Topic: My Stooge Heritage

[Giff me dat fill-em!]

I became a staunch Stooge fan in the very late 60's in a time when the THEN television stations that were independent (to networks) were in this sprawl of using old movie short subject films to fill their 30 minute time slots and one hour time slots while building a station that could buck the never ending push to get them to become a network slug. I was a 12 or 13 year old at the time,  and the Dallas and Fort Worth Station of Channel 11 had been running the early morning kids show "Slam Bang Theatre" with Three Stooges Episodes. I do not remember going to school without a dose of Three Stooges every morning. Also, the Slam Bang Theatre had their own array of wacky characters, beginning with the host named Icky Twerp, and an array of station employees dressed in ape masks with names like Delphinium and AJax. Every time a Three Stooges Ep was run, Icky Twerp, or one of his ape masked cohorts would jump onto this giant movie projector thing, and begin peddling it like it was a bicycle, then the Three Stooges Episode would begin.

I owe my education to Channel 11 and The Three Stooges, and perhaps the whole of my existence! (maybe I'm getting too melodramatic here)

In any case, they were a LARGE portion of my near teen and teen years. Later, as the years and marriage and children and life and ... well, the boys were the back burner for a LONG time. THEN!!!  The magic of recorded media came into my life! They were called VHS (Video-High-Stupidity, or some name like that)  and I began collecting my memories from my childhood, and even recording them LIVE on TV!! (well, I was alive when I recorded them) At this time they (THEY!!) began offering VHS copies of recordings, including Three Stooges. At the time, my only recordings of ANYTHING I liked were the ones I had taped off of TV broadcasts that (UGH!) included the commercials! After that came the CD and DVD onslaught, until now we are in the all-digital-see-it-whenever-you-want days. I still am stuck in owning DVD copies, but I know someday that will be supplanted by something better.

[metaldams]

Cool story.  I think growing up in the sixties was a magical time for Stooge fans, with all the hosts introducing the shows and what not.  Plus some Moe and Larry were still with us.  You grew up in a cool time, Giff.

I was born in late ‘78 in Connecticut and watched random Stooge episodes on weekends with my Dad and brother on WPIX 11 out of New York, WSBK TV 38 from Boston and TBS the Superstation.  I never had a regular time when I watched them, they just always seemed to be on and I watched.  I had The Three Stooges VCR Game, the NES Nintendo game and as a kid they were always a part of my life. 

In the early 90’s I moved to Delaware and as I became a teen lost touch for a while, though I do vividly remember Curly Joe passing away and the media hyping it as the death of the last Stooge.  Early 2000’s I was in college and had a break up with a long time girlfriend.  Thought I needed something to make me laugh and I remembered The Stooges.  Bought a public domain 5 VHS pack and the first tape was SWING PARADE OF 1946.  I thought there was not nearly enough Stooges and it was not what I remembered as a kid, so I put the set aside for a few months.  Came back to the set months later when I discovered one of the other tapes had the four public domain shorts.  I watched that tape constantly.

This was the early days of The Internet, so I studied up on The Three Stooges, found a bunch of Three Stooges message boards, including this one -  the last one standing from those days and I also discovered other old comedians at the time.  Threestooges.net always being a great resource.  Back then the Stooges were on AMC and had the N.Y.U.K. show and the shorts were introduced by people like Leslie Nielsen, Dan Lauria, Carrot Top and..........Anna Nicole Smith.  Taped them off television back in the days when you taped TV shows off blank VHS tapes - just like Giff mentioned above, eventually bought them on DVD when they came out, spoke to a lot of interesting and some strange people online over the years, reviewed all the shorts and here we are today.