Here Comes Mr. Zerk

The running time for this short was about 15 minutes and unless the time listed on IMDB is right, then a few minutes were trimmed from this comedy short. However, it seemed to be all there....who knows?!

The idea for "Here Comes Mr. Zerk" is a potentially funny one. It begins with a newspaper editor yelling at an employee for mixing up the captions on a news story. In this case, Egbert (Harry Langdon) is labeled as an escaped maniac and the maniac is listed as a professor who is getting married! Not surprisingly, when folks see Egbert, they assume he's insane and act accordingly. He hasn't seen the paper and has no idea why folks are acting so strangely and aggressively towards him!

This is a funny idea. But the problem is that the film was made by incompetents who had little in the way of timing or humor. So, instead of being funny, it all comes off as very forced and lacking all subtlety. Worth seeing only if you are a die-hard Harry Langdon fan...otherwise, easy to skip.