
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