Topic: Horsing Around (1957)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/179
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050522/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vtGkUBIWc

Watch HORSING AROUND in the link above

This short is poo.  Point made.

      So folks, we have come to this.  Out of all 190 shorts The Three Stooges have made, HORSING AROUND is the nadir, the worst, awful, a diseased turd found in a sewer in the seventh ring of Hell.  It's a Joe Besser short that also serves as a depressing kiddie tale of a reincarnated horse trying to be reunited with her soon to be executed lover.  As a spoiler alert, the horses are reunited, and the final shots contain them making out while Moe, Larry, and Joe look on in awe.  Let me repeat that, the final shot is the boys gushing over horses making out.  If any of you read that description and say, "Yeah man, that's why I'm a Three Stooges fan," then you are a different animal than I.

      There are some bonks in this one, mainly Joe getting a washtub over the head, Emil Sitka acting blind and dumb, and one scene of Moe and Larry going at it.  Ironically, in the most Stooge like scene that is the latter, the horse tells Moe and Larry to stop acting like Stooges!  The most appropriate line in the short, as throwing in Three Stooges routines would disrupt the target audience of.....who is the target audience?  Surely not Stooge fans.  OK, kids, but even so, this is too depressing for kids.  What were the writers thinking?  I don't know.  I need a drink.

      The lowest of the low, however, contains Moses Howard, THE Moses Howard, telling Joseph Besser he's sorry. Moe should never apologize to anyone, especially a third Stooge.  Besser was so due a patented third Stooge beating there. I'd rather listen to LULU than watch this again.  Lemmy help us.

1/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Oh my, it's come to this. I'm not going to waste too much time with this one--I haven't seen this one in years & I'm going to keep it that way.

Or--to paraphrase the great Boris Karloff--for your very eyes, all that remains of a dying comedy team. Ladies and gentlemen, the actual skeleton of Joe Besser, the vampire. Sucking the life out of Moe and Larry.

I suppose the horses had something to do with it, too....

0 out of 10 pokes...   

[ThumpTheShoes]

According to the (questionable) advice of the good Dr. Oz, the turd in the above picture is actually healthy, not diseased as previously inferred with reference to the short film. It is of an even size, color and is "S" shaped, indicating a healthy and hearty BM.

The whole cast and crew really are just going through the motions here. It is formulaic and mechanical.

Consider the Stooges' collective career in the context of the Beatles' song, "You know My Name (Look Up the Number)", where we follow the plight of a (seemingly) one-note wonder-group from their rough and ready garage beginnings, to super-stardom, the schmaltzy Vegas review,  the inevitable wind-up toy version of a jukebox devoid of all soul, cranking out the same dreck that, initially, shaped their career but, ultimately, stunted all creative development leaving them, finally and sadly, babbling incoherently to music not quite unlike the song of their glory days..

..And this short falls somewhere between mechanical and babbling.

You know there's something missing in the bulk of these later pictures. It's like watching an unrehearsed performance of Babes in Toyland, only without all the music and song. Just clumsy choreography that leaves not a feeling of joy, but a wanting for.. something that just isn't there! Conspicuous in its absence.

I don't hate these pictures, really! I enjoy seeing the Stooges do what they do. It's just that they do so much less of it during these two years. Bring on the Steve Allen Show and DeRita. At least they bounced back with some energy!

[Paul Pain]

Stoogeon General's WARNING: this short may cause vomiting, diarrhea, immense human suffering, brain damage, heart failure, cancer, and even death.



Sadly, the great Stooge writer Felix Adler was also a total absolute maroon... mental midget, even.  We have here a steaming pile of not just horse manure, but horse diarrhea.

This just might be the worst short ever.  It has no Stooginess and no humor.  There are subtle moments: the horse-suit and Emil Sitka, but this is AWFUL.  It's just terrible crap.  This isn't the fault of Besser or any other actor; this is the fault of that dumb jackass Adler and the bigger jackass who thought the script was worth filming!

This short can... BURN IN HELL^TM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

0/10

[Percy Pomeroy]

      The lowest of the low, however, contains Moses Howard, THE Moses Howard, telling Joseph Besser he's sorry. Moe should never apologize to anyone, especially a third Stooge.  Besser was so due a patented third Stooge beating there.

In that same vein, when Birdie throws Moe out of the wagon and he lands face first into the dirt, where's the retaliation? The old Moe would have blamed the boys (why did you let that happen?) and assaulted their craniums.

