While I'm really late on this topic I have ten unwatchable stooge shorts to list as my personal crap heap:
All four of the A.D. Shemps round out the first because Columbia's greed of not allowing Shemp to be retired after his death and hiring Joe Palma to stand in for Shemp and wear a hairpiece while having Moe and Larry pretend Shemp is still there.
10. Hot Stuff(1956) How many of us think that Palma's "eep-eeping" and armflapping is just plain stupid? I know I do.
9. Rumpus in the Harem(1956)At the beginning Moe reads a note left by Shemp saying he's gone to open the resturant. Who do you think your fooling Columbia? We know he's not there!!!!!!
8. Scheming Schemers(1956) While most fans give this short a good score because Palma is used for only one scene and Moe and Larry try to move on with a Two Stooge act, Shemp's abesence is too noticeable and Cohn rejected this idea anyway and got Joe Besser so it doesn't get off so easily.
7. Commotion in The Ocean(1956) Boring,tired and clustrophobic. Plus Gene roth filling in for Shemp is very very lame. I can't believe Moe and Larry were forced to endure this mess on top of overusing Shemp's name. Yes, I know guys it's Harry cohn's fault this happened and he couldn't give a rat's ass about Shemp being dead and used him anyway.
6. Halfwits Holiday(1946( Released early 1947)While alot of fans are sentimental about this short, I don't excuse it for being made. There's is nothing decent about this short and it's not just because Curly looks so deathly ill here, it's the fact that poor Jerry was forced by the stuffed shirts of Columbia to work on the day he had a stroke. Jules White doesn't get off either. If he had a heart, He would have scrapped this short after Curly's stroke or would have reworked it with Shemp instead while probably would have made alot more sense. But unfortanely, White didn't edit the short and Moe and Larry had to do a pie fight scene without Jerry and his life was greeted with abject pain, misery, and an untimely grave.
5. Beer Barrel Polecats(1946) There is nothing, I mean Nothing good about this cheesy ass looking piece of trash that looks like it was edited in just under a few hours. How could someone enjoy this horrible rehased piece of junk that uses stock footage from "So Long Mr. Chumps" and "In the sweet pie and Pie" with a plot so convoluted that you can't figure out what the hell is going on?! Look, I know Jerry was sick, and I know Jules White was just trying to cover up his illness by using stock footage but everyone knows that just seven years later in 1952 using stock footage became a standard routine pratice of Columbia's Short subject department to cut production costs. And if you excuse that then wouldn't it have been alot easier for Jules White to use stock footage from "Hoi Polloi" and "Three Little Beers"? That would have made more sense. Instead the title"Beer Barrel Polecats" is an understatement. It's smells terrible.
4. Rythm and Weep(1946) Does anyway like "Gents without Cents"? Watch that instead of this garbage. not only is Curly very ill here (he talks and moves slow) but Jerry looks ragged and has lost some weight here and the short is bogged down by horrible singing and dancing and poor acting. I'm just thankful that Columbia didn't do a remake of this crapper with Joe Besser and like Shemps #1 said, Even if Curly wasn't sick he wouldn't have been able to save this train wreck anyway.
3. Hoofs And Goofs(1957) While I like many people consider the Joe Besser era to be the lowest point of the Stooge's career, There were only three shorts that I choose for this list that are the worse of the shorts he made with Moe and Larry and Besser's first stooge effort blows garbage. It's unfunny, tired, lame and has the ability to make even the most die hard fan of Joe Besser ashamed to be a fan. This shorts sucks really horribly and the talking horse bit is old hat and lame. This screenplay was written by Felix Adler and it kinda of makes me wonder if Clyde Bruckman and Shemp Howard were alive then, would they really have wanted to make this mess?
2. Sweet and Hot(1957(released in 1958)While every single stooge fan ranks this is the cream of the crap the #1 worst stooge short of all time. It falls right behind another one that I consider worse. Sweet and Hot is by far beyond bad! It's abysmal and atrocious. Completely unbearable and unwatchable. Is there anything at least average about this short? Well.........No. Mauriel Launders can't sing, she can't dance. She can't even act!!!!She was basically the Heather Locklar of her day, but even Locklar can act better them Launders. I remember watching this back in 1996, but of course I was new to the stooges and only a kid then I actually liked it then. Which leads to the theory that by '57 when it became apparant that the short subjects department was going to be shut down that it was made for children who were watching them at Saturday movie matenees then. When you watch the short you can't even fathom what Moe,Larry and joe had to endure and the fact that when Launders sang" Let's fall in Love" the farm animals were probably begging for mercy not singing alone. Yeah Stooge once asked this question several years ago: "Why the Hell was this Made into a stooge short?" Plus could we really give a damn about Tiny about to be spanked by her father?(Moe)Mabye she had it coming. When it came on AMC in 2001, I watched it again by then I was older and in my late teens. It was so bad that after about two minutes I changed the channel.Besser doesn't lie, If he himself siad it was a turkey, then it must be that BAD.
1. Horsing Around(1957)Like xraffle, I pick "Horsing Around" as THE worse stooge short ever!!!!!!!!How bad is it? Well in '96 I saw it for the first time on the Family Channel and thought of it as the stupiest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I remember that I was NOT laughing while I watched it! I shrugged it off as pure "nonsene" and promised myself to change the channel whenever it came on, thankfully The Family Channel rarely aired this piece of rotting crap. Then in 2001 AMC played it. not just once. But several times a week!Pissing me off something awful. First of all I thought to myself" What the hell is wrong with Columbia? What were they smoking when they decided to make a sequel to "Hoofs And Goofs"? If you think the idea which was doomed from the start, then wait till you see all the things that are wrong with this short. First of all if the think that the crapper "Hoofs and Goofs" is bad then this is pure monotomous stooge hell! The acting sucks, it actaully looks like the stooges are reading off of cue cards. If the editing on "Beer Barrel Polecats" was cheesy then on here it looks like it was made on a $ store camera. The diolouge? Sounds like it was made up during a night of partying and getting wasted. And the short even feels like it was shot in just 3 hours!3 hours!!!!Come on, I know A.D. Shemps were made in one day but this looks like it was shot in just under a few hours!
And the subplot? Pffff! Sounds like the writers were drunk, high, and comepletely out of ideas. Bertie has a baby colt huh? Really really pathetic. After I watched in 2001 I really really felt like committing suicide. I would do anything to get the nigtmare of having the Stooge babysit "Snapps" removed from my brain. I even tried watching this again in 2003 but couldn't make through a minute before I changed the channel. Sony, if you hear us fans please spare us of the negetives and do what you can to destroy this atrocity do what you can to make it stop existing!Please!
