Monologues, sketches, and dialect routines from the first age of recorded comedy — including Cal Stewart’s Uncle Josh and contemporaries — drawn from source-evidence-gated recordings published before 1926.
Curated from the eligible archive
Each card is an exact timed excerpt with its original source kept visible. Play it here, download the source-backed package, or open the full tools to find more.
Until I paid for it, I had to carry it over to the table and set it down, and go get a cup of coffee, and a spoon, and the cream, and sugar, and a glass of water, and the pepper, and salt.
All bound around with a woolly string All bound around with a woolly string Well, that's all right, Cy, but why don't you sing the rest of that air song?
Well, I pulled on a hook and turned around on a knob, and a lot of wheels commenced to buzzing and flying around, and I think all the fire bells in New York commenced to ringing about that time.
Maybe she needs a little gas Wesley Maybe you need a wooden leg Ain't I done told you woman she's got nuff gas in her to drown a party hippo must in Maybe she do need a jill or two of gas It's
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge with measured beat and slow, like a sexton ringing the village bell when the evening sun is low.
Got up curtains round the windows, white and snow and all of the least, fixed that parlor till, by gracious, I should never know the place.
On that pleasant morn of the early fall, when Lee marched over the mountain wall, over the mountains, winding down, horse and foot into Fredericktown.
But I'll take me oath on, till he hath made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool.
placer la chèvre au cou, cependant que de l 'eau s 'en arrose le sou, les donneurs de s 'aîner par désir de rubarbe, avoir son enfance voir toujours dans quelque barbe, non merci.
As one who cons at evening or the album all alone, and muses on the faces of the friends that he has known, so I turn the leaves of fancy till in shadowy design I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.
A man there was, and many other such you might have met, who never had a dozen thoughts in all his life, but told them all, each in his accustomed place, from morn till night, from youth till holy age.
Old King Cole Was a merry old soul And a merry old soul Was he by Gaspar He called for his pipe And he called for his bowl And he called for his fiddlers flea And every fiddler had a fine fiddle And every fiddler
was the matter of them, and neighbors would come over and lean over the fence and look at Jim's hogs and give him advice, but that didn't help the hogs any, they kept right on a dying.
He called for his pipe, and he called for his glass, and he called for his fiddler's three.
I guess I would, only the keeper from the asylum come along just then and took the fellow away.
Well, sir, we've just had a county fair at Funkin'Center, and gosh, I ain't got the noise out of my ears yet.
I told him at the board meeting that it was this very spirit in so-called up-to-date satiety that was breeding anarchy in these here United States of America and that if a boy didn't mind the law of his home and the
One dollar, one dollar, one dollar, and a quarter, and a quarter, and a quarter, and a quarter, and a half, and a half, and a half, and a half, and a two, and a bit, and a gong, and a two, and a two,
Before radio and film, comedy lived on 78 rpm discs and wax cylinders: rural monologues, dialect sketches, courtroom farces, and novelty recitations. The current shelf is limited to recordings published before 1926 that pass Selekt’s exact-source evidence and automated sentence gates; every card links its archive source.
The crackle, projected stage delivery, and period pacing cut through a modern mix differently from contemporary speech. Search the routines sentence by sentence, shape the timing in Quote Composer, and export the WAV and Rights Receipt as separate files.
A note on the era: some routines use stereotypes, slurs, and dialect humor that can be harmful now. The source and context remain visible so you can listen critically and decide whether a line belongs in your work.
