The Butcher Boy Trivia Quiz

Answer: Al St. John

The other men shared the screen with Arbuckle in "The Other Man" in 1916.

Alone in New York City, after breaking up his family's vaudeville act, 21-year-old Buster Keaton chanced upon Lou Anger, who he knew from traveling the vaudeville circuit with his family. Anger had become a studio manager for Joe Schenck. Anger invited Keaton to tour the studio, Arbuckle invited Keaton to join the fun, and thus was born one of the most inventive partnerships in film history.

After Arbuckle went on to do feature films, Al St. John appeared in small roles in a couple of Buster Keaton two-reelers, then went on to do feature films without his old Comique gang. He eventually settled into playing roles as a sidekick in westerns, gaining the nickname "Fuzzy".

Answer: All of these

We're introduced to Fatty's character as he emerges from the meat locker, clad in a heavy fur coat that he wears every time he enters cold storage. He immediately sets to work. The very first piece of meat he turns his attention to gets plenty of abuse as he hacks at it, manhandles it, squishes a bug on it, and takes to it with the whisk broom before wrapping it for sale.

He also flings the meat around quite a bit, tossing one chunk from across the room onto a meat hook.

Answer: It's powered by a dog running on a treadmill.

Fatty has a separate meat grinder, which he puts counter sweepings into. The only thing we see going into the pepper mill is pepper, but the dog-powered engine probably would send health inspectors into overdrive -- as would the fact that the dog jumps up on the counter. Luke, the Comique dog, is seen in many Arbuckle shorts.

Answer: porkpie

Most silent film comics wore derby hats. It's unclear why Buster chose the porkpie, but he made it work for him. He fashioned his own at first, and later made them with the help of his third wife, Eleanor. He'd rip the lining out of a gray Stetson fedora and take off the hat band, which would later be replaced with the broad ribbon. Buster would punch out the crown, and soak the whole thing in sugar water.

Then he'd trim and flatten the brim, and punch and shape the crown down into its classic porkpie shape.

The hats took quite a bit of abuse, and he'd sometimes need as many as a dozen for a single film.

Answer: A broom

Buster plays around with the brooms, flipping one lightly off the floor with his feet and neatly tossing it into a barrel. Later he uses a broom to take a swing at Al St. John.

Buster revived his most famous vaudeville broom bit later in his career, when filming "The Playhouse" (1921). He punched the broom handle through a knothole in the floor, upending himself -- a stunt he'd originally done on stage with his father when he was just a lad.

Answer: molasses

Buster is going for a laugh from his first encounter with the molasses: He sees a puddle of it on the floor, dabs his shoe into it, and scoops some off his sole with his finger for a taste. From there, he ends up with a molasses-befouled hat stuck to his head, and his foot stuck to the floor. We get another disgustingly funny moment when Fatty wipes some molasses off Buster's hair, and each of them in turn licks some off his finger.

Answer: He's kibitzing in a checker game.

Buster's interference isn't appreciated, but it establishes that he's not paying attention to what Fatty's doing. Buster later wanders off again and gives Fatty a chance to dump the pailful of molasses into Buster's hat to get at the money Buster had left in the pail.

Answer: A bag of flour

When filming, Buster had asked Roscoe how to avoid flinching when the bag was thrown at him. Roscoe told him to be facing in the other direction, "and when I yell 'Turn!' it'll be there." As Buster later said, "He put my head where my feet had been." Buster goes heels over head and joins the fight, soon throwing his first pie at Al St. John.

Answer: smiles

The bystander, like Buster, gets a bag of flour right in the kisser. Buster's grin earns him a pie in the face from the bystander.

Contrary to popular belief, "The Great Stone Face" smiled quite a bit on camera -- when he first got started. During his Comique days, Buster smiled, grimaced, laughed, and otherwise deviated from his later famous deadpan expression.

Answer: His girl has gone away to boarding school.

The entire second part takes place at the boarding school, with Fatty in drag. Arbuckle donned women's clothing for many of his films, including "Coney Island" (1917) and "Good Night, Nurse" (1918).

Answer: He dresses as a girl and pretends to be her cousin.

Fatty looks quite fetching in his frock and bloomers. But the ruse leads to complications, especially when the Principal tries to undress Fatty for bed. Fatty ends up getting a spanking with a hairbrush because of how vigorously he rejects the Principal's help.

Answer: He plans for Buster and another friend to kidnap her.

Al also dresses as a girl to infiltrate the school. He's a homely girl, with his Raggedy Ann braids and Harold Lloyd glasses. And as we'll see, his table manners leave quite a bit to be desired.

Answer: He eats peas off his knife and overstuffs his mouth.

It's Fatty who butters the bread with his fingers, putting the excess butter back into the butter dish. Strangely enough, Fatty eats his soup quite daintily, even genteelly, and complains that Al is slurping.

Answer: She pulls a gun on him.

Buster, Al, and their unnamed accomplice all end up being held at gunpoint by the Principal while she calls the cops. The scene ought to be lifted for an ad for antiperspirant, since Buster, alone of the three, sports very noticeable sweat marks in his underarms.

Answer: Fatty and the girl skip off to get married.

They see a sign for a nearby parson and decide on the spot to tie the knot. By this point Fatty has lost his hat and curly blonde wig, but is still in his frock, bloomers, and Mary Janes. Arbuckle got compliments from critics for how smartly he put together his feminine attire.