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The Three Stooges - Shemp Years / Re: Cuckoo On a Choo Choo (1952)
« Last post by QuinceHead on Today at 08:58:17 AM »Quote
author=Daddy Dewdrop link=topic=5666.msg59955#msg59955 date=1627213094]
I remember seeing this one for the first time as a teenager in the early 1980s and thinking "what the hell was that?!?" Yes, it's different, but it's just not very entertaining. Anytime the boys don't work as a team, it's usually (always?) not a good sign. I've also never found the drunk act very funny. Maybe it's because I grew up with an alcoholic father or that I was an active alcoholic myself (now sober for the past 12+ years). Until I saw "A Streetcar Named Desire" I never realized that Larry was doing a poor Brando imitation, although knowing it now doesn't make it any better. For all the faults of this short, I must say that the canary is a bright spot for me. It's SO weird, that it actually works and saves this short from being Shemp's absolute worst - that dishonor belongs to "Punchy Cowpunchers".
#185. Cuckoo On A Choo Choo
The worst thing that a Three Stooges short can be is not entertaining — or even worse, boring — and that pretty much sums up Cuckoo on a Choo Choo for me.
Like Daddy Dewdrop said, any time the boys are split up/don’t work as a semi-cohesive unit, the short usually suffers — and boy, does it suffer! (Although not as much as the audience does…)
And also like Daddy Dewdrop, I’ve never found the “comedy drunk” character funny whenever one shows up. I had a couple of alcoholic relatives when I was quite young, but they were distant enough that they didn’t have much direct impact on my life (aside from my mother’s rigid disapproval of them). For whatever reason, I’ve always been a natural-born teetotaler (probably from seeing people my age act like complete asses when they were drunk, plus I can’t stand the taste of most alcoholic drinks), so I’ve never seen the appeal of drinking. (But that being said, the older I get, the more I understand why so many people DO drink…)
Anyway — sermon over! Like I said, I’ve never found the “comedy drunk” a funny character (a lot of them crop up in Bewitched, a sitcom practically swimming in hard liquor), so for as good as Shemp is at portraying one, his performance leaves me cold. And don’t get me started on Larry’s take on Marlon Brando — I feel bad for his fellow retirees at the Motion Picture Country House who were constantly subjected to it in the facility’s movie room at Larry’s request!
Even though this short is at the bottom of my “Shemp List”, I still rank it higher than the four Fake Shemp shorts…
For duty and humanity,
JohnH aka QuinceHead
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