Topic: Stooge routines that make you say "Not THAT again!"

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

I was watching Dunked in the Deep, where the Stooges go to the pier to meet their former neighbor Borscht. My heart sank when I saw Moe lie down and start slapping at flies on his face while chickens clucked above him. "Oh, no---not THAT bit again!" I wanted to exclaim, knowing not just from having seen the short before but from having seen others with the exact same setup exactly what was going to happen next: an egg would fall into Moe's hand without his noticing (really plausible, that) and he would slap it against his face. Hah freaking hah.

Are there Stooge routines that bore you and annoy you in this way---ones that you not only do not find funny but never did find funny and that have always seemed to you a waste of screen time, but that occur in more than one short?

[shemps#1]

Very good question. One that comes to mind is after the Curly Era when someone else would try their hand at Curly's mannerisms. I'll have to give this some more thought to see if I can come up with some more.

[Rich Finegan]

Are there Stooge routines that bore you and annoy you in this way---ones that you not only do not find funny but never did find funny and that have always seemed to you a waste of screen time, but that occur in more than one short?

Believe it or not...
The eye poke. I just never found it remotely funny. Just way too potentially painful and dangerous. A bad idea right from the start.

Some clever variations I can appreciate such as what Moe does to Curly at the dinner table in "Pardon My Scotch", and the time when he held out his eye-poking fingers and ordered the other Stooges to run into them...and they did!

So it was about time when Moe finally said "We don't do that one any more" in one of the the 1960's features.

And, no, it wasn't funny either when Stan did it to Ollie in the 1930 Laurel & Hardy short "Brats".

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Believe it or not...
The eye poke. I just never found it remotely funny. Just way too potentially painful and dangerous. A bad idea right from the start.

Some clever variations I can appreciate such as what Moe does to Curly at the dinner table in "Pardon My Scotch", and the time when he held out his eye-poking fingers and ordered the other Stooges to run into them...and they did!

So it was about time when Moe finally said "We don't do that one any more" in one of the the 1960's features.

And, no, it wasn't funny either when Stan did it to Ollie in the 1930 Laurel & Hardy short "Brats".

I wouldn't call it a "routine" when Moe administers an eye-poke, but if we are talking about all repeated comic actions, then I would say that I have the same feelings about the face-slap as you have about the eye-poke: the variant in which somebody slaps all three Stooges in one continuous blow is funny, but when Moe administers a slap in the face to one or both of his fellow Stooges, it has never amused me in the least---quite the contrary.  

Head-conks, on the other hand (fist brought down on the top of the head or swung into the forehead, accompanied by sound effect), I LOVE!  

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

I guess I ought to have made clear that by "routine," I meant a series of actions involving some kind of set-up and resolution, not just any comic business. So a simple poke in the eye is not a routine, but you might call it a routine when, say, Moe attempts to poke Curly in the eyes, Curly blocks the poke with the flat of his hand and snickers, and then Moe gets him with two index fingers. Still, quick bits like that don't give one time enough to be bored.

Another example of a routine that bores me is the one in which the Stooges prepare food and put something inedible into it---pot holders into a layer cake, bubble gum on the cake frosting, soap into soup---and then we have to watch several minutes of them and perhaps other diners emitting feathers or bubbles. You see what the joke is going to be as soon as the wrong ingredient goes into the food, and then you just have to endure the unfolding of the obvious.  

[Giff me dat fill-em!]

I did NOT get that "Not again" feeling from the rare times that Shemp did the Curly Shuffle ... you know ... lying down on his side and spinning around. Shemp was Shemp reacting to the situation in those shorts, (or maybe even ONE short, I cannot recall if he ever did it more than once) and I did not connect him with Curly or him trying to rehash routines at the expense of his kid brother, or even just because "it was funny once, and people only go to movies once a week or so, so repeating a gag can't hurt now and then."

[Stooge-Adam]

I can think of two times they did it but maybe they did it more. The routine for me that I don't like is when a cake has been baked and somehow a cushion becomes a layer in the cake before it's iced. So then the Stooges and company eat a (hard to eat) cake and then start coughing feathers.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

The routine for me that I don't like is when a cake has been baked and somehow a cushion becomes a layer in the cake before it's iced. So then the Stooges and company eat a (hard to eat) cake and then start coughing feathers.

The same for me. In fact, I mentioned this routine in my previous post.

Another example of a routine that bores me is the one in which the Stooges prepare food and put something inedible into it---pot holders into a layer cake, bubble gum on the cake frosting, soap into soup---and then we have to watch several minutes of them and perhaps other diners emitting feathers or bubbles. You see what the joke is going to be as soon as the wrong ingredient goes into the food, and then you just have to endure the unfolding of the obvious. 

[Stooge-Adam]

The same for me. In fact, I mentioned this routine in my previous post.

Oops, somehow I missed where you mentioned it.

At least I'm not alone in thinking that.

That scene in "Uncivil Warriors" is a reason I don't like it as much as I would if the scene were not in there.

[pipboytaylor]

My answer to this question would mostly be the overused pie fight stock footage scenes. "Oh no, not those same reaction shots again!" Along a similar line, I get tired of the whole turning imbeciles into gentlemen "bet" plot line used in the three or so shorts, i.e. "Half-Wits Holiday", "Pies & Guys"...etc...

[Dog Hambone]

This was an excellent idea for a thread. I wonder, though, if it would have come up at all if there had only been, say, 30 shorts instead of 190. And of those 190, there was a substantial amount of reused footage in the later ones.

I can honestly say I enjoy all the routines, over & over. That being said, my least favorite recurring gag is Moe punching someone in the stomach to wake them up. I'm kinda glad they didn't use that one too often.   

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

the one in which the Stooges prepare food and put something inedible into it---pot holders into a layer cake, bubble gum on the cake frosting, soap into soup---and then we have to watch several minutes of them and perhaps other diners emitting feathers or bubbles. You see what the joke is going to be as soon as the wrong ingredient goes into the food, and then you just have to endure the unfolding of the obvious.

I second that one... or third it, or whatever.

[Dunrobin]

This was an excellent idea for a thread. I wonder, though, if it would have come up at all if there had only been, say, 30 shorts instead of 190. And of those 190, there was a substantial amount of reused footage in the later ones.

I can honestly say I enjoy all the routines, over & over.   

I tend to feel the same way, Dog.  I can't think of any reoccurring routine that I dislike.  The shorts were never meant to be seen over and over again.  Most people probably only saw them once when they were released, so when the same routine was used again years later I doubt that many people noticed or cared.

Now there are some shorts where I tend to think "Oh no, not again" when they come on, but that's another topic.   

Definitely a good idea for a thread, though.