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Joe Or Curly Joe? Which do YOU prefer?

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sandmountainslim:
I was curious as to which was the favorite of the Stoogemaniacs of this board. 
I had saw most of the Joe shorts when I was a kid and they aired on WAAY TV in Huntsville, Alabama back in the 70's but prior to buying Have Rocket Will Travel on DVD the only experience I had with DeRita was watching a showing of Around The World In A Daze in the auditorium at school when I was in third or fourth grade (also the 70's).   
I don't want to join the "Everyone Bashes Besser" bandwagon but after watching Have Rocket Will Travel and some of the New Three Stooges cartoons I have to say that I slightly prefer Curly Joe because he seemed a better fit to me than Joe Besser.   
What say ye?

Shemp_Diesel:
Give me Curly-Joe any day over Besser. I know the knock on Derita is that he didn't display much of a personality, but I thought he had his moments & could pop off a few good one-liners on occasion. Maybe his best performance as a stooge was in The Three Stooges in Orbit.

Overall, I just think Derita's persona fit in better with the boys & the fact that he wasn't against receiving punishment from Moe helps Curly-Joe in my eyes. Anyways, that's my 3 cents on the subject.

Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum:
Well, there's already been a LOT of discussion on this topic, even a "Great Debate."

Anyway, I'll say it again: I've always preferred Besser for several reasons.

If DeRita had had the chance to appear in shorts, rather than lame feature films, he might rate higher in my estimation than he does. But I'll never know for sure.

Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80:
I prefer Joe Besser because he had more of a personality and I've always liked the Besser era shorts over the movies starring Curly Joe DeRita, I always thought Curly Joe's personality was bland and lifeless.

Umbrella Sam:
Personally, I’d pick DeRita, mainly because the act felt more like the Stooges when he was around, even if it was more of an older version. Besser was funny on his own, but the problem is how much his personality doesn’t fit in with the act. It’s like if you were to replace Oliver Hardy with Moe Howard. Both have shared the same material (notably THE LAUREL-HARDY MURDER CASE and IF A BODY MEETS A BODY) and have some similar characteristics, but Moe would come off as too cruel to the child-like Stan, as opposed to the more idiotic Stooges. Besser is a similar case. At Columbia, he used some of the same material as the Stooges, but his bratty man-child comes across as very annoying and it often felt more like Besser was doing his own separate thing from Moe and Larry.

I’m sure DeRita would have been better had he joined at a better time. He actually was pretty good on the Stooges’ Steve Allen appearances. Still, I choose him anyway because he seemed to fit better and the act felt more like the Three Stooges as a result.

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