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Offline girlovestooges

Thanks Baggie, Thats exactly the scene Im talking about. Thanks for replying. thats been driving me crazy, I can only picture that one part in my head. Do you have this episode, if so can you make me a copy and mail it to me. I hope that I can help someone with an episode sometime. Thanks again.

Melanie


Pilsner Panther

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"Young man, you act as if some sort of damaclese is hanging over your head!"
From what? " Half-wits holidays"?

Umm... Sword of Damocles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damocles

Yes, that's from "Half-Wit's Holiday."

 ::)


Offline dbaxter1991

Here's a good question for you, who do think should have been a supporting player in the Stooge shorts? For example, Jimmy Finlayson from Laurel and Hardy (he's HILARIOUS), Edgar Kennedy (also on the series) as a cop, or who do you think should've been a supporting player.

STRANGE BUT TRUE: Bud Jamison was a supporting player for the Hal Roach Studios (same studio that had the two I suggested) for a little bit before he was on the Stooges.  ;) THought I'd brighten things up a little.

Who do you think from other studios should've been a supporting player?

If you don't know who Jimmy Finlayson or Edgar Kennedy is I'd be glad to tell you about them.






Offline Dunrobin

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Umm... Sword of Damocles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damocles

Yes, that's from "Half-Wit's Holiday."

 ::)

I couldn't resist - I added a description of the Half-Wits' Holiday scene to the Wikipedia entry.   >:D


Pilsner Panther

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Umm... Sword of Damocles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damocles

Yes, that's from "Half-Wit's Holiday."

 ::)

I couldn't resist - I added a description of the Half-Wits' Holiday scene to the Wikipedia entry.   >:D

So you did! While I was checking that out, I thought I'd see what Wikipedia had on the Stooges. It's a nicely detailed, fairly long entry; someone obviously put some real time and effort into it.

Thw Wikipedia concept strikes me as having a basic flaw, though, in that anybody can edit the information there, which would seem to leave it wide open to pranksters. You could easily insert false information, or even completely bogus entries... but maybe that's just my evil mind at work and no one else has ever thought of it.

 >:D
« Last Edit: August 25, 2005, 05:07:44 PM by Pilsner Panther »


Pilsner Panther

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Here's a good question for you, who do think should have been a supporting player in the Stooge shorts? For example, Jimmy Finlayson from Laurel and Hardy (he's HILARIOUS), Edgar Kennedy (also on the series) as a cop, or who do you think should've been a supporting player.

STRANGE BUT TRUE: Bud Jamison was a supporting player for the Hal Roach Studios (same studio that had the two I suggested) for a little bit before he was on the Stooges.  ;) THought I'd brighten things up a little.

Who do you think from other studios should've been a supporting player?

If you don't know who Jimmy Finlayson or Edgar Kennedy is I'd be glad to tell you about them.



As much as I enjoy Bud Jamison, I'd have to say that Vernon Dent is the classic Stooges straight man. Two of my favorite moments in any Stooges shorts are when he recognizes "the icemen!" in "An Ache In Every Stake," and the phone booth scene in "Scrambled Brains."

Vernon was another one of the Stooges supporting cast who started out in silent comedies, sometimes teamed with Harry Langdon. Back then, he was a bit slimmer (stocky rather than portly), and sported a handlebar moustache. He also did some scriptwriting for Langdon when he came to Columbia in the early 30's, but Langdon was one of those silent comics who didn't work well with sound, and like Buster Keaton at around the same time, his career went into a steep decline; both Langdon and Keaton lost their star status and ended up making what Buster once called "crummy two-reelers."

Vernon's IMDB biography lists a remarkable 380 film appearances between 1919 and 1957. A couple of these are recycled footage in the later Stooges shorts, but still, it's clear that he was one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, for decades.

Teaming up Edgar Kennedy with the Stooges would have worked well, but I don't think the right chemistry would have been there with Jimmy Finlayson. He was too frenetic, with his pop-eyed expressions of surprise and his double-takes, and the Stooges played better off straight men who were calmer than they were.


Offline disgracefulvagabnd

Benny Rubin who appeared in Income Tax Sappy was also in Citizen Kane.
On another note, Moe's heavy breathing routine when he is out of breath is hilarious and watching Curly roll his own cigarette is also!

One question: How come outtakes have never been packaged and shown on TV or cable? There must be thousands of hours of outtake tape.


