I originally was going to post the following as a fan review of FLYING SAUCER DAFFY, but one of the important types around here
suggested I post in the the message board instead. So here goes.
At first I wasn't too fond of SAUCER, even by Joe standards, but the discussion about it in the first Master Debates (subject: was Joe or Curly-Joe the better Stooge?) made me rethink it. For one thing, I came to realize that here Joe has finally gotten around to taking his full share of abuse as a Stooge, which shows that he may have fit in better if he’d had more time. The separation of Joe from the others (not a good idea in & of itself, IMO) allows parts of this to be kind of a "Two Stooges" vehicle. The plot wears its Cinderella influence on its sleeve without that becoming an obnoxiously obvious gimmick.
This was the last short filmed, and I think the Stooges’ shorts would have better gone out on this note instead of that of the uber-whimper of SAPPY BULLFIGHTERS.
When I showed SAUCER to my teenage son, the two biggest laughs he got from it were both Joe solo moments: the little twist on "not so ha-a-a-ard," and Joe losing all his stuff out of the picnic blanket when hastily trying to get home.
And with that I’d like to renew (at the risk of being obnoxious) my "Stop talking about Besser as if he was the worst thing to ever happen to the Stooges" campaign. Sure, he comes in at a somewhat distant third (at best) to Curly & Shemp, but to me that sounds like an accomplishment to be proud of. Just because he wasn’t as good as them (who would have been?) doesn’t make him a disease, for gosh sake. Give the guy some credit for doing what he could with an impossible assignment. Even the most legitimate grounds for criticizing him, that he originally wouldn’t take slapstick, changed before long, as SAUCER shows.
This may be a stretch, but (as a side note) I say Curly has more in common with Joe than you might think; after all, each character was a big, bald, surrealistic man-baby in his own way. Curly, of course, was more original, memorable & creative, besides fitting the Stooge mold better because he helped define it in the first place. But once again, that doesn’t mean Joe was chopped liver. BTW, "not so ha-a-a-ard" is as much a part of my household’s Stooge vocabulary as "spread out!", "nyuk nyuk nyuk" or "eeb-eeb-eeb-eeb."
Finally, though, I’m glad Joe didn’t go on and make features with the Stooges. Curly-Joe just seems so much more appropriate for those (which, BTW, is not a compliment to Curly-Joe).
