A note before I dig into this one; the studio was actually against bringing Shemp back into the act to take over for Curly. They wanted a Curly look-alike back then too, but relented to Moe's wishes.
Damn! How I neglected to put that in (when it actually would've made a good point), I don't know. But I tend to think that there wasn't ANY choice when it came to 1946. As I recall, there was only a 2 month "rehearsal" period--either Columbia realised that Moe knew more about the best way to keep the gravy train going, or go with a lesser known, Curly-ish comedian who would've been the downfall of the Stooges 25 years before they should've hung it up.
From an artistic standpoint, the Stooges should have called it a day when Shemp passed. Without either Curly or Shemp that Howard-Fine-Howard dynamic was gone, and the Stooges would never be the same. Besides, Moe and Larry were not spring chickens at the time of Shemp's death, and the act was getting antiquated and stale. Of course they were under contract, and by no means rich enough to retire (nor were they recieving royalties), so that was never an option.
Yeah--that's another problem. I think that Moe wouldn't have had to be pressured into retiring the act--mentally, if it were me, I wouldn't have cared what Helen or Larry said, the death of 2 brothers in the space of 3 years, as well as the performing/business aspect would've been too much for me to deal with. The act would've been kaput, right then and there, no matter what schemes Columbia had. Then a 2 month period (??) to rehearse a new comedian (one who didn't want to do it, and I think was pretty much given an option of 'do this, or hit the road').
I do think that if Larry hadn't been in such dire financial straits, Moe would've probably called it quits. It's been mentioned how the shorts were still making money, but since the department was closed a mere 2 years later, you do have to wonder if there was an astronomical increase in expenses, or some other factor that led the Stooges to hang on.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at. Are you saying they would have been better off going with fatfuck Derita as soon as Shemp died?
Yes--but I'm thinking the DeRita of the movies (when they had to deal with being good 'role models'
) wasn't the same as the guy from the Minsky days. The burlesque DeRita would've worked, I think. The toned down one? Meh. Then again, the movies period sort of fell flat. I do wonder what would've happened if they hadn't had to give in to parental groups and were left to their own devices.
The Derita movies are even worse than the Besser shorts. You watch Snow White and the Three Stooges and then with a straight face tell me that any of the Besser shorts were worse. That includes Sweet and Hot (generally regarded as the worst Stooge short of all time). There have been times where I have literally been bored into slumber by those awful Derita pictures. They might as well have been The Two Stooges, or better yet kept on pretending Shemp was still alive by conviently using a mix of stock footage and the back of Joe Palma's head. The back of Joe Palma's head had more charisma and talent than Derita could ever dream of having.
The one performance that makes me think that DeRita wasn't a bad choice was a 1963 Ed Sullivan appearance (General Hospital spoof, I think). Maybe because it was live, maybe it was how Moe slapped DeRita's wig off and then bursts out laughing as he chased it down, but that performance surprised me--the Sullivan appearance changed my mind, at least as far as TV was concerned. The movies still sucked--I've never been fond of children-oriented movies, and, I'm sorry, the Stooges have never been (to me) child-friendly.
But yes--you're right. The whole feel of the Howard-Fine-Howard dynamic was so natural that it just seemed that anyone else who was the patsy was an outsider.
Sunday
