This film definitely takes advantage of the advent of talkies. We see fast talking comic stars of the american entertainment system emerging. Laurel and Hardy's style of dialogue delivery and comic pacing precedes the stand up comic in a way and is the type of high energy, zinger style humour that will dominate late night TV for decades. It’s almost tempting to say these guys were the Archie bunkers or Cheers of the their time, silly american goofballs making money off american audience goers looking for a slightly dumber but all American version of themselves to laugh at and escape the awful reality of the real world with. The protagonists are clearly identifiable to the working man of the time. They are absolutely a mirror image of him but slightly dumber and have worse luck and thus provide a comfort to depression america. The sound if the dialogue as well as sound effects in this film is dominant, almost more so than the picture.
Pop culture is emerging, and comedy is coming into it’s own in the 1930s. The stunts are less pronounced here than the days of Keaton, Chaplin, or Harold Lloyd. The comedy is now about the characters, how goofy and homer simpsonesque they are and thus how relatable they are to the average family. They are not larger than life, they are totally like your life, so you can laugh at them and in a way achieve a catharsis of laughing at yourself without really having to acknowledge that's what the comedy stems from.