Bud Abbott & Lou Costello

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in The Noose Hangs High

We all have favorites when it comes to teams in movies and we can certainly argue about the quality of an act and its showmanship when comparing our favorite team to another. But in terms of quantity (and, I’m sure, some will argue, quality), there is no comparison when it comes to the team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. For no other comedy team (or any team, for that matter) enjoyed the success Abbott and Costello did. When speaking of their success, it is perhaps important to emphasize that they were also a team in the movies, having begun their collaborative act in vaudeville (where they first appeared together in 1935 at the Eltinge Burlesque Theater in New York City), and continued on stage, radio, and TV (not to mention movies) for 22 years, formally bringing their comedy act to an end in 1957. The following is a list of just the feature-length films (36 in all) that featured Abbott and Costello:

One Night in the Tropics (1940)
Buck Privates (1941)
Hold That Ghost (1941)
In the Navy (1941)
Keep ‘Em Flying (1941)
Who Done It? (1942)
Ride ‘Em Cowboy (1942)
Pardon My Sarong (1942)
Rio Rita (1942)
Hit the Ice (1943)
It Ain’t Hay (1943)
Lost in a Harem (1944)
In Society (1944)
The Naughty Nineties (1945)
Here Come the Co-eds (1945)
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945)
The Time of Their Lives (1946)
Little Giant (1946)
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947)
Buck Privates Come Home (1947)
Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The Noose Hangs High (1948)
Mexican Hayride (1948)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949)
Africa Screams (1949)
Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
Comin’ Round the Mountain (1951)
Jack and the Beanstalk (1952)
Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)
Lost in Alaska (1952)
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)
Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955)
Dance with Me, Henry (1956)

Lou Costello and Bud Abbott in Ride ‘Em Cowboy

By comparison, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as a team were featured in 16 movies (17 if you count their cameos in the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movie Road to Bali). Mr. Hope and Mr. Crosby similarly appeared together in 17 movies, but only 7 of those movies featured both actors. Their remaining 10 collaborations merely included one and/or the other (mostly Bing Crosby) in a cameo appearance.