Two Lame Ducks

Vince Barnett and Billy Gilbert starred in a few short subjects as Laurel & Hardy wannabes. In this one, they go duck hunting and while Gilbert shows signs of being good, with his emphatic, amusing manner, he overwhelms the nebbishy Barnett entirely. The usual tropes of the incompetent duck hunter ensue, directed wearily by veteran Alf Goulding from a script by Charles Lamont.

This short subject looks like it was made on the cheap to fill out a couple of contracts. 1936 was the year that Roach gave up on short subjects and Sennett lost his studio. Educational, the studio that made this one, had been making good comedies for two decades at this point, but the demand for short subjects had been drying up for a few years and the major studios had taken over the niche to use as training grounds for their own up-and-coming talent. Within a year Educational's remnants would be folded into Fox's B unit and its talent scattered.