The Three Stooges

Whenever I watch the Three Stooges it feels like I’m getting ready for school again. My sister would get me up in the morning and I would dress while watching the Three Stooges and get ready to run to catch the bus just at the end of our driveway. 

I do like them at times. My dad never liked them…he said “they make me nervous as hell son.” I must admit when I got older and found the Marx Brothers, Chaplin, and Buster Keaton more in line with my comedic tastes BUT sometimes I just have to watch the Stooges!

I just watched one episode at random today. A Ducking They Did Go…they were all in a boat and Curly accidently shoots a hole in the boat…water starts coming up and the boat is sinking….so Larry gets the gun and shoots another hole in the boat. Moe asked him why…Larry says “I made another hole so the water will run out.”…ahhhh….the Stooges logic! I found a clip of that scene

The 1934 short, ‘The Woman Haters’ marks the first of 190 theatrical short films made by Columbia Pictures, which starred, ‘The Three Stooges’ between 1934 and 1959.

The culture impact of the Stooges was huge through the decades. They have been parodied by everyone from SNL, That Seventies Show, Simpsons, and so many more references. 

Parents were concerned about kids copying the Stooges…they probably had a right to be. When I was in school I would hear the nyuk, nyuk but we didn’t hit each over the head with lead pipes. 

Their 1940 short, You Nazty Spy!, was the first American production to openly make a mockery of Adolf Hitler’s regime. (Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator opened nine months later.) The short was perceived as a great insult by Hitler, who listed the Stooges on his own personal death list…Here is the episode colorized. 

As popular as they were they never got paid what they deserved. They were in “shorts” which played before and between feature movies. They worked for Columbia who was ran by the notorious cheap Harry Cohn. Columbia’s shorts department thrived throughout the late ’30s and ’40s. Keeping its biggest stars in the dark as to their true value was a deliberate ploy to ensure they worked cheap.

Cohn kept the Stooges on one year contracts and claimed that the department lost money.

Here in a link to a short history of the Stooges.

https://www.liveabout.com/three-stooges-4587473

Here is a bio of the Three Stooges introduced by Curly’s grandson.

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

43 thoughts on “The Three Stooges”

    2. Hans…sorry to bring the comment up again but I meant to ask you something that I should have asked in the post. Have you ever met a female that liked the Stooges? I haven’t…just wondering. I think they were primarily a guy thing.

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      1. My wife likes them. Once in a while if nothing is on tv on a Saturday evening we will tune into ME TV and watch an hour or so of them- she likes them more than I do I think. … Speaking on the same topic sort of- Have you ever been to a Neil Young concert? I’ve never seen so many guys- and so few women at a concert as at a Neil concert- I haven’t seen him in 20 years but the 4-5 times I”ve seen him- a very male oriented crowd.

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      2. Ok cool! I’m glad she does. Jennifer no…they aggravate her so bad…hmmm may be the reason I play them once in a while.

        Yes I saw Neil in his country phase in the mid 80s… yes you are right about that. My friend and I remarked on that at the time because we were single guys…and that was not what we wanted to see.

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      4. I just texted my buddy that went with me…yea he remembered the same thing. I guess some don’t cross over as well.
        I didn’t notice but I’ve heard people say that of the Who…even Kenney Jones said that he was shocked on the lack of females at Who concerts when he joined.

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      5. Hmm. I saw The Who a couple of times– I can’t recall that one way or another but I think you are right- I don’t know many female Who fanatics.

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  2. I’ve never been a big fan but it’s neat youhad that personal memory of watching them when young. No denying they had a big influence on comedy in decades to come… too bad they didn’t benefit that much from their popularity. I’d have thought they’d all have become millionaires, even back then.

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    1. I’m not a giant fan either…the Marx Brothers are more me but once in a while it’s a lot of fun.
      I have a question…have you ever met a female that liked them? I haven’t .

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      1. no, I don’t think I have…come to think of it, they’re probably one of the most lob-sided followings of any entertainment act I could think of that way.

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  3. MeTV shows The Stooges for two hours (6-8PM ET) on Saturday night, and I rarely miss them. They’re still hilarious, as funny as they were almost 60 years ago when I started watching them. Moe and Curly are always hilarious, but I find that as I’ve gotten older, I have a greater appreciation for Shemp and Joe, and Larry might be my favorite. And the supporting actors, like Vernon Dent, Bud Jamison, Emil Sitka, Phillip K. McDonald, and the lovely Christine McIntyre, really add to the enjoyment. It’s sad that they got paid so little for their shorts being on TV.

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    1. You gotta love Larry. I didn’t want to admit this in the post but that clip I put in there about the boat….when I was a small kid I saw that and I thought…hmmm that makes sense! lol

      I have them all on my computer that I stream to my television. I also have Keaton, Chaplin, and the Marx Brothers…so I’m covered in older comedy which I prefer by a mile.

      They had to get hurt doing some of those things they did because I know the budgets were low…they are more well known than the others I mentioned…it is a shame that they had to keep working so late in life.

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  5. Around Kinder age I would turn on the Three Stooges/Little Rascal Hour before going off to school, as well, (it followed Romper Room) but I was in love with the adventures of the Little Rascals, so it took a few more years before I began to appreciate the Stooges.

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      1. Well, I’m a serious Three Stooges fan. Back in maybe 1980 this theater had a Three Stooges marathon. 5 solid hours of Three Stooges ALL with Curly! It was summertime and hot as hell here. So I went in, enjoyed all 5 hours (sitting in an air conditioned theater) and when I came out the heat hit me and it felt like ants started crawling all over my body and biting me! I was itching all the way home! Got home wondering what the hell was wrong with me, and then I happened to notice in the laundry room a big box of Generic laundry detergent! My mom always used to use Purex then got cheap. That’s when I learned I had sensitive skin. I’ll never forget that.

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      2. Oh Ok…I didn’t know where the hell that was going….now it makes sense! My wife has the same thing with some detergents. That would have been cool…to see them in a theater…

        I saw some Chaplin shorts in a theater and everyone laughing with it makes it even better.

        I watched some yesterday and enjoyed them…

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  8. My sister and I loved watching The Three Stooges after school when we were kids. I cringe when watching them now, as they’re so over the top, and it’s a wonder they didn’t kill each other, but I still find their schtick pretty funny.

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    1. I love old comedy like Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers but once in a blue moon…it’s fun to escape to the craziness of the Stooges. It’s a wonder also that kids didn’t copy everything they did.

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  9. I have the entire Columbia shorts collection on DVD. I certainly have my favorites but they all have high spots.

    I think Shemp gets a bum rap. Curly was a genius, no doubt. But to compare Shemp and Curly is just wrong!

    You really can get angry at the way the boys were treated by Columbia, though. I still can’t believe the fact that they were forced to fulfill the contract after Shemp died….by reworking old Shemp shorts with the “Fake Shemp”

    I was never a fan of Joe Besser as a Stooge. He just didn’t fit.

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    1. I knew you would have them! I have all of them all as well. I did like Shemp also…now the two Joes I didn’t like at all. Shemp was different but good.

      They should have been making what the top stars were making and I wish they would have left Columbia and tried to get somewhere else. They had to continue working when they should have been retired.

      No again…the two other Joes I didn’t like…there were two Joes right? I’m sure there was… oh yea… Joe DeRita and Joe Besser I just looked it up.

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