I have never bought into the argument that the new haircombs were Besser's idea. He was the new boy, even if he had made that suggestion, who would have listened to him? I tell you who wouldn't have: control freak Moe, that's who wouldn't have. I go along with the theory that they were trying to make the shorts more like the ultra-bland, "normal" sitcoms which were huge on TV at the time, Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, Love That Bob, etc. Ozzie and Harriet is so bland that even though it has a laugh track, the track seems to be operating at random because there are no accompanying jokes. The effect is as weird as I'm describing it. Those haircomb orders would have come from above, not from the new low man on the totem pole. And the other slander of Besser has been disproved since the Sony re-releases, that Besser refused to be hit. It turns out he got hit plenty, and more so as time went on. Why would he refuse to be hit? Stinky and Costello used to wail on each other. I had almost forgotten about Besser on Joey Bishop's sitcom - he was hilarious. Great with A & C, great with Bishop, bad in the middle with the stooges. It's because the stooge scripts were awful. Besser was by no means a good fit, I'm not saying he was, but he was a trouper. This time around, it was the scripts that were stinky.