Topic: Three Stooges shorts coming to Blu-ray this summer

[Mark The Shark]

I saw this YouTube video and this guy starts talking about this set on 23:00.

According to him, there's some rights issue that is preventing Sony from releasing a bunch of the shorts. Doesn't make sense to me as Sony should have the rights to all of them and they did release them all on DVD, so what gives?

He mentions "different studios" so it must be a misunderstanding on his part. He must be thinking of a few feature films done at other studios, not shorts -- unless he means the M-G-M Ted Healy shorts. (He also uses the phrase "a few.") I wonder if he even realizes there are 190 shorts?

[Tony Bensley]

I saw this YouTube video and this guy starts talking about this set on 23:00.

According to him, there's some rights issue that is preventing Sony from releasing a bunch of the shorts. Doesn't make sense to me as Sony should have the rights to all of them and they did release them all on DVD, so what gives?

OK, so apart from Sony's supposed rights issues preventing them from releasing some of the shorts, which doesn't make sense on its face, the reviewer emphasizes repeatedly that once this limited Blu-ray edition is gone, IT'S GONE!! Like "Fraggle Rock on Blu-ray" gone!!! If true, that's some bizarre decision making on Sony's part!! Why limit The Stooges HD availability? It makes no sense!!!

On the upside, the reviewer also clearly stated 120 shorts, as opposed to the previously stated 100 shorts on Sony's initial press release, so if correct, that's something positive, at least!

CHEERS! 

[Mark The Shark]

OK, so apart from Sony's supposed rights issues preventing them from releasing some of the shorts, which doesn't make sense on its face, the reviewer emphasizes repeatedly that once this limited Blu-ray edition is gone, IT'S GONE!! Like "Fraggle Rock on Blu-ray" gone!!! If true, that's some bizarre decision making on Sony's part!! Why limit The Stooges HD availability? It makes no sense!!!

On the upside, the reviewer also clearly stated 120 shorts, as opposed to the previously stated 100 shorts on Sony's initial press release, so if correct, that's something positive, at least!

CHEERS! 

Sounds like the "20" are the solo Shemp, Besser and De Rita shorts.

[Tony Bensley]

Sounds like the "20" are the solo Shemp, Besser and De Rita shorts.

That's what I heard in a reply on another forum where I posted the YouTube link.

Best to take it all with a grain of salt until the set is released.

CHEERS! 

[Larrys#1]

Just one caveat I forgot to mention.... I don't know the credibility of that youtube dude. It's just a video I found. So feel free to take what he says with a grain of salt.

That said, as much as I hate to admit, but given Sony's history, I have a strong feeling this may be our ONLY opportunity to own the stooges shorts in HD. I just don't foresee Sony re-releasing the full 190 shorts down the road. I feel we are lucky to be getting this set, especially since physical media is already in a niche market right now. So I'm probably going to be purchasing this set. And the price dropped to $175.99 on Amazon now and that encourages me even more to cave in.

[I. Cheatam]

I'm game for a Blu-ray set of 100 of the best non-Stooge Columbia two-reelers to celebrate its anniversary, but I highly doubt that will happen.

[TTS#1]

This is the first time I am reading about this set when I saw the thread title a few minutes ago. I don’t think that I have ever gone from elation and excitement to disappointment quicker. I re-watched the DVD’s a couple of years ago and they are perfectly fine, but this BluRay set definitely would have been a Day 1 buy with all 190 shorts. 100th year anniversary or not, this is such a strange decision.

Maybe Sony will eventually upgrade the other 90 shorts and releasing another collection in the future with all 190 shorts.

[Larrys#1]

This is the first time I am reading about this set when I saw the thread title a few minutes ago. I don’t think that I have ever gone from elation and excitement to disappointment quicker. I re-watched the DVD’s a couple of years ago and they are perfectly fine, but this BluRay set definitely would have been a Day 1 buy with all 190 shorts. 100th year anniversary or not, this is such a strange decision.

Maybe Sony will eventually upgrade the other 90 shorts and releasing another collection in the future with all 190 shorts.

