I should take this time to point out what getting Volume 8 means to me.
As a kid, I collected The Three Stooges shorts on VHS. I started out with "Simply Hilarious", which had the four public domain shorts (Disorder in the Court, Brideless Groom, Sing a Song of Six Pants and Malice in the Palace). I remember when that was all i had, but being a kid, I was happy with it. Then I got a couple more tapes. One of them contained: Three Little Pirates, Uncivil Warbirds and Back to the Woods. I also rented and copy-taped a tape with: Dizzy Detectives, Sock-A-Bye Baby and one other, I can't remember. Good Times began releasing Shemps (though that company always seemed to be poor quality, recording on SLP instead of SP). But again, I was a kid, so I was just happy to add onto my collection. At one time I had more Shemps than Curlys.
Eventually, Sony started a new line a Stooge tapes, around 1993-96. This is when my collection really got cooking. With all these tapes I had, I still didn't have a single Joe Besser on tape. When AMC started airing the Stooges, I recorded them in SP mode. Back then, AMC aired the shorts without commercials, so these copies were as good as buying them, with the exception of the AMC bug in the corner. It was then that I had my first Joe. In fact, I had about six Joe's altogether.
Because of AMC and the official tapes, I had all 97 Curly shorts and about 40 to 50 something Shemp shorts and around 6 Joe shorts. I was in the process of copy-taping these in chronological order (I don't know what i would have done once I got up to the Shemps, but for that time I was happy to put all the Curlys in order) when DVDs came out. I decided to start all over again. But Sony was doing the same format as they did on VHS, just transferring them to DVD. Anyways, I was starting over again, but getting nowhere. I figured I may never have Joe Besser on DVD.
Then I heard about The Three Stooges Collection and was thrilled. At first I was a little upset, because I thought all 190 would be released at once. But I was still happy to be getting them in order. And after the third set, i was pretty sure I'd at least get all the Curlys again. Then as the Shemps continued to come out I was figuring I would have Joe Besser. Then the announcement came out for volume 8. Tomorrow is the day. A historical day in my Three Stooges collection. I was just a kid when i started the collection (in middle school) and now i'm 28-years-old and finally finishing my Stooges shorts collection. I've also collected the other Stooge oddities, such as "Meet the Baron/Gold Raiders" two-pack, different documentaries, the 'Jerks of All Trades' TV pilot, Kook's Tour, some of the cartoon episodes and whatnot. Plus a very poor quality release of "The Early Years." Along with all but Have Gun, Will Travel of the Curly-Joe DeRita Stooge films.