I don't hate this one as much as Metal, Diesel and Paul. I never saw the Stooges on Steve Allen, so I can't compare. I think the DeRita period is worse if only because the lameness goes on for a full feature length. I'm not going to review any movies, I don't have the patience.

Horsing Around is better than Hoofs and Goofs. Granted the pacing of the first ten minutes is leaden, but at least there is a lot of violence in this short. The "hey, somebody left a gold nugget on the floor" bit is funny. I can't remember, is that line recycled from an earlier classic? The recycled jokes are at least good ones. Also, I liked Emil Sitka getting clotheslined by the top of the stable door. Shows that no one is safe when crossing paths with the Stooges. Even half-blind, old guys will be abused. The writer/producer deserve credit for preserving this credo especially in such a soppy short as this one.

They're back in the same cabin used in Guns a Poppin.

Was the guy at the circus who throws water on the Stooges an uncredited Don Rickles?

Tony the Wonder Horse is used way more in Horsing Around than Hoofs and Goofs. This is not a good thing.

5/10. I wouldn't stop to watch this if I was flipping channels but not the worst of the Besser era.

[metaldams]

I think the DeRita period is worse if only because the lameness goes on for a full feature length. I'm not going to review any movies, I don't have the patience.

This line is a great segue into how I feel about not the whole Derita era, but a particular portion of it, namely SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES.  I have no patience for that film, to the point where I saw it fifteen years ago, don't own it, and never plan to see it again.  This would be a nice spot for me to say I will not be reviewing that film minus what I say here.  Perhaps Paul Payne can.  I can use the excuse it's not a Columbia, fits in a different creative team, and the Stooges, despite the title, are really supporting players, as they basically take the place of the seven dwarves.

But yeah, I call HORSING AROUND the worst short, but SNOW WHITE is the worst film, and the for the reason Percy states....the lameness goes on for a feature length.

I've enjoyed all the comments on this one so far.

[Paul Pain]

I've enjoyed all the comments on this one so far.

I am Paul Pain, the heartthrob of millions!

Interesting... we have had two reviews compare this to horse crap and one praise it as one of the Besser era's best.

[Lefty]

"Horsing Around" was one of the infamous "Missing 60" from the AMC era, not that there was anything wrong with that.  Hoofs and Goofs should have joined it.  But this sick sequel brings back one memory for me.  On June 10th, 2004, the Phillies were supposed to play the rubber game of a three-game series in Chicago against the White Sox.  Our CW station had that game on instead of WWE Smackdown, which was shown on Friday instead.  Well, the game never got started, due to rain, but before the game was called off, the channel showed some Stooges' shorts.  That was the only time I saw "Horsing Around" in probably a decade before I purchased the DVDs.  Maybe it should just have been an Emil Sitka one-man play, as he was the only one interesting in it.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

The horse diptych makes you wonder just whose idea it was to pair up the stooges with an "acting" horse.  The closest they got to that previously was Thunderbolt or Seabasket, but those horses were just horses.  I assume the credited writers came up with the concept, but many production people would have had to green-light this to get a live horse on the set, and dub the lines, etc., since this would have been much more expensive than usual. And this plot makes way less sense than even Hoofs and Goofs, so little sense that the two are almost unrelated, plot-wise.  Granted, this was a time period between Francis the Talking Mule and Mr Ed, so a commercial demand for this tripe must have been seen by some to exist, but it ends up being one of those other-worldly, what-planet-is-this, nightmarish shorts that the '50's stooge team produced way too many of.  I've said before that I very much dislike the one-set ultra-cheapies where the stooges just pound on each other, but this one actually makes me yearn for one of those.  Everybody from Jules White to the janitor who swept up at night is to blame here.  A miserable failure.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

I think I've got welts on my face from how much this one sucks. Some genius higher up must have thought, "The Three Stooges are funny, except for the aggression and violence in their shorts. Let's have them do less of that." So we have what look like the reanimated corpses of Moe and Larry, together with the Stooge substitute Joe, acting out stuff on screen with no idea of what they are there for. Even when Moe and Larry revive the old "See that?"—a gag which ordinarily evokes at least a smile from me, no matter how many times I have seen it—they seem timid and perfunctory about it.

I'm glad to hear that it doesn't get any worse than this.

