The Cook Trivia Quiz

Answer: Luke the Dog

The restaurant, "The Bull Pup", has Roscoe Arbuckle as the cook, Buster Keaton as the waiter, Al St. John as the villian, and Luke the Dog as the bouncer. It's a less than sanitary establishment, since in addition to being the bouncer, Luke helps the dishwasher by licking the tableware.

Luke belonged to Roscoe's wife, Minta Durfee, who was given a puppy by director Wilfred Lucas as a bonus for performing a particularly dangerous and difficult stunt in a movie. She named the dog after Lucas.

Answer: He's peeling onions.

Roscoe is peeling the last of an entire bowl full of onions as the film opens. It's unclear why he peels so many onions, since he only tosses the last one into the pot. Roscoe handles food a lot in his films. In "The Butcher Boy" (1917) he cuts meat. In "The Rough House" (1917) he serves double-duty as cook and butler, serving soup in an unorthodox manner.

Though Roscoe is often listed in credits with the nickname "Fatty", and his characters are often named Fatty, he himself hated the nickname. It's what other kids had called him in school. Who likes to be reminded of being bullied as a child? His friends called him by his name, except for a few who had personal nicknames for him. Buster Keaton, for example, called him "Chief".

Answer: The cook almost chops his head off.

Buster lands on the chopping block and gets a huge cleaver brought down on his neck by Roscoe. "Comrade!" Buster cries, leaping to his feet and holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. (This is also a good shot to see that he's missing his right index fingertip due to getting it caught in a wash wringer as a small child.)

A contrite Roscoe checks to make sure his friend's head is still firmly attached before the boss comes in and drags Buster away.

Answer: A dreamy look.

For a moment it looks as if Buster is going to kiss her as she turns her face toward him, but she turns away, evidently quite bored. Buster sighs wistfully, but instead of whispering in her ear he screams out her order: "Cup of mud!"

Keaton, a bit miffed because Arubuckle had lifted a few bits of his family's vaudeville act, was still curious enough about how movies were made to take a tour of the Comique studio in 1917 on an invite from an old family friend. Arbuckle was gracious to his young visitor, allowing him to take home a camera to disembowel and reassemble. Evidently all was forgiven very quickly, since Keaton leaped into film at Roscoe's invite the day the two met, beginning a fruitful partnership and a deep and abiding friendship.

Answer: No

We're also treated to some of Arbuckle's famous pancake flipping and knife tossing. He flips the pancakes behind his back, under his leg, off a broom or his foot, and from one pan to the other. He tosses the knife into the air and it sticks, point down, in the butcher block. For all his size, Roscoe Arbuckle was amazingly light on his feet and known for his great dexterity.

One Arbuckle talent lay latent because of technical limitations: he was known first as a singer. The great Caruso himself encouraged Roscoe to pursue a vocal career, but film and comedy called louder than music.

Answer: He blows powder off her back.

I guess at the time some fashionable ladies dusted their backs and shoulders with powder as makeup. This woman is evidently caked in it, since quite a cloud of powder floats off after Buster puffs. He starts dusting her off with a napkin but gets chided.

Answer: Egyptian

Buster dances with fluid ease, even doing a butterfly kick over the girl's head. He dances into the kitchen to call out an order for two scoops of ice cream. But when he dances back into the dining room, he pays more attention to his dancing than the ice cream and ends up getting ice cream in his boss's face and down the back of a customer's dress. Oops!

Answer: A string of sausages

Unfortunately, both "Salome" and "Cleopatra" have been lost. (As one commenter at the Internet Movie Database put it, "The last two prints known [of "Cleopatra"] were destroyed in fires at the Fox studios and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Please check your attic.") We modern audiences therefore likely miss all the finer nuances of the spoof.

Buster Keaton, who was to ship off to Europe for WWI after filming, took Roscoe's Salome/Cleopatra dance and made it his own, originally to entertain his fellow troops. He made his costume with items from mess kits and used a hot dog for the snake. A version of this dance can be seen in "The Hollywood Revue of 1929".

Answer: He opens the bottle by smashing it off Buster's forehead.

He not only drinks from the bottle, he bites off a chunk that he spits in Buster's face before smashing the remains off the top of the hapless waiter's head. Then he shoves Buster into the boss, setting off a chain reaction. The boss then goes after him with a knife, but the tough guy takes the knife, chops off the boss's mustache and feeds it to him. He might not be tough, but he sure is mean. And through all of the chaos, the band plays on.

Al was Roscoe Arbuckle's nephew. After "talkies" came in, he found his niche playing sidekicks in Westerns, often using the nickname "Fuzzy".

Answer: Eating spaghetti

While Al is spinning around with Luke attached to his posterior, Buster Keaton looks on, laughing. So much for the Great Stone Face.

The spaghetti scene is a classic, with each character approaching the pasta in his own way, including snipping it with scissors, knitting with it, and sucking it through a funnel. One stunt even gets a smile out of Buster.

When Al lands on the table, he bounces, and the men bounce him into a corner. Luke then jumps through the skylight and scares Al away, gaining praise from Roscoe and Buster.

Answer: Goatland

As he prepares to go fishing, Rosco pulls yet another thing out of the magic pot that has so far dispensed ham, soup, gravy, milk, coffee, and so on: his coat. He takes off, bringing Luke and an enormous fishing pole. Buster heads off with Alice.

Goatland, which appears to be a goat cart rental concession, is at the beachfront amusement park -- perhaps Coney Island. Buster has trouble getting in his goat cart. Roscoe has trouble staying in his. He also knocks over a couple of cops with his monstrous fishing pole.

Answer: A huge fish

Luke helps Roscoe land the fish, which soon gets away, swimming through the surf with Luke in hot pursuit. Cameraman George Peters framed beautiful shots of Roscoe and Luke silhouetted in the surf.

Answer: On a stuck roller coaster

Alice's car gets stuck, and she gets off, pursued by Al. To get away, she dives into the sea. Luckily, Roscoe sees her fall and runs to save her. Luke even abandons his fish to go after Al.

Answer: It's fastened to the post by a chain and padlock.

A note tells Roscoe that the key to the chain is at the court house, one mile east. Some help! Roscoe and Buster have more problems trying to get a rope to save Alice. Eventually Buster and Roscoe both end up in the sea.

Answer: Luke chases him out to sea.

The original press kit says:

"While the pest waiter is rescuing his girl with the aid of the cook, the corageous Luke dives into the ocean after the tough guy, chasing him so far out into the ocean that he can't swim back to shore. it is fitting that after all this action, everything ends happily."

There's still hope among Keaton and Arbuckle fans that the lost ending will turn up. After all, the ending of "Hard Luck" (1921) was long considered lost, only to turn up in a Russian archive print. Check your attic.