Mr. Hardy is failing to raise a radio antenna on his house's roof, and Mr. Laurel is helping him do that. Fail, that is.

Fay Holderness plays Oliver's wife in this short, and she's a very good actress..... but not the least funny in the role, only mildly exasperated. Meanwhile Stan and Ollie are risking life and limb, falling off roofs and so forth. It's another series of perfectly timed variations on a theme of destruction, where the boys are 90% of the movie, and Miss Holderness is there for a couple of reaction shots....and Dorothy Granger for her legs.

Hog Wild concerns Hardy, who wants nothing more than to go out on the town with Laurel until his wife insists that he install a radio antenna atop their roof. Hardy still winds up inviting Laurel over to help him with such a project, which will of course go awry in a multitude of different ways. For starters, the roof begins to fall apart due to the carelessness of the men, and eventually results in an epic (for the time), collision, sending the boys into a complete tailspin of idiocy.

Hog Wild is standard slapstick Laurel and Hardy fare, but it provides for a certain kind of "one thing leads to another" setup that keeps it going longer than if it was just an assortment of gags (which it still is at times). The verbal banter between the two men is downplayed, and the only real kind of situational gag imposed is at the very beginning of the film, where Hardy is searching for his hat that he is scolding his wife (Fay Holderness) for misplacing when it is already on his head. Certain gags like this feel like cop-outs and deliberate distractions from the fact that the film has nothing going on under its head (sort of like Laurel and Hardy themselves).

The short turns a bit more captivating towards the end, when all hell really starts breaking loose. Laurel and Hardy shorts have a traditional potboiler effect to their drama, where events escalate faster than the audience can keep up in the best way possible. Hog Wild has that effect in a low-key sense, making it at least marginally interesting even if the action and the wit isn't as substantial as it could be. This is a fine, effective short all around, despite lacking in the area that Laurel and Hardy are best in, which is verbal banter and quirky exchanges.

Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Fay Holderness.

This is not Laurel and Hardy's best effort, but even a script that was developed during a break in shooting is performed better than other comedians doing a competent script. Only Laurel and Hardy could have made this material funny.