Pilsner Panther

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Benny Rubin who appeared in Income Tax Sappy was also in Citizen Kane.
On another note, Moe's heavy breathing routine when he is out of breath is hilarious and watching Curly roll his own cigarette is also!

One question: How come outtakes have never been packaged and shown on TV or cable? There must be thousands of hours of outtake tape.

First of all, welcome to the board! Now let me clear up a couple of things for you: first, the Stooges shorts (like everything else before 1950) were shot on 35mm film, not tape. The reason that there are very few existing outtakes is that film emulsion contains silver, and unused footage was almost always melted down to reclaim the silver for re-use.

Even if video tape had been used, that was also recycled by wiping it clean magnetically, because it could be used again three or four times before so much iron oxide flaked off the tape that it couldn't provide a decent picture any more. That's why (for example) all of the Johnny Carson Tonight shows from before (I believe) about 1970 don't exist any more— the reels of tape were wiped over and reused. Jackie Gleason was smart enough to preserve all of his televison work in a refrigerated vault, which is why we now have the complete run of "The Honeymooners" available on DVD's.



Offline electroman

I have a question, what short featured the stooges as linemen? Either they were telephone linemen or electric linemen on a pole. I have been told that this was made. I haven't seen this one ,but I would like to. :D Thanks for your input, Electroman  ;D ;D


Offline curlyrocks

Hi,

I've seen all the 3 stooges shorts and I do not recall any of them where they are working as linemen on a pole.

I probably have seen all the shorts over 20 times now.

Hope that helps..

curlyrocks


Offline BeAStooge

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I have a question, what short featured the stooges as linemen? Either they were telephone linemen or electric linemen on a pole.

THEY STOOGE TO CONGA (1943)


Offline dbaxter1991

<<reply to Pisner Panther>>

You're right! I looked in the iMDB page and it said during the 1920's, Vernon Dent worked for the legendary comedy producer, Mack Sennett playing opposite Harry Langdon, Ben Turpin and other comedians, and during the 30's, until 1935, when he went on the Three Stooges, he worked at Universal and Paramount, where he played the role of, according to iMDB, a fat man in a compartment, and starring W.C Fields, in "Youre Telling Me!" in 1934.


Offline Dunrobin

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I have a question, what short featured the stooges as linemen? Either they were telephone linemen or electric linemen on a pole. I have been told that this was made. I haven't seen this one ,but I would like to. :D Thanks for your input, Electroman  ;D ;D

Electroman, I moved your post (and the two in reply to it) over to this thread, where it belongs.  Please post your questions on an appropriate thread (you had originally asked this in a reply to the thread about our email policy.)  While we do often drift away from the original subject in our discussions, I'd appreciate it if people would at least try to stay on topic.


Offline electroman

BeAStooge, Thanks for the needed info, Electroman Is this short available on DVD?


Offline electroman

Dunrobin, Sorry for the "Newbie" No,No. :o I will try to improve my posting skills. Electroman :D


Offline BeAStooge

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Benny Rubin who appeared in Income Tax Sappy was also in Citizen Kane.

Rubin is far from alone with that credit.  Several supporting players are in CITIZEN KANE...
 - Dorothy Comingore (OILY TO BED OILY TO RISE, ROCKIN' THRU THE ROCKIES) was Susan Kane
 - Sonny Bupp (CASH & CARRY) was Kane III
 - Phil Van Zandt (FIDDLERS THREE, DOPEY DICKS, SPOOKS, more), Carmen LaRoux (SAVED BY THE BELLE) and Gino Corrado (MICRO-PHONIES, AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE) had bit parts

Quote
How come outtakes have never been packaged and shown on TV or cable? There must be thousands of hours of outtake tape.

Excepting outtakes from THE OUTLAWS IS COMING! (1965), there are none.  Those particular outtakes were kept, along with behind-the-scenes home movie footage taken by Moe Howard and Norm Maurer, to compile gift reels for the film's costars.

Columbia was a budget factory. The shorts department worked on a very simple premise, "Get it right the first time."  The actors' work ethics, in those days, complied.  Minor screwups were usually left in the film, and major screwups (as Pilsner mentioned above) resulted in film processed for chemical base recycling.


Offline dbaxter1991

Do any of you know any Stooge shorts that had a re-working from a different studio?

For example, A Pain in the Pullman (1936) was a re-working of Show Business (1932) with Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts.

