Conducting Scholarly Stooge Research

My earliest recollection of The Three Stooges was a show on WPIX in New York City that was hosted by Officer Joe Bolton. Each afternoon Bolton’s show, The Three Stooges Funhouse, would feature several Three Stooges short films along with NYPD safety tips and guest appearances.  

Even though many of the films were over 25 years old, they were new to me and I would flip to Channel 11 each day for a dose of nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Apparently I wasn’t alone.   

The vaudeville comedians who made their first movie in 1930 were on the brink of extinction in the early 1950’s. Their short subject films had been running in theaters before feature films and the mostly adult audiences were losing their taste for slapstick humor.   

Moe and Larry were beginning to look at other career options when their luck literally turned around. Commercial television was in its infancy and networks provided a limited amount of programming. Local stations were left to fill the gaps, especially in the late afternoon. Columbia Pictures, owners of everything Stooge, sold broadcasting rights for the black and white shorts to the new TV stations.   

Stations across the country bought the syndicated shows and then hired children’s TV personalities such as Officer Joe Bolton and Harlow Hickenlooper (Indianapolis) and Icky Twerp (Dallas) to host the shows. As a result, Moe, Larry and Curly (and Shemp, Joe and Little Joe) were introduced to a new generation of kids.   

The Three Stooges became superstars making appearances at shopping centers and movie theaters in cities that aired their old movie shorts five days a week. It was during this 15+ year surge that most baby boomer boys were exposed to the Stooges.   

Despite their advancing age and the questionable quality of their work in the 60’s, the Three Stooges released ten full length movies and their own cartoon series. These days movies like The Stooges Meet Hercules, Have Rocket Will Travel and Around The World In a Daze are hard to find for good reason. Their best work, however, has been remastered and reissued in a series of DVD sets packaged by Columbia Pictures called The Three Stooges Collection Volume 1-8.   

My interest in the trio was rekindled this year when I heard that a new Three Stooges movie would be released in April. I found an enjoyable book called “One Fine Stooge,” which viewed the Stooge’s long career through the eyes of Larry Fine.   

The book’s references to classic Stooge fare like Women Haters and Dizzy Doctors led me to start collecting the “new” DVDs. I am proud or embarrassed to say that I now own all 8 volumes or 192 short films that span from 1934 – 1959. You might say that watching hours of knucklehead television will be a waste of time. I prefer to call it research.   

I expanded my research this past weekend by sitting through the new Three Stooges movie. For this Stooge fan, the movie was a disappointment but the kids laughed at each hammer to the head and fist to the gut. If it catches on then maybe a new generation of Stooge fans will discover the wonders of those old 15 minute black and white classics once again.