Leonard Maltin, a beloved film critic-historian and a friend and frequent guest host of TCM, has long been fascinated by short subjects. Among his many books is The Great Movie Shorts: Those Wonderful One- and Two-Reelers of the Thirties and Forties. First published in 1972, it was reissued as Selected Short Subjects in 1983.

Maltin now appears on TCM to cohost a collection of three dozen shorts covering a variety of subjects. Most of the films are from the 1930s, with a handful from the 1940s and one from 1956. Below is a roundup of categories with examples from each.

Short Subject Potpourri #1:
Smash Your Baggage (1932) is an all-Black musical short in which redcaps and porters put on a show in Grand Central Station. The cast is credited as "Small's Paradise Entertainers." Small's Paradise was a long-running Harlem nightclub that got its start in 1925 and continued through 1986. The jazz score includes "Tiger Rag," "Bugle Call Rag" and "Concentratin' on You."

Movie Pests (1944) is a "Pete Smith Specialty" in which Smith describes the audience members who make a nuisance of themselves in a movie theater, including those who put their knees on the back of your seat, eat their snacks noisily or stick their feet into the aisles. The film was nominated for an Oscar as Best One-Reel Short Subject.

Also screening: The Pip from Pittsburg (1931), Star Night at the Coconut Grove (1934), Fitzpatrick Traveltalks: Los Angeles, Wonder City of the West (1935), The Man in the Barn (1937), A Night at the Movies (1937) and So You Want to be a Detective (1948)

Thelma Todd and Friends:
Asleep in the Feet (1933) is one of 17 Hal Roach shorts starring the comedy team of Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts, who were envisioned as a female variation of Laurel and Hardy. In this Depression-era comedy the gals play department store workers who moonlight as taxi dancers to help a neighbor pay her rent.

The Bargain of the Century (1933) has Todd and Pitts trying to enlist a cop in buying merchandise at a bargain sale. This was the next-to-last of the comedy shorts made by the Pitts/Todd team and released through MGM.

Top Flat (1935) teams Todd with Patsy Kelly, a duo that would last through 21 MGM comedy shorts. In this installment, Kelly visits Todd at a swank Park Avenue apartment, not realizing that Todd is there only as a maid.

The Boy Friends:
Air-Tight (1931) is one of 15 comedy shorts featuring The Boy Friends, a comedy troupe spun off by Hal Roach from Our Gang and featuring such alumni from that group as Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman. In this episode, one of the guys (Grady Sutton) accidentally takes off in a glider and his pals must figure out how to get him down. This short is directed by future great George Stevens (Giant, 1956).

You're Telling Me (1932) is the 13th short in The Boy Friends series released through MGM during the period 1930-32. This one has Daniels and his pal Alabama (Grady Sutton) abusing the hospitality of a friend and his parents by extending an invitation to visit for weeks on end. Comic Billy Gilbert plays the put-upon father.

Also screening: Call a Cop! (1931) and Too Many Women (1932).

Pure Slapstick:
Whispering Whoopee (1930) is a pre-Code Charley Chase comedy in which the star hosts a party for three businessmen, hoping to sell them some property. He hires a group of call girls to entertain, but when his potential clients turn out to be apparently strait-laced older men, he tries to pass the women off as a librarian, a college administrator and a music student. When the old geezers turn out not be not so stuffy after all, chaos ensues.

Buzzin' Around (1933) is one of only six sound shorts starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. (The rest of his output was silent.) This Vitaphone comedy, released by Warner Bros., casts Arbuckle as a farm boy who invents a substance that keeps china from breaking. Unfortunately, while driving to town to demonstrate his discovery, he is swarmed by bees.

Keystone Hotel (1935), another Vitaphone release through Warner Bros., was inspired by Mack Sennett's silent comedies and features such former Sennett players as Ben Turpin, Marie Prevost and the Keystone Kops. The action revolves around a beauty contest that turns into a pie fight and results in the arrival of the Kops.

Crime Does Not Pay:
All three of these shorts are from MGM's no-nonsense "Crime Does Not Pay" series. The first two won Oscar nominations as Best Two-Reel Short Subject in their respective years.

The Public Pays (1936) looks at a crime ring that demands "protection" money from milk wholesalers across the country until the police step in. Errol Taggart directs an uncredited cast.

Drunk Driving (1939), which claims to be based on a real-life case, concerns a young businessman who mixes drinking and driving to disastrous results. Dick Purcell has the leading role, with Jo Ann Sayers and Richard Lane in support. David Miller directs.

Women in Hiding (1940) focuses on unwed mothers, particularly those who have nowhere else to go and end up in clinics that demand they give their babies up for adoption. Joseph M. Newman directs a cast headed by Marsha Hunt, Jane Drummond and Mary Bovard.

Charley Chase:
Girl Shock (1930) is one of a series of sound comedy shorts made for the Hal Roach Studios in the 1930s by Chase, a writer-director-actor who contributed to more than 300 movies and died prematurely at age 46. This pre-Code film has a bizarre plot in which Chase goes into hysterics when touched by his girlfriend because he suffered what is suggested as sexual abuse by female soldiers during World War I! James W. Horne directs.

Four Parts (1934) casts Chase as four grown quadruplets - a doctor, a bus conductor, a traffic cop and a taxi driver - who still live with their mother (Florence Roberts). One of the guys has a girlfriend (Betty Mack) who is driven to distraction because she can't tell the brothers apart. The film is directed by Chase (as Charles Parrott) and Eddie Dunn.

These Chase shorts are also screening: His Silent Racket (1933), Fallen Arches (1933) and The Chases of Pimple Street (1934).

Short Subject Potpourri #2:
Apples to You! (1934), a pre-Code Hal Roach comedy, is a cheeky satire in which a failing opera company is revived by bringing in elements of burlesque. Under the guidance of burlesque impresario Pinsky (Billy Gilbert), a boring production of The Barber of Seville is transformed into a bump-and-grind show! Lee Jason directs a cast that also includes Lillian Miles and Will Stanton.

The Fabulous Fraud (1948) is a biographical drama in John Nesbitt's "Passing Parade" series of shorts made for MGM. The subject is Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), the German physician who was the first to use hypnotism in treating illness (hence the word "mesmerize"). John Baragrey plays Mesmer, with Marcia Mae Jones and Morris Ankrum also in the cast. Edward L. Cahn directs.

Also screening: And She Learned about Dames (1934), Zion: Canyon of Color (1934), How to Sleep (1935), The Black Network (1936), Double Talk (1937), Pony Express Days (1940), Important Business (1944) and So You Want to Play the Piano (1956).