ok..now I'm done watching the whole set and want to give my review/opinion on these shorts..
first off I want to talk about the Besser shorts first because there simply isn't much to say about the shemp stuff, I was only 9 or 10 when I last saw the Joe Besser shorts on tv and the only memories I had of them was the talking horse so it was pretty interesting watching these shorts on dvd.
first off Joe Besser was no doubt a funny comedian,rather he fit in as a "stooge" can be debated another time but as far as I can tell the shorts were,for the most part,pretty funny.
a couple things I did notice ,it seems there was less violence in the besser shorts,the shorts are more "story oriented" and less slapp stick oriented,the second thing I noticed was Moe's change in personality,he seemed less angry and more approachable,now I'm assuming that the reason for these things are because of the stooges trying to reach out to a yonger t.v. crowd.
the other thing I noticed was the fact that (yes,despite what has been said in the past) Joe Besser DOES get hit and slapped around,as most of you know there has been a rumor that claimed Joe didn't want to be hit,well I don't know if it's true or not but all I know is he get's hit quit a bit,even though generally there's less violence.
another thing I noticed what the obvoius lack of budget in the films,in fact there's a couple besser shorts that reuse old footage from the originals,kind of like they did with shemp,most notibly in "guns a poppin" (which reuses the bear footage from the original "idiots delux"),"rusty romeos" which uses complete gags and scenes from "corny casinovas"in fact you get the same actress in both but in some scenes she if older (and a little bit more chubbier) and her hair is different.
the third one is "triple crossed" which uses footage from "he cooked his goose" this time only one of the actresses is in the new version wile they use the back of another females head for the other actress,in fact if you look real carefully under the bearrug you can see shemps head.
as far as the budget goes pretty much most of the besser shorts use the same background scenes/locations over and over again, in my opinion the Besser shorts are funnier than most people make them out to be,sure they are written differently then the other shorts ut they are enjoyable nevertheless.
the only one that I thought was lame was the last short they did "sappy bullfighters",which seemed rushed and well,boring,maybe they knew it was their last one and rushed it out,I don't know,all I know is it was pretty lame..
now for the shemp ones, out of the shemp ones only 2 are new("Gypped in the penthouse" and "blunder boys",the latter being a dragnet parody and the first one being a short where they play characters that don't know each other,similar to their first short "the woman haters" just not a musical).
now the rest of the Shemp shorts are remakes,meaning they use old footage and mix it in with new footage,most of the shorts aren't alot different,just different endings and beginnings.
but there are a couple that are alost like new shorts,most notably"bedlam in paradise" which is better than "heavenly daze" ,in my opinion,and kind of creepy since shemp would be dead not long after filming it..
then there's the 4 "post death" shemp shorts,the best way to describe those shorts can be summed up in what Moe and Larry say in all 4 of them "Where's Shemp?"
basically they filmed moe and larry by themselves and Shemp would be off somewhere and they run into him and that's where the old footage comes in,then anytime they needed "shemp" for a newer scene (so that the story still made sense)that's where they used his body double.
most notably in "Rumpus in the harem" where his body double is used on screen for about a minute or so,out of the 4 the body double is only in 3 of them,and he's in the other two for less than a minute,he's no where to be found in "commotion in the ocean",which is the worse of the 4,in my opinion.
now the quality of the discs are really good,since the discs are in widescreen,which is the way the newer stuff was filmed,some of the reused footage is squished and there are some strange post production done in some of the reused footage where moe will talk but his mouth won't move or he talks as a scene changes (in the post death ones)..
so that's my review,others may have a different take on it or a different opinion,but I just wanted to give mine..thanks...
