Slapstick Summer Series: Ladies, Please! | Those Awful Hats (1909)

Although rudimentary and often too-easily dismissed, Those Awful Hats is a must-see for all fans of early cinema and film history. Reasons being (in no particular order):

1. We're treated to a live-action PSA of the famous theater slides which asked women to remove their giant hats so as to not obstruct the view of those behind. (And you thought cell phones were annoying) 
2. It's not just one of the oldest surviving films directed by D.W. Griffith, it's also one of his rare comedies.
3. That energetic man with the checkered jacket, top hat, and cane? Yeah, that's Mack Sennett. Three years later he would found a little something known as Keystone Studios.

Besides, that giant hat-grabber is EPIC!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0001062/

Slapstick Summer Series: The 1st Pie Face | Mr. Flip (1909)

Mr. Flip, played by cross-eyed comedian, Ben Turpin, is quite the ladies' man...and by "ladies' man", I mean borderline sexual harasser who constantly receives his just desserts [sp]. Speaking of which, this film (directed by Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson) includes the earliest known use of the pie-in-the-face bit in a movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0236517/