[Shemp_Diesel]

Things may not get worse than Horsing Around, but looking ahead, the next 2 weeks we have Rusty Romeos and Outer Space Jitters--two more cinematic turds.

It's more rough sailing ahead...   

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Not to even mention that though Bertie is supposedly a mare, she is prominently billed as Tony the Wonder Horse, and don't try to tell me that Tony is short for Antoinette.  ( IIRC, the original Tony was Tom Mix's horse, this one must be a descendant. )  At least the pregnant dog named Garcon remained unbilled.

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

There are so many nasty things that can be (and have been) said about this one. I don't need to add too much to that, but… really, what were the production people thinking? Not only do they make a sequel to the lamest Joe short so far, but they disregard its key plot point (it was only a dream)!

Even more so than with HOOFS, the writing here barely even tries to be funny. It's more of a "cute" kiddie thing, not far removed from the worst of the Curly-Joe era. Most of the time, even where there are gags, no one really seems to be able to make them work – not Moe, Larry or even Emil (who certainly seems to be trying). Once again, Joe is really not the problem; often he actually seems less hamstrung by the material than Moe and Larry do. He gets my favorite line in the short: "Make bigger circles."

One thing that keeps this from being totally like Curly-Joe era stuff is that there is still some Stoogian abuse. Surprisingly, during the first part of the short, Joe gets virtually all of it. First, he gets smacked in the hand (with silverware?), hit on the shoulder and hit on the head – all by Larry who, oddly, takes on Moe's persona for a minute. Then he gets smacked in the head with a chicken leg and conked with a big bowl (both by Moe). (He also accidentally head-bonks with the others and gets liquids splashed/sprayed at him in various ways.) Once we get to the cabin scene, though, it's Larry's turn to get the abuse; all of this happens in one short sequence where Moe’s bullying truly seems mean rather than funny.

Some have called HORSING the worst Stooge short, but in my opinion the worst is still to come!

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

     @ Everybody:  Please, boys and girls, we all know this is as bad as they ever got, but there is more to come, so let's agree no more photos of shit.  Your point is taken.  They may be scraping bottom, but we don't have to.  No double entendre meant, but you'll notice I'm not erasing it.

     @ Thump the Shoes:  I've never heard this Beatles song, and I thought I'd heard them all.  Is it post-breakup?

     @ Thump and Percy Pomeroy:  It's a shame that you guys couldn't see Derita on Steve Allen before they took it off youTube, he was really very good, fit them like a glove, and all three of them were fun and energetic and got big, sincere laughs.  It was because they were performing good strong well-broken-in routines with good meaty parts for Derita, as opposed to the dreck written for the Besser shorts.
     That's not Don Rickles.
     That exact gold nugget joke had not been used before, to the best of my knowledge, but other gold nugget/gold coin/gold collar-button jokes were used in Cash and Carry, Cactus Makes Perfect, and, of course, Yes We Have No Bonanza.  I'm sure you guys know this as well as me and all the other intelligent imbeciles on this site.

     @ Desmond:  I think you and I are agreeing from different angles about Derita vs. Besser.  Yes, the Derita features were deliberately cuter and aimed more at the kids than ever before, but they succeeded brilliantly.  The Bessers, if indeed they were aimed at kids ( and I'm not at all sure of that ), were still dismal failures which for the most part stunk out loud, and it's nice to find that now that we are watching them one more time ( hopefully just one more time ) as adults, we are almost all of us realizing that the person probably least at fault is Besser.  Hate to see him be the scapegoat, he was a fine ( if bizarre ) comic with a good long career.

     @ Metal:  Oh yes you are too going to moderate Snow White.  If the rest of us can hang on through the End Time Shemps and the Horsing Around Bessers, you can slog through Snow White. It's only one week.  No one says you have to be sober.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

     @ Everybody:  Please, boys and girls, we all know this is as bad as they ever got, but there is more to come, so let's agree no more photos of shit.  Your point is taken.  They may be scraping bottom, but we don't have to.  No double entendre meant, but you'll notice I'm not erasing it.

I also move (no puns, please) that there be no more such photos. The point has been made. Whether it justified the use of the photos in the first place or not, it can't justify any more of the same.

[metaldams]

I only plan shit photos for the worst.  Since we hit the worst, my point was made, there'll be no more.

As far as SNOW WHITE.....I'll think about it.  You guys do realize I'll actually have to buy it, right?