As great as the DVDs were, they had some flaws. For one thing, the second half of "Yes We Have No Bonanza" has a completely distorted audio. That short is just completely unwatchable to me because of how bad the audio is. If you stream it in HD on Tubi, the audio is fixed there. Also, "Idiots Deluxe" is filled with dirt and scratches. Again, this is fixed on Tubi.

I'm hoping we get fixed copies of those shorts on this Blu-ray set. Knowing Sony, I wouldn't be surprised if they do fix them but then have issues on other shorts that weren't present before. They just can't get this right!

[TTS#1]

As great as the DVDs were, they had some flaws. For one thing, the second half of "Yes We Have No Bonanza" has a completely distorted audio. That short is just completely unwatchable to me because of how bad the audio is. If you stream it in HD on Tubi, the audio is fixed there. Also, "Idiots Deluxe" is filled with dirt and scratches. Again, this is fixed on Tubi.

I'm hoping we get fixed copies of those shorts on this Blu-ray set. Knowing Sony, I wouldn't be surprised if they do fix them but then have issues on other shorts that weren't present before. They just can't get this right!

That’s fair enough. I definitely forgot about the issues or just completely overlooked them at the time. In any case, at lease 100 shorts are getting a BluRay release, with hopefully the other 90 to follow at some stage.

[Larrys#1]

Yeah with that said, I'm still on the fence about buying this. I've bought the stooges shorts so many times in my life and rewatched all these shorts numerous times. I don't know if it's worth rebuying them AGAIN, especially at that $169 price tag.

[TTS#1]

Everything that is included in this set is now on the Amazon link in the OP.

[Larrys#1]

Yep, may have to pass…. No Uncivil Warriors, Wee Wee Monsieur, Dizzy Pilots, What’s the Matador, or They Stooge to Conga. And a whole mess of Shemp shorts missing!! What a slap in the face to Shemp! But plenty of respect to DeRita by dedicating one disc to each of the films… respect that I don’t think he deserves.

I don’t know how Sony could create such a weird set like this and expect to attract people. This set is just crazy in so many ways.

[Larrys#1]

Below are a list of all the shorts posted by someone from blu-ray.com, and the bolded ones are the ones being included on this set. As you can see, many good shorts are missing.

Source- https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=22198705&postcount=271

The Three Stooges Shorts

Curly

1934
1 Woman Haters
2 Punch Drunks
3 Men In Black
4 Three Little Pigskins

1935
5 Horses' Collars
6 Restless Knights
7 Pop Goes The Easel
8 Uncivil Warriors
9 Pardon My Scotch
10 Hoi Polloi
11 Three Little Beers

1936
12 Ants In The Pantry
13 Movie Maniacs
14 Half Shot Shooters
15 Disorder In The Court
16 A Pain In The Pullman
17 False Alarms
18 Whoops, I'm An Indian!
19 Slippery Silks

1937
20 Grips, Grunts And Groans
21 Dizzy Doctors
22 3 Dumb Clucks
23 Back To The Woods
24 Goofs And Saddles
25 Cash And Carry
26 Playing The Ponies
27 The Sitter Downers

1938
28 Termites Of 1938
29 Wee Wee Monsieur
30 Tassels In The Air
31 Healthy, Wealthy And Dumb
32 Violent Is The Word For Curly
33 Three Missing Links
34 Mutts To You
35 Flat Foot Stooges

1939
36 Three Little Sew And Sews
37 We Want Our Mummy
38 A Ducking They Did Go
39 Yes, We Have No Bonanza
40 Saved By The Belle
41 Calling All Curs
42 Oily To Bed, Oily To Rise
43 Three Sappy People

1940
44 You Nazty Spy!
45 Rockin' Thru The Rockies
46 A Plumbing We Will Go
47 Nutty But Nice
48 How High Is Up?
49 From Nurse To Worse
50 No Census, No Feeling
51 Cookoo Cavaliers
52 Boobs In Arms

1941
53 So Long Mr. Chumps
54 Dutiful But Dumb
55 All The World's A Stooge
56 I'll Never Heil Again
57 An Ache In Every Stake
58 In The Sweet Pie And Pie
59 Some More Of Samoa

