Can someone please explain Stan Laurel's accent to me?

Mid-Atlantic

So it was affected r1?

It was exaggerated, so I suppose it was. Here is an interview with Stan later on his life. He had the accent but less affected. 24:40 for a lengthy bit of his natural speaking voice, but keep in mind, he is at a more advanced age.

Thanks, OP, that was a great clip. It shows the great comedy these two shared. It a Master Class in reactions.

He was Scottish, I think... so he must've been doing his best to Americanize whatever accent he had.

R4 100%. They provided much merriment during my childhood, both, on the screen and in the comic books.

Movie Actor Accent

Speaking of Laurel (& Hardy)

r8 that is amazing!!! Thank you!

I didn't want it to end R9

The Mid-Atlantic accent was the norm for Actors until the 1960's, very regional accents were discouraged by the studios.

I watched a few of their shorts recently. Stan Laurel was superb. Very understated. His expressions are brilliant.

He used to be Charlie Chaplin’s understudy when they toured America with a Vaudeville troupe. I recall reading that they didn’t like each other much.

I never liked Chaplin, r14.

R15 same. I always preferred Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. I love Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers, too.

I love both Keaton and Lloyd, r16.

One of my favorite scenes from silent film:

r3 is very enlightening. Thanks

Interesting observation, OP. I never thought about his accent before, but listening to R3's link (where he sounds exactly the same as he did in the movies), I do now see the British accent, though it's very light. I don't think it was affected in film, it's just that his accent isn't very heavy and you don't notice it much because of his character, his slow speaking pattern, and the fact he never had long dialogues.

That accent is Espanish. De nada.

R7 is correct. Funny and correct.

In OP's clip, Laurel is using a neutral cultured stage diction so that everything he said would be picked up by the early microphones in every take and understood by the audience in every viewing. He learned his craft on stage in the English music hall, long before Stanislavsky and method acting. He appeared in film for 10 years before sound was introduced. Without his stage trained diction, he might not have made the transition at all, let alone made it so very successfully.