Where's The Laurel and Hardy Forum??

[Brian]

Have been checking in the past few days with notices to 'come back
later on' - went there just now and there is no reference to it at
all, wiped off the cyber-map completely.

Could this be the first instance of a copyright crackdown, post-Larry
Harmon? He was well known to have left all the Sons Of The Desert and
Laurel and Hardy fans alone in that regard over the years.

Could this be the beginning of a situation similar to what happened
with the likenesses of The Three Stooges? (A company selling Stooges t-
shirts was sued thousands of dollars for infringement--the lawyer
handling the case was no less than Bela Lugosi Jr.)

I sincerely hope we haven't seen the last of the Forum, one of the
best websites and message boards on the web--anyone out there have any
further details?

[Brian]

FALSE ALARM, FOLKS -- server problems were the problem: apologies for
such overreaction!

[Larc]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:58:51 -0700 (PDT), Brian <***@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

| FALSE ALARM, FOLKS -- server problems were the problem: apologies for
| such overreaction!

I wonder if that forum is where so many from here have gone. This group
unfortunately seems to be dying like so many other Usenet groups now.

Larc

[Brian]

Not really Larc--I still come here because usually it has a lot of the
movie/video industry news (well, L&H based) from the US, home of the
'ark of the covenant' so to speak--the original negatives and
materials from the Hal Roach Studios, moldering away in some archive--
and when they're restored and released, it will be a time of
celebration.

Also a number of L&H scholars occasionally post here and it is a
pleasure to read what they have to say.

I don't think this Usenet group is dying--the only problem is that
there is so little reportable L&H news at the moment--a lot of product
is usually lined up for release from now until Christmas (there is a
complete box set of The Little Rascals being released in mid-October
for example), so who knows, could a Thelma Todd/Zazu Pitts/Patsy Kelly
box set or a 'Taxi Boys' box set be on the horizon?

Some truly wise marketing person come up with the concept of a 'Best
of James Finlayson' collection, considering his new found fame
courtesy of Homer Simpson? What about 'The Complete Charley Chase'?

All this will probably happen, day and date, with MGM's release of the
complete collection of "Pete Smith Specialties" -- by that time, hell
would have truly frozen over -- but you can bet I would have read all
that news here first.

[Ross Owen]

Hi Brian, glad you managed to get back on to the forum. We had a
massive server crash but aall's back to normal now.

Ross