--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: The Abbott and Costello Show image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82d9bbc7452ed0bc/69869f89cd804d8f0accc59d/t100_tv_abbott-and-costello-show1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 14, 2014 # _The Abbott and Costello Show_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Everett The earliest TV shows were oddly assembled transitions between old genres that were (theater, vaudeville, etc.) and the TV that would become. _Abbott and Costello_, which debuted in 1952, was one of the most distinctive and acerbically funny of these video lungfish. The loosely connected skits conjured a seedy, hilariously cutthroat world in which there are two kinds of people: the one getting over and the ones getting gotten over on. Straight man Bud Abbott and whiny hustler Lou Costello combined their slapstick and pratfalls with a gleefully misanthropic sensibility; no one could be trusted, even, or especially the kids, as embodied by Stinky, the bratty urchin played brilliantly by The Three Stooges’ Joe Besser. Larry David would make a living out of this attitude decades later, but as Abbott and Costello would say, they were on first. [Get This TV Series](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000F0Z9/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3087816/the-abbott-and-costello-show/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3087816/the-abbott-and-costello-show/"},"headline":"The Abbott and Costello Show","datePublished":"2014-08-14T19:02:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:02:04.219Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3087816/the-abbott-and-costello-show/","keywords":["Comedy","Sitcom"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82d9bbc7452ed0bc/69869f89cd804d8f0accc59d/t100_tv_abbott-and-costello-show1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82d9bbc7452ed0bc/69869f89cd804d8f0accc59d/t100_tv_abbott-and-costello-show1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3087816/the-abbott-and-costello-show/","name":"The Abbott and Costello Show"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Abbott and Costello Show","description":"Like most of the earliest TV shows, Abbott & Costello was an oddly assembled transition between old genres that were (theater, vaudeville, etc.) and the TV that would become.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/RcPDY8fk/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2007-09-05T14:23:39.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RcPDY8fk.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3087816/the-abbott-and-costello-show/","duration":"PT31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3087816/the-abbott-and-costello-show/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```