1942
60 Loco Boy Makes Good
61 Cactus Makes Perfect
62 What's The Matador?
63 Matri-Phony
64 Three Smart Saps
65 Even As IOU
66 Sock-A-Bye Baby

1943
67 They Stooge To Conga
68 Dizzy Detectives
69 Spook Louder
70 Back From The Front
71 Three Little Twirps
72 Higher Than A Kite
73 I Can Hardly Wait
74 Dizzy Pilots
75 Phony Express
76 A Gem Of A Jam

1944
77 Crash Goes The Hash
78 Busy Buddies
79 The Yoke's On Me
80 Idle Roomers
81 Gents Without Cents
82 No Dough Boys

1945
83 Three Pests In A Mess
84 Booby Dupes
85 Idiots Deluxe
86 If A Body Meets A Body
87 Micro-Phonies

1946
88 Beer Barrel Polecats
89 A Bird In The Head
90 Uncivil War Birds
91 The Three Troubledoers
92 Monkey Businessmen
93 Three Loan Wolves
94 G.I. Wanna Home
95 Rhythm And Weep
96 Three Little Pirates

1947
97 Half-Wits Holiday

Shemp

1947
98 Fright Night
99 Out West
100 Hold That Lion!
101 Brideless Groom
102 Sing A Song Of Six Pants
103 All Gummed Up

1948
104 Shivering Sherlocks
105 Pardon My Clutch
106 Squareheads Of The Round Table
107 Fiddlers Three
108 The Hot Scots
109 Heavenly Daze
110 I'm A Monkey's Uncle
111 Mummy's Dummies
112 Crime On Their Hands

1949
113 The Ghost Talks
114 Who Done It?
115 Hokus Pokus
116 Fuelin' Around
117 Malice In The Palace
118 Vagabond Loafers
119 Dunked In The Deep

1950
120 Punchy Cowpunchers
121 Hugs And Mugs
122 Dopey Dicks
123 Love At First Bite
124 Self-Made Maids
125 Three Hams On Rye
126 Studio Stoops
127 Slaphappy Sleuths
128 A Snitch In Time

1951
129 Three Arabian Nuts
130 Baby Sitters Jitters
131 Don't Throw That Knife
132 Scrambled Brains
133 Merry Mavericks
134 The Tooth Will Out
135 Hula-La-La
136 Pest Man Wins

1952
137 A Missed Fortune
138 Listen, Judge
139 Corny Casanovas
140 He Cooked His Goose
141 Gents In A Jam
142 Three Dark Horses
143 Cuckoo On A Choo Choo

1953
144 Up In Daisy's Penthouse
145 Booty And The Beast
146 Loose Loot
147 Tricky Dicks
148 Spooks!
149 Pardon My Backfire
150 Rip, Sew And Stitch
151 Bubble Trouble
152 Goof On The Roof

1954
153 Income Tax Sappy
154 Musty Musketeers
155 Pals And Gals
156 Knutzy Knights
157 Shot In The Frontier
158 Scotched In Scotland

1955
159 Fling In The Ring
160 Of Cash And Hash
161 Gypped In The Penthouse
162 Bedlam In Paradise
163 Stone Age Romeos
164 Wham-Bam-Slam!
165 Hot Ice
166 Blunder Boys

1956
167 Husbands Beware
168 Creeps
169 Flagpole Jitters
170 For Crimin' Out Loud
171 Rumpus In The Harem
172 Hot Stuff
173 Scheming Schemers
174 Commotion On The Ocean

Joe Besser

1957
175 Hoofs And Goofs
176 Muscle Up A Little Closer
177 A Merry Mix Up
178 Space Ship Sappy
179 Guns A Poppin!
180 Horsing Around
181 Rusty Romeos
182 Outer Space Jitters

1958
183 Quiz Whizz
184 Fifi Blows Her Top
185 Pies And Guys
186 Sweet And Hot
187 Flying Saucer Daffy
188 Oil's Well That Ends Well

