Moronika
The community forum of ThreeStooges.net

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11
Stooges DVD/VHS/Home Video / Re: Our Gang silents being prepped for DVD/Blu Ray
« Last post by NoahYoung on April 20, 2024, 04:14:48 PM »
Watched BARNUM AND RINGLING last night. It was OK. Nothing special. Oliver Hardy has a cameo -- which I had already known about.

If it was made today, there would be an uproar over child endangerment and animal abuse. At one point, Jean Darling is hanging from a ceiling fan as it's spinning. You can see it's her -- not a rag doll. Plus, some of the "costumes" they put on the animals were probably uncomfortable for them -- like a balloon strapped to a goose's neck!

This short reminded me of PUPS IS PUPS when the animals run loose in the hotel.

My view on the silent Our Gangs is that, to me, they're way different than "The Little Rascals" talkies I know and love. The first talkie season, 1929/1930, is similar, but those are the worst of the Roach Our Gang talkies. Some magic happened over the summer break in 1930 that changed eveything for the better, since from that point on, the Roach Our Gangs were consistently good with only a handful of clunkers.

Another interesting point, Blackhawk Films, in their on-screen prologue to many of the Our Gang silents, claims that it was the longest running short subject series in film history, which is incorrect since they went from 1922 - 1944,  while the Stooges went from 1934 - 1959. Now Blackhawk was in business starting in 1927, so it is very possible that those prologues were written before 1956 or so.



12
Stooges DVD/VHS/Home Video / Re: Our Gang silents being prepped for DVD/Blu Ray
« Last post by J_Kasumi on April 18, 2024, 01:57:11 PM »
Dude, that's delightful! I'm a fan of classic theatrical shorts. From the Stooges to the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, so knowing this warms my heart. I'll need to buy it soon, and add to my collection of shorts I own.
13
As a HUGE L&H fan, I'm glad stuff like this is happening.

I won't be buying these, however, since I have all but a handful on the L& silents on beautiful film prints from Blackhawk in 8mm and Super 8. I also have TWO TARS in 16mm.

14
Stooges DVD/VHS/Home Video / Re: More Charley Chase out this summer!
« Last post by NoahYoung on April 18, 2024, 01:43:20 PM »
I found all the Chase Roach talkies from these sets on the internet archive last year.  I assume they're still there. They left out the 2 talkies missing soundtracks -- but it was the first time I had seen those other 1929 talkies. For years, they've had Chase stuff usually grabbed from TCM showings.
15
Stooges DVD/VHS/Home Video / Re: Our Gang silents being prepped for DVD/Blu Ray
« Last post by NoahYoung on April 18, 2024, 01:32:22 PM »
I recently picked up SPOOK SPOOFING in Super 8. Watched it last week -- it was as bad as I remembered it to be when I borrowed a print from a friend about 30 years ago. I also just got BARNUM AND RINGLING which I haven't watched yet.

From the silents I've seen, the Pathes are much better than the M-G-Ms, though I'm not too fond of some of the Pathes I've seen, either. DERBY DAYS, from one of the old DVD sets from Vivendi/Genius, I wasn't too fond of.




16
Around the mid 1960s is the earliest instance of anyone outside the entertainment industry owning some form of home TV video recorder I can recall reading about. I'm sure it was quite rare and ultra expensive!

This Wikipedia page confirms the above:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder

CHEERS!  [pie]

Cool!

I'm hanging on to my last working VCR -- I threw a few out a few years ago. Thing is, if you eject in the middle of a tape, the tape sometimes get caught on something and you have to manually reel it up again. Not sure why.

On the other hand, I find that anything I recorded on tape years ago can usually be easily watched on streaming services I already have, or for free somewhere on the web. Oh yea, and in better quality, lol.

Anyway, Fields probably could have appeared on TV, but he stuck with film and radio. He missed the years when TV became household mainstays -- like the VCR in the 80s.

17
Youtube and Google Videos / Re: New Joe Besser Premiere!
« Last post by umbdae on April 15, 2024, 08:15:02 AM »
Thanks for the link.  This wasn't the best show I've ever seen, but it had its moments of fun.  I wonder why it was never broadcast.
18
Questions and Answers / Re: When did Curly begin to slip?
« Last post by Larrys#1 on April 13, 2024, 03:08:26 PM »
I know many of us always dwell on Curly's stroke and like to always think to ourselves, "What if Curly's health never was an issue and stayed as a stooge?" But when you think about it, he was a stooge for 12 good years (or 13 if you count the Ted Healy shorts). After 1946, how long did the stooges stay at their peak before things declined with reused footages and reduced slapstick? I would say around 1953 is when reused footages were starting to creep up. So if Curly would have stayed, he would only have had about 6-7 years until things started to decline.

Curly started out when the stooges were at their peak... they were young, energetic and really were at their prime. Things already were headed for the decline at the late Shemp years. So while I'm just as sad as everyone that Curly had to end his career as a stooges, I'm thankful for the 12-13 years he's put in as a stooge.
19
Well, he actually did live long enough, but I know what you mean. Without looking up the details, i know from "A Plumbing We Will Go" that people had TV sets as early as 1939, the year Fields made "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man." I'm not sure how many comedy/variety shows existed before the 50s, though.

I believe the first televised baseball game was in 1937.

Sorta like how the Internet existed long before the masses (The Hoi Polloi!) actually knew about it, and before it was actually commonly called the Internet. I was using email in the mid-80s.
 :D

How many people owned a VCR before the 80s, although I believe you could buy one as early as 1976 (Sony Betamax), and perhaps before that?
Around the mid 1960s is the earliest instance of anyone outside the entertainment industry owning some form of home TV video recorder I can recall reading about. I'm sure it was quite rare and ultra expensive!

This Wikipedia page confirms the above:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder

CHEERS!  [pie]
20
The Three Stooges - Curly Years / Re: Pop Goes the Easel (1935)
« Last post by NoahYoung on April 12, 2024, 06:14:47 PM »
Definitely a classic. I LOVE the energy the boys had in their 30s shorts. I'm also a sucker for location shooting that shows street scenes.

I'd forgotten that this short uses neither "Listen to the Mocking Bird" nor "Three Blind Mice" under the main titles -- though using "Pop Goes the Weasel" is not a very original idea given the title of the short!
I imagine that Columbia chose to use non-copyrighted (I think) music under the titles to save money. Also, they rarely used any background music throughout the 190 shorts.

I love how they hop-scotched through the buckets when running from the cop -- and the cop follows suit. When the boys then hop-scotched through an actual chalked hopscotch on the sidewalk, the cop for some reason doesn't follow suit. I found that strange. I would have had the cop start to do it, then stop as he realizes how stupid it is to waste time. That would have been funnier.

BTW, do kids still play hopscotch? I long for the days when kids played street games and didn't spend all their time on their iPhones or playing Nintendo!

This is one that I will watch again soon, since there are so many little things that you might not catch without repeated viewings.

I think the 2012 movie, which I haven't seen in a while, had some street scenes with those boards where they were looking for work, didn't they? I remember when I first saw it that it reminded me of this short.