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This is the first newsletter for the 2008 Slapsticon, and we hope to update it regularly right up to the festival time — Thursday July 17 to Sunday July 20. We are pleased to report that we'll be in the same theater and hotel we were in last year (at the same low rates!), but more about that later. The best news is that Slapsticon Film Programmer Richard M. Roberts has put together another great program, chock full of classics and rarities.

Slapsticon regular Paul Gierucki is the producer of well-received DVDs about , and . Comedy fans are waiting with anticipation for his Three Stooges Rarities Show on Slapsticon's opening night. We'll see some of The Stooges rarest home movies, TV appearances and commercials.

Harry Langdon is a Slapsticon favorite and his many fans will look forward to a real rarity, the feature-length talkie See America Thirst (1930), co-starring Slim Summerville. We'll also enjoy an unreleased documentary about Harry produced by Paul Killiam. This will be a real treat for comedy fans because it includes interviews with many of Harry's co-stars, including Vernon Dent.

Buster Keaton's fans have read about his final film: The Scribe (1967), but few have actually seen it. It's a Canadian industrial short featuring Buster on the girders of a skyscraper shot during a cold, windy autumn day, and it demonstrates that Buster never slowed down a step, even in the months before his death.

Think the pre-code era began with the talkies? Snub Pollard's Springtime Saps (1928) puts them to shame with some of the most risqué comedy ever put on screen.

James Finlayson fans have wondered what Laurel & Hardy's favorite foil was up to while on leave from the Hal Roach studios in 1928. The First National feature Ladies' Night in a Turkish Bath supplies the answer, a fun and racy comedy about "modern" women and their befuddled husbands and boyfriends.

Like Harry Langdon, Raymond Griffith has developed a cult following among comedy fans, and Changing Husbands (1924) shows off Griffith's comedic talents in the year just before he broke through as Paramount's major comedy star.

W.C. Fields made his feature film starring debut in D.W. Griffith's Sally of the Sawdust (1925) and we're honoring The Great Man by showing the original release version this feature.

Before he became a swashbuckler, Douglas Fairbanks was one of the most accomplished athletic comedians of the late 'teens. In his first year of movie stardom, Fairbanks shows off his comedy chops in the delightful Manhattan Madness (1916).

These are just a few of the delights in store for attendees of Slapsticon 2008. We'll send updates of new titles as they are confirmed, but in the meantime you can peruse the list as it stands now here: https://slapsticon.org/program.html. You can pre-register by printing out the form here: https://slapsticon.org/registration_form.html. And hotel information reservation information here: https://slapsticon.org/travel.html.

More later. See you at Slapsticon 2008!