1) When we were kids, Laurel and Hardy were kings. Often, the church, scouts, or school would play a 30 min short to "babysit" us. We all sat around the dinner table and cried when Laurel died. The thing was, everyone LOVED those guys.
2) I got my two boys interested in old comedies, mostly L&H and Chaplin. The viewer needs to be more patient with the old movie art-form, but it is rewarding.
3) The old stuff is less instantly funny, but better at creating warm & relatable characters. I believe the L&H formula sort of begat "Abbot and Costello" and "The Honeymooners" (and gulp, "Flintstones"). The "Andy Griffith Show", for instance, is not as clever/funny as today's shows, but much warmer and less cynical (today's shows have an advantage-less censorship, but did that create a better artform?).
4) Often, 30s humor is poking fun at rich people and overbearing wives (WC Fields is less popular these days for that reason).
5) I believe slapstick and vaudeville, which pre-dated L&H, heavily influenced the act (As Chaplin's "Karno Army" understudy though, Laurel could almost claim inventorship). A hilarious modern take on slapstick is Dick Van Dyke's routine on "how we've outgrown slapstick" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRaF4gk1yhY&t=2s
6) I guess when you're a little boy in the 50's and your older brothers/neighborhood kids are calling you stupid, its fun to take refuge in seeing "The Three Stooges" (ie someone stupider than you, who prevails in spite of themselves). SF Chron critic Mick LaSalle once compared Adam Sandler to 30s comic Joe E. Brown, both a delight for young boys of their respective eras. I hope little girls were able to get similar relief, perhaps not as much.
7) L&H have much broader appeal than "Stooges". Does "warm" and "loveable" and "relatable" equal "funny"?, well at one time they did, not so much anymore.
8) That humor a great setup for worm-turning pathos, I can't watch the tramp's "Great Dictator" speech wo tearing up. I never really saw L&H reach those levels, perhaps not Hal Roach's thing.
