The Three Stooges: Masters Of Slapstick
OK….I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were inundated with the Three Stooges shorts on TV during our formative years. This was back when there was no Nickelodeon, no Cable, and our TV had only 4 channels. We pretty much had to watch whatever the broadcasters wanted to broadcast. So for me, it was Warner Brothers Cartoons and The Three Stooges.
I’m guessing everybody who reads this article has seen the “boys” in action, but do we really know who these bizarre individuals really were?
We know them today as Larry, Moe and Curly (or Shemp, Or Joe, or Curly Joe), but they actually started in 1922 in partnership with Ted Healy in a vaudeville act called Ted Healy and his Stooges.
The ensemble consisted of Ted Healy, Samuel Howard (Shemp), Harry Moses Howard (Moe),and Larry Fine (Larry). In 1931, Shemp and Ted Healy didn’t see eye to eye, and so he (Shemp) left the group for a career in feature films. Moe suggested his brother Jerome as a replacement, but Healy wasn’t initially impressed thinking that Jerome’s long hair and beard was out of character for a stooge. Jerome remedied the situation by temporarily leaving the room and quickly returning with a shaved head and face. Thus, the lovable character of Curly was born!
This ensemble lasted another 3 years until Healy’s abrasiveness (and reported alcoholism) finally brought things to a head. The boys kicked him out, and Moe became the leader of the team. He subsequently negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long journey into comedy history.
For the next 25 years, the Three Stooges starred in 190 film shorts; the longest in Hollywood history. They also appeared in 12 movies and entertained millions worldwide with their physical routines, catch phrases, and masterful comedy.
In 1946, A seemingly show-stopping event happened: Curly suffered a stroke. He was never the same after that, and passed away six years later. The boys turned to Shemp once again, as he was asked to rejoin the group. The Stooges, with Shemp as Curlys replacement, filmed 77 more shorts and a feature film called Gold Raiders (1951). Additionally, in 1949, Moe, Larry and Shemp made a pilot for a Three Stooges television show called Jerks of All Trades. Unfortunately, the show was never purchased by the networks. However, the pilot is public domain and is now available on home video.
The dynasty took another hit when Shemp died of a sudden heart attack in November of 1955. A fellow named Joe Besser replaced Shemp in 1956 appearing in 16 short films. Interestingly, Joe had a clause in his contract specifically prohibiting him from being hit too hard, although it was lifted as time passed. Unfortunately, Joe was a poor replacement for his 2 predecessors, and the market for short films was dwindling, so the Stooges popularity started to decline. Columbia Pictures finally got around to firing the Three Stooges in 1957.
However, a new medium was about to take over: Television. In 1959, Columbia Pictures syndicated the entire Three Stooges film library to the TV networks and the Stooges were rediscovered by their original audience (now in middle age). Plus, a whole new generation of consumers (Baby Boomers) were introduced to the masters of slapstick comedy.
Stoogemania quickly swept across the country, which put Moe and Larry back in the spotlight again. Joe Besser, on the other hand, did not rejoin the act, so Moe quickly signed Joe DeRita as his replacement. DeRita shaved his head and became Curly-Joe, because he looked like the original Curly.
This final version of the Three Stooges went on to make 39 short films and a few full-length movies in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. In 1969 they filmed a pilot for a new TV series called Kooks Tour, which would have been a show about the retired Stooges traveling the world, with episodes filmed on location. Alas, during production, Larry suffered a stroke that ended his acting career as well as the TV series. Larry suffered another stroke in December 1974 and another month later suffered a fatal stroke and died in January 1975.
It was thought that they could carry on, several movie ideas were considered, however Moe Howard passed away in May 1975. Although Curly-Joe (Joe DeRita) did some live work with a new group of Stooges in the early 1970s, the Three Stooges, as we knew them, we gone.
I hope you enjoyed this look at the Three Stooges. They were truly a unique ensemble. And we will probably never see their like again.
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[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were deluged with the [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it’s a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were deluged with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were inundated with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were inundated with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were deluged with the [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been inundated [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me had been inundated with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been inundated [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it’s a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were inundated [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it is a generational thing, because baby boomers like me had been inundated with the [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were deluged with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been inundated [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were inundated [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were inundated with the Three [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been deluged with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were deluged with the [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it’s a generational thing, because baby boomers like me had been inundated [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it is a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were inundated with the 3 [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were deluged with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Perhaps it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me were inundated with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been deluged with [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it’s a generational thing, simply because baby boomers like me had been [...]
[...] I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it is a generational thing, because baby boomers like me were deluged with the Three [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
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[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
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[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]
[...] negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy [...]