Every single gag in this one is executed perfectly, right down to where Moe and Larry sit up from a dead sleep and yell " SKIP! " in perfect unison. Larry takes the ridgepole in the chops perfectly, gets noosed over the car perfectly ( sorry, Metal, old boy, it's Larry, not Moe ) the tire guy's hammer perfectly covers the sound of the settling tire, the tent and the entire living room collapse due to one wrong turn of a door knob ( the physical set-up for that gag must have taken days ) I could go on and on, these gags are exquisitely executed, and all really funny. I think this is a great one, a Shemp that is as funny as the best Curlys. Claude doesn't bother me, he just strikes me as an underachiever who thinks he's an overachiever, and he benefits from Moe's aforementioned ( by me ) Magical Thinking ( as in, Claude: I can take care of Shemp better than any doctor! Moe: Sure he can! ). No logical thought process known to the human brain should lead Moe or anybody else to that conclusion, hence Magical Thinking, which is a real psychiatric term, not my own, and not an optimistic diagnosis by any means. I'm not one who assigns numerical ratings to these things, but to me, in terms of sheer number of laughs and perfectly executed slapstick, this is as good as they get. This is another one that I really regret never seeing in a real theater: as I observed about Tassels In The Air, I bet the audience roared.
