This is what made the Three Stooges a legendary comedy trio
The Three Stooges are arguably the most popular and influential comedy institution in Hollywood history. The American vaudeville team was active from 1922 to 1970 and best known for their 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures. When we say “vaudeville†we mean staged entertainment that frequently combines pantomime, dialogue, dance and song.
The characteristic styles of the Stooges were physical farce and burlesque. Six “Stooges†appeared during the course of the act, with only three active at any one time: Moe Howard and Larry Fine were the mainstays throughout, and the essential “third Stooge†was played by Shemp Howard, Curly Howard , Shemp Howard again, Joe Besser and “Curly Joe” DeRita.
The Three Stooges concept was brought back to Hollywood with the 2012 film slapstick based on the 1934-1959 shorts. The Farrelly brothers (also responsible for Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin) co-wrote, produced and directed the film, which stars Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley), Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) and Will Sasso (crazy tv). Since this re-imagining didn’t necessarily work for critics and audiences, let’s look further back and take a look at what made the original Stooges such a landmark comedy troupe.
Longevity of the three Stooges
The act began in the early 1920s as part of a vaudeville comedy act billed as “Ted Healy and his Stooges,” originally composed of Healy and Moe Howard. Over time, the original Stooges were joined by Moe’s brother, Shemp Howard, and later by Larry Fine. The four appeared in a feature film, Nut Soup, before Shemp left to pursue a solo career. He was replaced by his and Moe’s younger brother Jerome “Curly” Howard in 1932. From 1934 to 1946, Moe, Larry and Curly produced over 90 shorts for Columbia. It was during this time that the three were at their peak.
Curly however suffered a debilitating stroke in 1946, so Shemp returned to reform the original programming, until his death of a heart attack in 1955, three years and ten months after Curly’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1952. Film actor Joe Palma was used as a replacement to complete four Shemp-era shorts under contract. This procedure – disguising one actor for another outside of the stunts – has come to be known as the “fake Shemp”. Columbia contract player Joe Besser joined as the third Stooge for two years, leaving in 1958 to treat his ailing wife after Columbia shut down its shorts division.
Comedic actor Joe DeRita became “Curly Joe” in 1958, replacing Besser for a new series of theatrical feature films. With intense television exposure in the United States, the act gained momentum throughout the 1960s as a popular fare for children, until Larry’s crippling stroke in the middle of the decade. shooting a pilot for a Three Stooges Television series in 1970. Larry Fine died in January 1975 after another series of strokes. Unsuccessful attempts were made to revive the Stooges with longtime supporting actor Emil Sitka as Fine in 1970 and again in 1975, but this attempt was cut short by the death of Moe Howard on May 4. 1975. This marks an almost 50 year run for the comedy team and is one of the reasons they are so legendary.
Infallible mechanism
The internal mechanism of The Three Stooges is deceptively simple, which is why it worked flawlessly for so many different setups. It’s based on the premise that they’re all stupid, but some are dumber than others. Moe, with his permanent scowl and bowl-cut hair, was the leader who oversaw everything the Stooges found themselves chasing. Curly, his towering figure stepping out of his costume, was the hopelessly incompetent male child and the recipient of most of Moe’s abuse – which includes the iconic double punch.
Moe actually had to thank his brother Shemp for this iconic gesture: Once, during a card game, Shemp became so convinced that Larry was cheating on him that he jumped up and stuck both eyes in him. Larry, too often underestimated, was the essential bridge between Moe’s bossy bully and Curly’s baby-faced clown. An easy-going fool, Larry was the essential, non-threatening intermediary who brought a special genius to the role. Considering each character’s distinct style, brought together for naturally comedic content, it’s no wonder the cast have been running for so long and are still celebrated today.
Dangerous choreography
The punches, punches, and slaps may have been well choreographed from their years of working in clubs and enhanced with sound effects, but there were still plenty of dangers to be faced during filming. The Stooges didn’t start using a Foley machine to enhance their physical gags until they started working with director Jules White at Columbia, and Healy usually didn’t hold back anything by slapping and hitting her Stooges.
In Larry’s biography, he explains that during the filming of Three Little Pigskins, the script called for the three boys to be tackled by a group of professional footballers. The Stooges may have done their own stunts in slap fights, but they were hardly stuntmen and insisted that they be replaced by three professionals. The director finally gave in and hired look-alikes to replace them. Doubles suffered several ribs and broken limbs from the hard tackle, and the studio has hired doubles since to handle the bigger stunts.
Even the infamous pie fights were serious dangers on the set. Since the shoot required multiple takes and the shorts department had smaller budgets, they had to reuse the pies thrown for the covers. The team simply swept the gooey mixtures off the hardwood floor and returned them to the pots. Sometimes one of the recycled pies occasionally contained a nail or wood chip from the dirty studio floor.
Legacy and influence
The Three Stooges remained popular into the 21st century thanks to television syndication and the marketing of their images on commercial products. The film The Three Stooges, in which a new cast inhabited the familiar roles, was released in 2012. Their third short Columbia Men in black, a parody of the drama by Clark Gable Men in white who made the boys play well-meaning doctors who do more harm than good, won an Oscar nomination in 1934 for Best Short Film – Comedy. Fortunately for the Stooges, the film’s critical and financial success earned them a higher weekly salary and a better contract. Sadly, he lost to a musical short called La Cucaracha and became the only film in their extensive library to earn them an Oscar nomination. All original shorts can now be streamed on Amazon Prime.
The Stooges have also been referenced countless times over the years in pop culture, whether it’s a familiar gag, impersonation, or an explicit allusion. Films including Grooves, Lethal weapon, and Flubber also nodded to the comedy troupe in one form or another. And let’s not forget TV – shows like family guy, Futurama and Garfield all also referred to the Stooges.
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