<P> Abbott and Costello performed the "Pokomoko" version in their 1944 film Lost in a Harem, and later did a "Niagara Falls" version for their early' 50s television show, with Sidney Fields, who played many characters, as the delusional man beating Costello while they were both locked in a jail cell . The television version ended with Costello's troublesome lawyer, also played by Fields, entering the scene . Costello asks for the lawyer to take the case of the storytelling stranger, and the lawyer says, "Help him out? I don't know anything about him! What's his name? Where is he from?" Costello whispers in the Fields' ear, to which he responds aloud, "Niagara Falls?" and then he is immediately attacked . Another variation on the Abbott and Costello Show was the Susquehanna Hat Company / Bagel Street routine, also done as the Floogle Street routine . </P> <P> The Three Stooges performed the sketch (as part of the show they put on within the movie, as they play performers) in Gents Without Cents, a 1944 short . In their version, the final punchline is that the third character to arrive (played by Larry) is, in fact, the object of the hate of the storyteller (played by Moe). However, even though Curly (who has just been repeatedly beaten up by Moe) eggs him on, Moe refuses to attack Larry and instead they make peace . Curly then says "Niagara Falls" and both Moe and Larry chase him off the stage . </P> <P> The routine also appears in episode 19, "The Ballet" of season 1 of I Love Lucy, with Lucy playing the stranger with a kind face and a clown playing the storyteller, with the trigger word "Martha". Lucille Ball later performed the "Martha" version on CBS Opening Night in 1963, now playing the vagabond storyteller herself, with Phil Silvers as the stranger with the kind face . </P> <P> Danny Thomas and Joey Faye reprised the routine in Season 8, episode 20 ("Good Old Burlesque") of the Danny Thomas Show . Hawkeye Pierce (played by Alan Alda) references this routine in the second - season M * A * S * H episode "Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde", in which the sleep - deprived surgeon insists on responding to an ambulance arrival . Steve Martin's character Rigby Reardon had a similar trigger, the words "cleaning woman", in his film noir homage Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid . </P>

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