Topic: How Many of You Watched the Boys When the Shorts/Movies Were "New"?

[locoboymakesgood]

Couldn't think of a better wording for the title, but I was curious as to how many of our members here are old enough to have seen any of the shorts or their theatrical films in the theaters upon their initial releases.

My dad before he passed away used to tell me stories all the time of watching the Stooges on a local station after school as part of some show geared towards kiddies that showed Laurel & Hardy, the Little Rascals, and stuff like that. He recalled Stop! Look! and Laugh! coming out and a kid in his class telling him it stunk since it a lot of it was just "that guy with his monkeys". He also remembered seeing Larry on TV once when they were in Niagara Falls when on tour (this was at some point in the early 60s I'm guessing), which to me, was pretty cool since the only two Stooges still around when I was born was Besser (I don't recall his death, though) and Curly-Joe DeRita (his I remember since it was the front page of the entertainment section of our newspaper at the time). To me with my dad being alive when Moe and Larry were still touring is pretty mind-boggling since ideally it wasn't that long ago they were still entertaining fans in person.

Anyway, I guess I'm rambling, but my guess is a lot of our members were born in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s but I would guess most of us were exposed to the Stooges on TV at some point and not before.

[Seamus]

I'd be interested to hear from these folks, too.  As I've been working my way through the Sony sets I've been trying to imagine what it was like to see these films in their original context back when they were hot off the press.  TV and home video has made viewing these shorts more of a casual thing, but I imagine in the '30s especially they were treated more as an event, and given marquee billing along side whatever main feature they were supporting.  Not to mention the joy of seeing these things on the big screen with a room full of people laughing their asses off.

There's an old restored theater downtown here in Columbus that schedules a "summer movie series" every year.  They select a batch of 20 or so classic movies and shorts and play them throughout the summer months.  They've even got an old-timey movie theater organ played by one of the probably half-dozen people alive who can still play those things like a master, setting up the kind of movie-going vibe you would have felt back when some of these movies were first shown.  I've watched a lot of movies and shorts in that theater that I'd seen on DVD before, but the experience of watching them in their natural habitat takes it to another level.

But what say you, old-timers?

[FineBari3]

I am willing to bet that there is not many here that watched the Stooges the first time around. They would have to be some hip people to be in their 70s or older and on the Internet!

My Mom was born in 1938, and remembers seeing only Shemp as the third Stooge.  She also remembers that everyone would groan when they would come on the screen.

I have told this story many times to my Stooge friends, and they simply cannot believe what my Mom said. Perhaps she sat with friends that didn't like them either. Eitherway, that's what she said would happen!

[Seamus]

I am willing to bet that there is not many here that watched the Stooges the first time around. They would have to be some hip people to be in their 70s or older and on the Internet!

This is probably true, but anyone in that age bracket who's on the 'net would probably home in on this site pretty quick!

Is it fair to guess that by the time your mom started catching the Shemp shorts in the theaters (mid-'50s?), shorts in general were getting to be an anachronism in the movie houses?  Maybe her friends were just impatient to see The Blob or whatever.

[Giff me dat fill-em!]

My mother told me her mom would give her 15 cents and be rid of her for 4 hours by dropping her off at the theater. 10 cents would buy the matinee ticket, and the other nickel bought popcorn and a drink. This was 1936, I believe. That would make her 8 or 9 years old. She saw the "first run" Stooge episode "False Alarms" and still remembered cracking up at the "Look at all the little baby hoses!" line. She was internet saavy while she was alive, but never tuned into our little site. Too bad ... but maybe there really IS someone 70 something / 80 something that might post. (one can only be hopeful).

[FineBari3]

This is probably true, but anyone in that age bracket who's on the 'net would probably home in on this site pretty quick!

Is it fair to guess that by the time your mom started catching the Shemp shorts in the theaters (mid-'50s?), shorts in general were getting to be an anachronism in the movie houses?  Maybe her friends were just impatient to see The Blob or whatever.

I believe that she was talking about the late 1940's. She would have been around the age to start remembering things well, and that puts it right around 1947-1948, when she would have been 9 or 10.  She attended the movies religously and read all of the fan magazines.

She loved the movies and gave me the ability to appreciate film at an early age. I was recently going through a scrapbook of hers from the late 1940's, and found an autographed 8 x 10 of Al Jolson! She was really into him, and she didn't even remember how she got it!  (She later remembered writing him back then.)

[locoboymakesgood]

..and found an autographed 8 x 10 of Al Jolson!

[Larry]I can't die - I haven't seen The Jolson Story yet![/Larry]

I remember you mentioning that story about your mom seeing a Shemp-era short and having the audience groan. That leads me to believe there aren't many from that era that had an appreciation for the Stooges like those from the later 50s and 60s.

Was the reason their contract was as long as it was because they were popular or just because "the price was right"?

[Seamus]

Yeah, I've been wondering about that.  Seems like Columbia was desperate to keep the Stooge machine running even during an era when I wouldn't have expected their shorts to be nearly as popular as they had been during their halcyon days.  The shorts department has their budget cut drastically because of dwindling popularity?  Recycle old footage and keep 'em coming.  A stooge dies?  Pull an Ed Wood "Plan 9" and get a faceless stand in.  Just keep cranking these things out by any means necessary!  All this during the '50s, a time when (as far as I know) two-reelers had long gone out of fad.  I mean, the last Besser short was, what, 1959?  Were any other two-reelers even being produced by then?

[FineBari3]

I mean, the last Besser short was, what, 1959?  Were any other two-reelers even being produced by then?

Nope. The Stooges were the last!

Remember, Harry Cohn liked them, and said as long as he was there they would have a job.