1959
189 Triple Crossed
190 Sappy Bull Fighters



Solo Columbia Shorts

Shemp

1938
Not Guilty Enough  *
Home On The Rage

1939
Glove Slingers

1940
Money Squawks
Boobs In The Woods
Pleased To Mitt You

1944
Pick A Peck Of Plumbers
Open Season For Saps

1945
Off Again, On Again
Where the Pest Begins
A Hit With A Miss

1946
Mr. Noisy
Jiggers, My Wife
Society Mugs

1947
Bride And Gloom

Joe Besser

1938
Cuckoorancho *

1949
Waiting In The Lurch

1950
Dizzy Yardbird

1951
'Fraidy Cat

1952
Aim, Fire, Scoot
Caught On The Bounce

1953
Spies And Guys

1954
The Fire Chaser

1955
G.I. Dood It
Hook A Crook

1956
Army Daze

Joe DeRita

1946
Slappily Married

1947
The Good Bad Egg
Wedlock Deadlock

1948
Jitter Bughouse

*Presumed lost and not included on the Rare Treasures From The Columbia Vault DVD set.

[metaldams]

Only two Bessers and no Shemp stock footage shorts?  The bastards!

[Tony Bensley]

Only two Bessers and no Shemp stock footage shorts?  The bastards!

LOL! 

Also, only 26 Shemp shorts made it to this set. The not included "Cuckoo On A Choo Choo (1952)" is actually among my favorite Shemps! At least the majority of the Curly shorts are included, so there's that!

I will chime in and agree that only one feature length title per disc seems rather wasteful, especially in the Blu-ray format! This is Mill Creek in reverse!! Two features per disc would have been perfectly acceptable, and still nowhere close to excessive.

CHEERS! 

[falsealarms]

I think you can read between the lines on some of those shorts and why they didn't make it - especially titles like YOKES ON ME, WHOOPS IM AN INDIAN, UNCIVIL WAR BIRDS etc - some not too politically correct stuff in shorts like those....  this is just a big miss all together. All 190 should be on here, just like it was on DVD. Blunder Boys is one of the all time best Shemp efforts but ignored here, and the list goes on.

[metaldams]

I think you can read between the lines on some of those shorts and why they didn't make it - especially titles like YOKES ON ME, WHOOPS IM AN INDIAN, UNCIVIL WAR BIRDS etc - some not too politically correct stuff in shorts like those....  this is just a big miss all together. All 190 should be on here, just like it was on DVD. Blunder Boys is one of the all time best Shemp efforts but ignored here, and the list goes on.

I did not think about that but yes - you may be onto something.

More reason to hold onto the DVD’s.

[GreenCanaries]

That absolutely crossed my mind while I was perusing the list -- in particular, WHOOPS and BACK TO THE WOODS being the sole outliers in their respective years made me think, "Ahhh, I see..." (and also belatedly realizing just now that UNCIVIL WARRIORS, the outlier of 1935, has the racial gag towards the end). Noticing the other Curly-era omissions only affirmed that thought.

Which makes me sorta surprised they retained I CAN HARDLY WAIT, what with the "jaundice" line at the beginning.

[metaldams]

Which makes me sorta surprised they retained I CAN HARDLY WAIT, what with the "jaundice" line at the beginning.

Well, you know.  Back in the day, sometimes things got by The Hays Office. 

Below is copied and pasted from a post I just made at The Classic Horror Film Board.

UNCIVIL WARRIORS “sunburnt baby” gag
WHOOPS, I’M AN INDIAN! speaks for itself
BACK TO THE WOODS Native American slapstick

Other shorts not included
THE YOKE’S ON ME - even I’m offended by the mistreatment of relocated Japanese citizens, but would still include the short
NO DOUGH BOYS - yellow face Stooges
UNCIVIL WAR BIRDS - Curly as a blackface cross dressing mammy with cantaloupe bosoms
SOME MORE OF SOMOA - The title says it all

ALL THE WORLD’S A STOOGE with Curly’s Jolson impersonation
COOKOO CAVALIERS where three professional ladies receive copious amounts of slapstick

[GreenCanaries]

Well, you know.  Back in the day, sometimes things got by The Hays Office. 

