It struck me so funny I leaned backward in a chair and went right through a glass door. The pokes, punches and slaps may have been well choreographed from their years of work in clubs and enhanced with wacky Foley sound effects, but there were still many dangers to be had 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 held nothing back while slapping and punching his Stooges. The Stooges may have done their own stunts in slap fights but they were hardly stuntmen and insisted they have three professionals stand in for them. The director eventually relented and hired some doubles to stand in for them.
The doubles suffered several broken ribs and limbs from the hard tackle and the studio hired doubles ever since to handle the bigger stunts. Even the infamous pie fights, most of which were thrown by Moe who developed a science for flinging pies , were serious hazards on the set. Since filming required multiple takes and the shorts department had smaller budgets, they had to reuse the thrown pies for retakes.
The crew simply swept up the gooey mixtures off the hardwood floor and slapped them back in the pans. Sometimes, one of the recycled pies would have an occasional nail or wood shard from the dirty studio floor mixed in with them. Hackett, a seasoned Catskills stand-up comedian, had a wife and child to support and a second one on the way. Fortunately for the Stooges, the film's critical and financial success got them a higher weekly salary and a better contract.
Danny Gallagher Published: April 13, The newly named "Curly" was thus welcomed to the group. The group made a number of films in - early However, even though the Stooges were working steadily on both stage and screen, it was evident that they were ready to break from the shadow of Ted Healy and take their place in the spotlight.
Thus, in March the two parties made an amicable decision to part ways, paving the way for the Three Stooges to attain headline status. Shortly afterward, the group was signed by Columbia Pictures to star in a number of two-reel comedies approximately minutes long. Their hard work had paid off; the Three Stooges were now the main attraction. The short was one in a series of "Musical Novelties" and was not originally written specifically for the Stooges.
The group's contract called for them to be signed to a long-term deal if the Columbia executives liked the first two-reeler. Under the agreement, the group was to film 8 two-reel comedies every year. During this period, the Three Stooges became one of the best loved comedy teams of all time. Among the highlights of this period are 's Punch Drunks , in which Curly becomes a champion prize-fighter whenever he hears the tune "Pop Goes the Weasel.
In addition to their film work, the group continued to work on stage during their off weeks and actually made a great deal of their income during these months. As it worked out, their film workload was a cumulative total of 6 to 7 weeks per year, with each short given a production period of 4 days plus some limited pre-production participation. Stage appearances took up the majority of their time, with an average of 20 weeks per year.
By the mid 's, Curly's health began to deteriorate due to years of drinking, overeating and late nights; bad habits that accelerated when he and wife Elaine divorced in In early , he suffered the first of a string of strokes that robbed him of his energy. After some time off, the Stooges restarted their work at Columbia, and they were able to limit their work to only 22 days before the Columbia cameras in Through it all, Curly continued to take on outside projects like Swing Parade of for Monogram Studios, and a grueling two-month personal appearance tour in late that turned a sick man into a deathly ill man.
That tour also included an ill-advised, short-lived marriage to a golddigger who turned him into an emotional wreck.
When the Stooges returned home in mid-November , Curly's health was irrevocably ruined. Resuming production at Columbia in late January , it became apparent that he lacked the strength to perform much of the physical comedy that had been his specialty.
Although the three did not tour at this time, they continued to book personal appearances in the L. In May , during the filming of Half-Wits Holiday , Curly suffered a major stroke on the set, effectively ending his tenure with the Three Stooges. Unable to continue, Curly retired to live with his fourth wife Valerie m. July and his daughter Janie b. He lived peacefully in retirement for approximately 3 years. The offer was withdrawn, and after Howard, Fine and Howard learned of the reason, they left Healy to form their own act, which quickly took off with a tour of the theatre circuit.
Healy attempted to stop the new act with legal action, claiming they were using his copyrighted material. There are accounts of Healy threatening to bomb theaters if Howard, Fine and Howard ever performed there, which worried Shemp so much that he almost left the act; reportedly, only a pay raise kept him on board. Healy tried to save his act by hiring replacement stooges, but they were inexperienced and not as well-received as their predecessors.
