[12] Since writing this I am informed that the Winter Garden has changed, at least structurally. But even if the type of show at that house also changes, The Passing Show as a type will be seen elsewhere, so I leave what I have written. In 1913 or 1914 Mr H. K. Moderwell wrote of the worst show in years, “They call it The Passing Show. Let it pass.” Apparently they did.
[13] This review appeared in Vanity Fair sometime in the summer of 1922. I allow it to stand with nothing more than verbal corrections in spite of my dislike of books which collect articles expressly written for magazine publication, because I feel that the negro show is extraordinarily transient and that a transient criticism of it is adequate. The permanent qualities are touched on elsewhere; especially in the essay entitled “Toujours Jazz.” Since this was written there have been other negro shows, and I have heard that one was better than Shuffle Along. What has interested me more is the report that there is a “nigger show by white men” which is standing them up every night. This verifies a prediction made below—that the negro show would have an effect on the white man’s. I am not at all sure that there will not continue to be negro shows for a long time—why in Heaven’s name shouldn’t there be? They have their qualities and their great virtues. It is only in relation to the sophisticated Broadway piece that I find them lacking; and have perhaps not been fair enough to them.
[14] For da Ponte’s share in the work, cf. Edgar Istel: Das Libretto, which analyzes the changes made in Beaumarchais’ play.
[15] All this was written before Bert Savoy died. I haven’t changed the verbs to the past tense. “How well could we have spared for him....”
[16] R. C. Benchley has written a just and sympathetic account of Jackson. It appeared in a magazine and is not, so far as I know, available in book form.
[17] A number of comic-strip artists, on achieving fame, stop drawing, leaving that work to copyists of exceptional skill. I do not know whether this is the case in the Happy Hooligan strip.
[18] I must hasten to correct an erroneous impression which may have caused pain to many of Krazy’s admirers. The three children, Milton, Marshall, and Irving, are of Ignatz, not, as Mr Stark Young says, of Krazy. Krazy is not an unmarried mother. For the sake of the record I may as well note here the names of the other principals: Offisa Bull Pupp; Mrs Ignatz Mice; Kristofer Kamel; Joe Bark the moon hater; Don Kiyoti, that inconsequential heterodox; Joe Stork, alias Jose Cigueno; Mock Duck; Kolin Kelly the brick merchant; Walter Cephus Austridge; and the Kat Klan: Aunt Tabby, Uncle Tom, Krazy Katbird, Osker Wildcat, Alec Kat, and the Krazy Katfish.
[19] See [Appendix].
[20] Heywood Broun has discovered that everybody in vaudeville is an “artist” except the trained seal.
[21] I do not know enough of Carl Hyson and Dorothy Dickson or of the Astaires to judge their place.