Below is copied and pasted from a post I just made at The Classic Horror Film Board.

UNCIVIL WARRIORS “sunburnt baby” gag
WHOOPS, I’M AN INDIAN! speaks for itself
BACK TO THE WOODS Native American slapstick

Other shorts not included
THE YOKE’S ON ME - even I’m offended by the mistreatment of relocated Japanese citizens, but would still include the short
NO DOUGH BOYS - yellow face Stooges
UNCIVIL WAR BIRDS - Curly as a blackface cross dressing mammy with cantaloupe bosoms
SOME MORE OF SOMOA - The title says it all

ALL THE WORLD’S A STOOGE with Curly’s Jolson impersonation
COOKOO CAVALIERS where three professional ladies receive copious amounts of slapstick

True.

Regarding COOKOO, I feel like Mexican stereotyping had more to do with its exclusion. I get your reasoning, but if slapstick to ladies (regardless of profession) is a red flag, then wouldn't THE SITTER DOWNERS or IN THE SWEET PIE AND PIE have gotten the heave-ho as well?

As for ALL THE WORLD'S A STOOGE, I would also add the painting where the ax lands.

[falsealarms]

True.

Regarding COOKOO, I feel like Mexican stereotyping had more to do with its exclusion. I get your reasoning, but if slapstick to ladies (regardless of profession) is a red flag, then wouldn't THE SITTER DOWNERS or IN THE SWEET PIE AND PIE have gotten the heave-ho as well?

As for ALL THE WORLD'S A STOOGE, I would also add the painting where the ax lands.

Definitely agree on the Mexican stereotyping.  Probably the reason why WHAT'S THE MATADOR got the boot too, especially that scene with the guy taking the siesta. (rolls eyes)

ROCKIN IN THE ROCKIES - Indian portrayal

WEE WEE MONSIEUR - Tons of racial stereotype characters

MUTTS TO YOU - Irish stereotype

The John Lester Johnson character may have given THREE MISSING LINKS the ax too.

Some great Shemp shorts are frustratingly missing, like Gents in a Jam, Income Tax Sappy, Blunder Boys, etc.

A pie in the face to whoever conceptualized this set.

[GreenCanaries]

Definitely agree on the Mexican stereotyping.  Probably the reason why WHAT'S THE MATADOR got the boot too, especially that scene with the guy taking the siesta. (rolls eyes)

ROCKIN IN THE ROCKIES - Indian portrayal

WEE WEE MONSIEUR - Tons of racial stereotype characters

MUTTS TO YOU - Irish stereotype

The John Lester Johnson character may have given THREE MISSING LINKS the ax too.

Some great Shemp shorts are frustratingly missing, like Gents in a Jam, Income Tax Sappy, Blunder Boys, etc.

A pie in the face to whoever conceptualized this set.

I imagine it affected SAVED BY THE BELLE's chances of inclusion as well.

Re: MUTTS -- perhaps the Irish stereotype, but I imagine Moe and Larry's brief Chinese laundrymen disguises had to have been more of a sure factor in its exclusion.

SOCK-A-BYE BABY -- Curly's Japanese line
THEY STOOGE TO CONGA -- Japanese stereotyping
THREE LITTLE TWIRPS -- Duke York's character
THREE PESTS IN A MESS -- "porter/Mammy" bit

[falsealarms]

Merry Mutineers, the 1936 cartoon, was also dropped from what was released back in 2012.

[GreenCanaries]

Also, considering that all of the Shemp stock jobs were exiled -- and assuming such was simply because of redundancy -- I wonder if the same rule of thumb applied to BEER BARREL POLECATS due to its own reliance on stock footage (unless there's an objectionable bit in there I'm forgetting).

To be frank, I'm not exactly clamoring for Blu-Ray anyway unless it's the only release option, so I'm just fine with my DVDs (the Tubi uploads suffice just fine, too). And the lack of the full 190 (especially the short shrift given to Shemp) makes me even less inclined.

Just lame-brained decisions all around with this thing...

[Larrys#1]

Why did Dizzy Detectives get omitted? What is offensive/racist? Something offensive about cops?