Retro : The King of Comedy : DISNEY DOCUMENTARY ON HAL ROACH STUDIES HIS TIMELESS APPROACH

“Hal Roach: Hollywood’s King of Laughter,” a new documentary premiering Thursday on the Disney Channel, is a valentine to the legendary film producer and director who died two years ago at 100.

Included in the tribute are numerous clips from his classic Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, “Our Gang” and Charlie Chase comedy series, scenes from his features “Of Mice and Men,” “Topper” and “One Million B.C.,” and moments from his TV series “Blondie” and “My Little Margie.” Steve Allen, Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise, John Hughes, Robert Klein, Rich Little and Gail Storm talk about Roach’s influence with great enthusiasm in the documentary.

“I think it’s important that different generations have a sense of our history,” says producer Jeff Weinstock. “I think comedy is an important area.”

Back during its heyday in the 20s and 30s, Roach’s Hollywood studio was aptly nicknamed the “Laugh Factory.” And even 70 years after his films were made, audiences still roar with laughter at the slapstick shenanigans of Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy and the Little Rascals.

Roach first tried his luck in Hollywood as an actor. After being stuck in bit roles, he stepped behind the camera and began making two-reel comedies. Roach hit pay dirt when he teamed up with bespectacled funnyman Harold Lloyd in 1916. Together they made such classic films as “Safety Last.” In the late ‘20s, he introduced two of his most popular movie series: Laurel and Hardy and the “Our Gang” comedies starring the Little Rascals.

One of the reasons Roach was so successful, Weinstock says, is that he created a great working environment at his studio. “It was a place where people enjoyed working. Some of the the families who worked at the Roach studio lived on the lot. I think Hal Roach’s parents lived on the lot. It was the kind of atmosphere where comedy had a place to grow. It was a place where many people wanted to work. A lot of great comedy came out of the Laurel and Hardy films. If you take them as a body of work, they were tremendously important and significant.”

Weinstock acknowledges that Roach’s films are frequently given short-shrift because the majority were 20-minute shorts. “They were not the main attraction,” Weinstock says. “The ‘Our Gang’ shorts, for instance, were tremendously successful. Historically, they were interesting because they showed us a lot about the time. But in terms of that kind of genre of comedy, no one has captured that certain thing about youth as successfully.”

Weinstock decided to concentrate on Roach’s professional, rather than personal, life. Still, he says, Roach was an extremely charismatic man. “He was very kind of bold and daring. I spoke with him a year before he died and he was out hunting. He was like 99. He was out hunting with his dogs. He was one of these guys who didn’t stop. He was always out there pushing and always moving. There was nothing he couldn’t do.”

And Roach has had a profound impact on such comedic directors as Mel Brooks and John Hughes. “John Hughes was so influenced by him, he said that when he was doing ‘Dennis the Menace,’ he made the kid in the film go out and watch Laurel and Hardy movies every day because he thought (comedy) had never been done better. It is interesting to me because it says something that is done well is timeless.”

“Hal Roach: Hollywood’s King of Laughter” premieres Thursday at 9 p.m on the Disney Channel; it repeats April 14 at midnight and April 26 at 10:30 p.m.