If a Body Meets a Body (1945) was a re-working of The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930).

And do you know any Stooge shorts shorts that used gags from other shorts and movies from other studios?

For example: The roll on the fork gag from Pardon My Scotch (1935) was lifted from The Gold Rush(1925) with Charlie Chaplin.

The spring on the trousers gag was also seen in Asleep at the Switch (1923) with Ben Turpin.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2005, 11:51:29 AM by dbaxter1991 »


Offline Dunrobin

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If an episode was ever released on either VHS or DVD, it will be listed on the Videography page.  Any episode that is available from Amazon.com will also have "Buy It" links on both the Videography page and on the episode's description page (which you can select from the puildown menu in the top frame.)


Pilsner Panther

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<<reply to Pisner Panther>>

You're right! I looked in the iMDB page and it said during the 1920's, Vernon Dent worked for the legendary comedy producer, Mack Sennett playing opposite Harry Langdon, Ben Turpin and other comedians, and during the 30's, until 1935, when he went on the Three Stooges, he worked at Universal and Paramount, where he played the role of, according to iMDB, a fat man in a compartment, and starring W.C Fields, in "Youre Telling Me!" in 1934.

Also, he plays one of the Cabinet Ministers in "Million Dollar Legs" (1932), with W.C. Fields and Jack Oakie. It's not much more than a bit part, though, and he doesn't get a screen credit for it. Ben Turpin and Columbia Shorts stars Hugh Herbert and Andy Clyde are in that one, too.


Offline Bruckman

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Do any of you know any Stooge shorts that had a re-working from a different studio?

For example, A Pain in the Pullman (1936) was a re-working of Show Business (1932) with Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts.

If a Body Meets a Body (1945) was a re-working of The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930).

And do you know any Stooge shorts shorts that used gags from other shorts and movies from other studios?

For example: The roll on the fork gag from Pardon My Scotch (1935) was lifted from The Gold Rush(1925) with Charlie Chaplin.

The spring on the trousers gag was also seen in Asleep at the Switch (1923) with Ben Turpin.

Depends on what parameters you want to put on "reworking".

For example, the basic premise of BOOBY DUPES derives from Laurel and Hardy's TOWED IN A HOLE, but few of the gag sequences parallel the L&H film, even in the boat-repair scene. The closest reworking is at the very beginning, when Curly comes up w/the idea of eliminating the middleman, Moe asks him to repeat the idea, and Curly re-relates it in more or less garbled form.


Another example: THREE PESTS IN A MESS borrows liberally from L&H's HABEAS CORPUS and Sennett's 1925 SUPER-HOOPER DYNE LIZZIES, and the last third of the film is pretty close to the L&H pic, but is it close enough to call it a reworking? TASSELS IN THE AIR reworks an extended table-painting sequence from Charley Chase's LUNCHEON AT TWELVE, and then A SNITCH IN TIME reworks the earlier Stooge version.

If you want to get down to individual gags that are reworked or revised by the Stooges from other comedians' films, the list gets very long and very technical. I and Metaldams co-wrote an article, "Gag Crazy: The Three Stooges and Harold Lloyd," which appeared in the Summer and Fall 2004 issues of the Three Stooges Journal. This was an immensely long and involved piece where we analyzed character, timing, camera angles, editing, etc. and even then we weren't as comprehensive as we could've been - the article might've ended up three times as long. I literally had pages of notes before I even started the first draft. We're currently working on a second article where we trace the influence of Buster Keaton on the Stooges.

So it really gets down to how you want to define the term "reworking": how close do the Stooges come to the original, what characteristic changes do they make in the material to reflect their own sensibility, is it a single gag or an extended, linked series of gags, or merely a plotline? I've lately written another article on the Shemp Westerns of the 50s, where I discuss the influence of Bob Hope's THE PALEFACE on Shemp's "coward" characterization, and on the short THE TOOTH WILL OUT, which reworks a sequence from the Hope film, and how the Stooges, like Hope, burlesque the character traits and stereotypical situations associated with the "horse opera".
"If it wasn't for fear i wouldn't get out of bed in the morning" - Forrest Griffin


Pilsner Panther

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Speaking of the influence of of Buster Keaton on the Stooges, I'll throw in one more partial re-working here: "Flat Foot Stooges" is basically a remake of the second reel of the Fatty Arbuckle-Keaton film "The Garage" (1920). The firemen (in this case Fatty and Buster) race out of the firehouse to answer an alarm, but it turns out to be the firehouse itself that's on fire. The villain has trapped the heroine in an upstairs room, and she'll be burned to death unless she's saved by Our Heroes, who return just in time to get her out. Sound familiar?

