To appreciate Durand comedies, one has to forget all about US slapstick comedy, to which they only bear a very superficial relationship. This is surrealism avant l'heure. There is no attempt at naturalism (the genre is by definition anti-naturalistic) and the objective is not so much slapstick in the US sense (people hitting and kicking each other, throwing bricks at each other, sticking pins in each other, shooting each other etc) but rather a sort of inspired and highly improbable mayhem usually emanating from some particularly innocent character who is at the centre of it all. It was a style of humour very much in vogue in France and Italy. In Léonce cinématographiste, for instance, where one sees a film programme in session (a drama plus a comedy), it is just such a "mayhem" comedy that is shown. I love these comedies and much prefer them to the nastiness of US slapstick and at its best (this is a minor example) such comedies can be superb (Onésime horloger is a Durand classic but the Italian film Lea e il gomitolo is a special favourite of mine with the superb Lea Giunchi, innocent to perfection, destroying an entire house in a search for a ball of wool.
Forget too about notions of baptism you may have in the US. The ceremony is of little importance; a French baptism is mainly about eating and drinking (one "waters" the baby in an entirely alcoholic sense).