Topic: Stooges as writers

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

I see from the current front page that Joe Besser was an uncredited gag writer for Jerry Lewis' CINDERFELLA. For the most part we know the Stooges as actors, not writers, so it would be interesting to know what kind of things he contributed.

Besides PUNCH DRUNKS (credited to Moe, Larry & Curly but reportedly actually written by Moe), do we have any other documented cases of any Stooge being a writer? Not counting ad-libs on camera, of course.

[7stooges]

I think Moe wrote the "Marajah" sketch (or at least he pitched it) all on his own.

[2reelers]

I think the Maharaja sketch was a vaudeville holdover. Comedian Lou Holtz used to do it on a radio show, but my mind is going blank...I want to say it was done on Eddie Cantor's Radio Show.

[middlenamewayne]

Besides PUNCH DRUNKS (credited to Moe, Larry & Curly but reportedly actually written by Moe), do we have any other documented cases of any Stooge being a writer?

The thing that comes to my mind is the story that W.C. Fields reportedly cut much of Shemp's best footage out of "The Bank Dick" in order to better shine the lime rickey... er, limelight... on himself. That implies that Shemp wrote some boffo bits for the flick, though they all ended up (like Jerry Howard's locks) on the cutting room floor. However, even if this were true it would probably still fall under the inadmissable "ad-libbing" category...

The poster who called the Maha routine a "vaudeville holdover" makes me wonder about what percentage of their material the Stooges originated in the days of their early stage act -- I can't imagine that anyone as talented as Fine and the Howards (and T. Healy, for that matter) would have relied entirely on pre-existing material to make their mark on the comedy world! Keep in mind that even in the case of the much-maligned comedy team The Monkees, two of the four members wrote scripts for their series (Micky Dolenz wrote the episode "Mijacogeo"; Michael Nesmith wrote the double-length "Hey, Hey, It's The Monkees") and they all contributed material to their feature film "HEAD".

  - mnw