Two Knights of Vaudeville (1915)

Two black men find three tickets for a vaudeville show. They attend the show with a woman, but the men act so bad and stupid that they get kicked out. They then decide to put on their own show. This is an early example of using actual black actors instead of whites in blackface, and shows the racism that was common at that time. The title cards make the black men appear extremely stupid. The film was made by the Historical Feature Film Company, which was white-run, but distributed by the Ebony Film Company to make it appear that it was released by a black-controlled company.

At 03:11, Clyde Courtney, That Juggler, performs his comedy act for 2 minutes, starting with hat tricks, and then a hat, cane and cigar routine. He then strikes a wooden match, tosses it behind his back, and catches it in his mouth, still lit, and uses it to light a cigar. This is an early precursor to the famous Cigarette Trick created by Bobby May and duplicated by several others. Finally, Courtney juggles 3 balls, 5 balls, and then 3 balls again. During his act, Jimmy Marshall tried to do some hat tricks in his seat and Bert Murphy juggled some things he had with him.

At 10:02, while putting on a vaudeville show for their neighborhood, Jimmy Marshall attempts to foot juggle a barrel, and Bert Murphy juggles 3 balls.