In , with Moe now acting as business manager, Healy reached a new agreement with his former Stooges, and they were booked in a production of Jacob J. Emil Sitka died on January 16, , making him the last "Stooge" to die though Sitka never performed on film as a member of the trio, but did appear in a few publicity shots. Curly takes it in the ear in 's Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb. This photo remains one of the most popular publicity shots of the team. Joe DeRita. Emil Sitka [11]. Throughout their career, Moe acted as both their main creative force and business manager.
Lugosi and Larry Fine's grandson, majority owner Eric Lamond. Comedy III has also, since , authorized and provided the services of veteran actors Jim Skousen, Alan Semok, and the late Dave Knight as Moe, Larry, and Curly respectively for numerous "personal appearances" by the Stooge characters for a variety of merchandising and promotional events.
This latter day trio has also provided voices for the characters in a variety of radio spots, merchandising tie-ins, and most recently for the first new Three Stooges short in fifty years It was not until that Screen Gems packaged 78 shorts for national syndication; the package was gradually enlarged to encompass the entire library of shorts. In the late s, AMC had held the rights to the Three Stooges shorts, airing them with host Leslie Nielsen , in the format of a college instructor for NYUK New Yuk University of Knuckleheads , with several shorts often grouped by a theme, such as similar schticks used in different films.
By , the network had discontinued airing the shorts. Spike TV had begun airing Stooges shorts again, this time every Sunday morning at As of late April , Three Stooges has disappeared from the network's schedule entirely. Since the s Columbia has preferred to license the Stooge shorts to cable networks, precluding the films from being shown on local broadcast TV. Stations in Chicago and Boston, however, signed long-term syndication contracts with Columbia years ago and declined to terminate them.
Some of the Stooge films have been colorized by two separate companies. The two-disc set contains shorts from the first three years the Stooges worked at Columbia Pictures. This is the first time ever that all 19 shorts have been released in their original theatrical order to DVD. Every short was remastered in high definition, a first for the Stooge films. One critic states "the Three Stooges on DVD has been a real mix'n match hodge-podge of un-restored titles and illogical entries.
This new The way that the Three Stooges have been presented on home video has been a real slap in the face and poke in the eye to fans. Highly recommended. Remastered in High Definition and presented in chronological order, these short films now give fans the chance to appreciate the development of one of the most successful comedy teams in history. The chronological series has proven very successful.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment wasted little time preparing the next set for release. Volume Two was released on May 27, , [17] followed by Volume Three three months later on August 26, Template:Dablink The Three Stooges also made appearances in many feature length movies in the course of their careers:.
Gary Lassin opened the Stoogeum in in a renovated architect's office in Spring House, Pennsylvania , 25 miles 40 kilometers north of Philadelphia. The museum -quality exhibits fill three stories 10, square feet or square meters , including an seat theater.
Puppets, dolls, coloring books, paper dolls and toys are displayed in his Long Island home. A film about the Three Stooges, simply titled The Three Stooges , is scheduled to be released in The Farrelly Brothers are still attached to the project, [22] even though their Warner Bros. First Look Studios , working with C3 Entertainment , will distribute the motion picture. The plot of the episodes are said to be an adventure that revolves around the Stooges characters.
Its unflattering portrayal of Ted Healy led Healy's son to give media interviews calling the film inaccurate. In addition to the unsuccessful see "History" section, above television series pilot, Jerks of All Trades and the incomplete Kook's Tour , the Stooges appeared in a show called The New Three Stooges which ran from to This series featured a mix of thirty-nine live-action segments which were used as wraparounds to animated Stooges shorts.
That cartoon program became the only regularly scheduled television show in history for the Stooges. Unlike other films shorts that aired on TV like the Looney Tunes , Tom and Jerry , and Popeye , the film shorts of the Stooges never had a regularly scheduled national television program to air in, neither on network nor syndicated.
There also was a short-lived animated series, also produced by Hanna-Barbera , titled The Robonic Stooges , originally seen as a featured segment on The Skatebirds CBS , — , featuring Moe, Larry, and Curly voiced by Paul Winchell , Joe Baker and Frank Welker , respectively as bionic cartoon superheroes with extendable limbs, similar to the later Inspector Gadget. A mobisode featuring CGI stooges has been announced, and a short trailer released.
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