How well we remember laughing at Zeb and Zarrow in 1905.
Are you sure you don't recall them? I refer of course to Zeb Ferguson
and Walter Zarrow. They were comic bicyclists. (It's a funny concept; use
your imagination.)
Many a comedy team has suffered for their slapstick: broken teeth due to
a comic slap, a bloody wound caused by a prop glass bottle that was the real thing, fingers lost when a bowling-ball shaped comic bomb actually exploded (if I had the energy there would be a link here for Harold Lloyd!)
Anyway, Zeb and Zarrow outdid everyone when it came to violent slapstick
repercussions.
Zarrow was calling attention to the duo's appearance in town. The touring
comedian didn't impress a local cop. When the policeman objected to Zarrow
bicycling atop a table and got into an argument with him, there was a scuffle.
Zarrow started running and was shot in the back and killed.
As Ronald L. Smith writes, "The wheels of Zeb and Zarrow screeched
to a halt. The remaining spokesman, Zeb, worked the burlesque circuit as
a monologist. He joined "The Ducklings" burlesque show and toured
the country. On September 21, he collapsed after a matinee performance in
Brooklyn. Typhoid and pneumonia were diagnosed and a week later Zeb re-joined
Zarrow -- bicycling through parts unknown."