There's only one pie thrown (by Buster at Fatty, and he misses), but this has to be one of the messiest comedies ever made, with everyone getting covered with grease, doused with gasoline, and nearly drowned in barrels of water. When you first see the villain (or "The Village Dandy") in his immaculate white linen suit, you just know that he's in for it... fall-down funny stuff!

[pound]

I should also add that the "dancing rolls" gag was performed on film by Arbuckle several years before Chaplin did it. It's in "The Rough House" (1917), if I remember right.

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« Last Edit: August 27, 2005, 01:58:34 AM by Pilsner Panther »


Offline dbaxter1991

Do you think that the Three Stooges would be the same if it were at the Hal Roach Studios or the Keystone Studios, run by Mack Sennett? I don't care what you pick.


Offline Bruckman

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Since so many of those w/whom the Stooges worked were veterans of the Sennett studio (Del Lord, most importantly, but also Vernon Dent, Chester Conklin, and others) I don't think there'd be too much of a perceptible difference between what we know as the Stooges style and Sennett's style, save that you might've ended up with more large-scale "rallies" e.g. as seen in FALSE ALARMS. The Stooges' dominant style, at least through the Curly era, is an amalgamation of Sennett w/vaudevillian dialogue. Sennett's gag-for-gags'-sake format is pretty evident throughout the Stooge canon. So does "scare" comedy, or comedy dependent upon a semi-melodramatic premise: these elements predominate right through the Bessers.

BTW, the "Keystone" sobriquet was phased out by, I think, 1918 or so; Sennett's studio was simply "Mack Sennett Comedies" after then.

Roach is a different question; you'd find more comic set-pieces: longer, more elaborate gag sequences. Two of the Stooge shorts on which Charley Chase worked seem very close to Roach's style, TASSELS IN THE AIR and TERMITES OF 1938. SLIPPERY SILKS and POP GOES THE EASEL and, to some extent, THREE LITTLE BEERS, all of which rely as much on sight gags as verbal humor, are pretty close to Roach's mature style. BEERS in particular is basically just a string of gags built around a particular setting, the kind of near-ad lib format used by L&H. Roach's shorts also used whimsical, semi-surreal gags which crop up in the Chase-influenced Stooge shorts, such as Larry and Curly playing checkers w/paint cans on a block tiled floor, or the elaborate mousetrap in TERMITES OF 1938 (based on a similar gag in Chase's PUBLIC GHOST NO. 1). Chase's typical "comedy of embarrassment" also surfaces in both these films. Roach himself had a dislike for gags involving black humor - you'd never find a comedy like THEY STOOGE TO CONGA at Roach, the Boss would've nixed it. However, Roach would've permitted the team much more leeway in crafting their own comedy, given them longer shooting schedules and encouraged a more improvisatory attitude.

However, in a way, these are moot questions: the Stooges came along at a time when both Sennett and Roach were ending production of shorts. Sennett's studio went into bankruptcy in 1933, which is why so many Sennett veterans ended up at Columbia, which was just developing a comedy unit. Roach had phased out 2-reelers by the end of the 35-36 season, and discontinued shorts altogether by the end of the 37-38 season. Would the Stooges have been as efefctive if they'd gone into films in the 20s? Hard to say, given the fact it would've taken some years to develop the flawless teamwork  and timing they did display by 1933.

"If it wasn't for fear i wouldn't get out of bed in the morning" - Forrest Griffin


Offline dbaxter1991

Do you guys have any more transcripts, I mean, do other people send you guys transcripts, cause I can send you some.  ???   


Offline Dunrobin

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I'll be happy to review a new transcript.  If it's seem ok, we'd be thrilled to get more transcripts into the database.  (I sent you a Private Message about sending your transcript to me.)

Please note that I'll be judging any new submissions on spelling, punctuation and captialization, etc.  Obviously, when it comes to spelling, I'll take into account that you may be trying to represent the way a Stooge is actually saying something.  In other words, using "soivace" instead of "service" is fine, for example, assuming that's the way the character said the word, but otherwise I'll expect words to be spelled correctly.   ;D