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Smith and Dale were a famous American vaudeville comedy duo. They consisted of Joe Smith (born Joseph Sultzer on February 17, 1884February 22, 1981) and Charlie Dale (born Charles Marks on September 6, 1881November 16, 1971), who both grew up in the Lower East Side of New York City at the end of the 19th century. Beginning in their adolescence, their career spanned the majority of their lives, with the two performing together continuously for more than seventy years. The duo were one of several famous comic performers of vaudeville, radio and movies that collectively originated from the same place and era. Other entertainers included Gallagher and Shean, George Burns, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel and the Marx Brothers.

Sultzer and Marks met as teenagers in the fall of 1898, when they accidentally ran into each other while cycling. Joe was cycling north on Eldridge Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, while Charlie was cycling east on Delancey. As they argued over whose fault it was, the shopkeeper who rented the bikes, said: “You two sound like Weber and Fields.” Smith and Dale took up where the foursome left off, playing Broadway and vaudeville (including the Palace Theatre, considered the pinnacle of stage venues) while also beginning their movie career. Both used a heavy Jewish dialect, with Smith speaking in a deep, pessimistic voice and Dale in a high, wheedling tenor.

Smith and Dale made several short comedy movies in the late 1920s when sound movies came in. Their comedy relied on verbal interplay and timing, and they typically made changes to their act slowly. As a consequence, their material quickly was exhausted by the medium of the short film, and they never became big movie stars. Their act can be seen (to excellent advantage) in the feature movie The Heart of New York (1932). Based on David Freedman's stage success Mendel, Inc., they play a pair of professional matchmakers, constantly bickering back and forth. They also ran through some of their sketches in Paramount Pictures and Vitaphone short subjects. Their "firemen" sketch, in which Joe and Charlie are lazy firemen who hardly pay attention when someone reports a fire, was filmed as The False Alarm Fire Co. !1929) and again as Fun in a Fire House (1936). Another routine was "The Gypsy National Bank," in which fly by night banker Joe is questioned by prospective depositor Charlie; this was included in the vaudeville revue short Vitaphone Diversions (1937). In 1938, Smith and Dale starred in a pair of two reel comedies for Columbia Pictures, both produced and directed by comedian Charley Chase: A Nag in the Bag (they operate a drive in restaurant and gamble on a horse race) and Mutiny on the Body (they visit a shady sanitarium for a rest cure). Smith and Dale adapted surprisingly well to Columbia's fast paced format, but they made no other movies for the studio; executive producer Jules White didn't care for their dialect shtick and didn't renew their contract. Smith and Dale also made three Soundies in 1941. These were three minute films that played in coin operated "movie jukeboxes." In a rare exception to Soundies' all musical policy, Smith and Dale did spoken comedy routines. Laurel and Hardy, another venerable comedy team, were scheduled to appear in the Technicolor musical Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), but scheduling problems forced them to withdraw. They were replaced by Smith and Dale, appearing as Leo and Harry, the proprietors of the Palace Deli. In a throwback to the Avon Comedy Four's restaurant sketch, Smith and Dale rib each other continuously as they serve their patrons. The dialogue is so out of character with the script, and so long in comparison to other exchanges in the movie, that there can be no doubt that Smith and Dale were allowed to insert their own material into the script.

Smith and Dale continued working as a team in stage, radio, nightclub, film, and television productions. They were frequent guests on New York based variety shows like Cavalcade of Stars (doing the "firemen" sketch on live television, with Art Carney as the frantic fire victim) and "The Steve Allen Show" of September 2, 1956 with Louis Nye as the fire victim. They also played The Ed Sullivan Show. Smith and Dale still performed in the 1960s, including an appearance at New York's Donnell Library Center. The partnership, known among entertainers as the longest in show business history, endured until Charlie Dale's death at age 89, on November 16, 1971. Smith continued to perform, mainly in guest appearances on television sitcoms, until his death on February 22, 1981, at the age of 97. Late in their lives, both men wound up in the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, an assisted living and nursing care facility available to those who have dedicated the major portion of their professional lives to the theatrical industry. Smith and Dale are buried in the same cemetery plot, with a common headstone. The gravestone notes the name of the three people buried there, Dale and his wife Mollie and the widowed Smith. Smith is identified only by his show business name of Joe Smith, and his partner is listed as Charles Dale Marks, and Dale's wife is listed as Mollie Dale Marks. The larger printing higher on the stone states "Smith & Dale", to which Smith added the words "Booked Solid".

The longevity of the comedy team in Neil Simon's play and film The Sunshine Boys is said to be inspired by Smith and Dale. The bickering nature of the team was said to be inspired by the vaudeville comics Gallagher and Shean. Gordon Lish's Extravaganza: A Joke Book (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1989) is an avant garde novel inspired by Smith and Dale's act.