[metaldams]

"You Know My Name, (Look Up the Number)" was the b-side of "Let it Be" and can best be described as "Revolution 9" with slightly more music and humor.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Good for you, Metal, I don't own it either, if you buy it, tell me where you found it cheap and I'll buy it too.  Truth to tell, I'd buy one with all the Deritas, I dont have any of them, and aside from seeing Orbit somewhere maybe 10 years ago and Have Rocket, which is on Youtube ( last I looked ), I could use the refresher course.  My wife is remarkably tolerant of this, so at a reasonable price, I'd be O K with it.  Two weeks ago, Paul Pain bawled me out for not owning a collection of Shemp solos, which according to most reviews here only occasionally escapes mediocrity, and I'm on record as liking Curly-Joe,  so I'll put my money where my mouth is.  If anyone has a line on good-quality Deritas at a bargain price online ( I don't comb the bins in Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store or whatever, it's gotta be online )  I'm in.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Sounds like " You Know My Name " was released only as a 45?  I bought the 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand at the absolute height of Beatlemania, maybe March, 1964, for 99 cents.  It's value as of today, Oct 10, 2016?  One dollar.

[GreenCanaries]

There are several things to dislike about this one, but the one thing I despise more than other elements is how much whinier Birdie's voice is here than in HOOFS. My stepbrother was replaying this scene recently, and after all of her nagging during the traveling ("Get going, fellows!"), I was waiting for the part where the foursome are greeted by the dog food company.

Agreed with Desmond on Joe's "Make bigger circles." Though what the hey was up with Larry's "SHUT UP!" beforehand? Why so loud and shrill?

As for the Beatles reference: I rather like "You Know My Name..." (featuring Brian Jones on saxophone!). It's at the very end of Past Masters: Volume 2, the second of a two-part compilation initially released when the Beatles' output was first being put out on CD to collect all of the non-album/single cuts.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

     Bertie's whining, it seems to me, is part of a whole other problem with this mess of a short, which is the huge amount of post-production dubbing.  Bertie's voice is completely dubbed, of course,  but the whole thing is full of intrusive overdubs, some sounding very weird, as in Moe's "you wonder?  I wonder too " to Larry's later "it's us, hey, it's us" which is obviously one line chopped in half and used twice, or once-and-a-half, or something.  It seems at times that the outdoor scenes were filmed silent, and worthless voice-overs were added later.
     It's pointless to go on, and I won't.  There's so many things wrong with this nightmare of a short that I was actually scared of it as an eight-year-old.  I'm done.

[Paul Pain]

Big Chief: this site would be boring if you weren't here!

If anyone has a line on good-quality Deritas at a bargain price online ( I don't comb the bins in Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store or whatever, it's gotta be online ) I'm in.

I'll look for you and post a link if I find one.

[Percy Pomeroy]

         That's not Don Rickles.

I really didn't think that that was him. I was mimicking a comment Crow or Tom Servo might have made if they had watched this short. For those not enlightened, there was a somewhat obscure cable TV show called Mystery Science Theatre 3000 that skewered B movies with voice overs. You can see old episodes on YouTube.

        That exact gold nugget joke had not been used before, to the best of my knowledge, but other gold nugget/gold coin/gold collar-button jokes were used in Cash and Carry, Cactus Makes Perfect, and, of course, Yes We Have No Bonanza.  I'm sure you guys know this as well as me and all the other intelligent imbeciles on this site.

Thanks. I vaguely remember that bit now in a Curly. Moe has to break something in two, after looking around and seeing nothing to use, he decides that Curly's head will do.

[QuinceHead]

If anyone has a line on good-quality Deritas at a bargain price online ( I don't comb the bins in Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store or whatever, it's gotta be online )  I'm in.

I have a still-sealed DVD set of the DeRita movies (I upgraded to the Blu-Ray sets) if you're interested in purchasing it -- let me know! 

For duty and humanity,
JohnH aka QuinceHead

[Paul Pain]

Please, boys and girls, we all know this is as bad as they ever got, but there is more to come, so let's agree no more photos of shit.  Your point is taken.  They may be scraping bottom, but we don't have to.  No double entendre meant, but you'll notice I'm not erasing it.

I also move (no puns, please) that there be no more such photos. The point has been made. Whether it justified the use of the photos in the first place or not, it can't justify any more of the same.

I decreased the size of the photo because it was indeed in poor taste, even if apropos.