Editing Gracie Allen (section)

==Double act==
{{unreferenced section|date=August 2015}}[[File:Burns and Allen 1924.jpg|thumb|upright|150px|[[Burns and Allen]] on the [[vaudeville]] circuit in 1924]]
The Burns and Allen act began with Allen as the [[Double act|straight man]], setting up Burns to deliver the punchlines and receive the laughs. In his book ''[[Gracie: A Love Story]]'', Burns explained that he had noticed that Allen's straight lines were bringing more laughs than did his punchlines, so he cannily flipped the act, making himself the straight man so that Allen would elicit the laughter. Audiences immediately fell in love with Allen's character, which combined the traits of naivete, zaniness and innocence. The reformulated team, focusing on Allen, toured the country, eventually headlining in major vaudeville houses. Many of their famous routines were preserved in one- and two-reel short films, including ''Lambchops'' (1929), made while the couple was still performing on the stage.

Burns attributed all of the couple's early success to Allen, ignoring his own brilliance as a straight man. He summarized their act by saying: "All I had to do was say, 'Gracie, how's your brother?' and she talked for 38 years. And sometimes I didn't even have to remember to say 'Gracie, how's your brother?'"