Topic: Favorite Stooge!!

[Akemi]

So who eveybody's favorite Stooge? My favorite is Moe he's just so cool 

[shemps#1]

My favorite Stooge is Uncle Remus.

[songnar]

As an American, I must go along with the idea that Curly is my favorite stooge.

[metaldams]

I don't have a favorite Stooge because they were all vital to the team chemistry, but for the sake of this thread...Udo Dirkschnieder.

[Waldo Twitchell]

Udo...now that's one stooge I can say I've seen perform live back in '85 on the
'Metal Heart' tour.

Ah, the memories of Accept.

[Honey Bear]

I personally have a preference for the 3S teams of M/L/C & M/L/S but my overall favorite Stooge of any of the teams is the cantankerous chieftain Moe.

[Watts Dee Matter]

well I love em all, they are all different and funny, but I would have to say my favorite is Dr.Ziller

[locoboymakesgood]

My favorite team is M/L/S, and my favorite Stooge is Larry. I mean come on!

[FineBari3]

I don't have a favorite Stooge because they were all vital to the team chemistry, but for the sake of this thread...Udo Dirkschnieder.

UDO!!!!!

[Shemp_Diesel]

Who could ever match the brilliance of Joe Palma? 

[Baggie]

Joe Palma was absolutely amazing...ahem...but maybe Shemp just beats him to the punch as my favourite Stooge.

[jaronson]

Wow, Shemp_Diesel, you've been gone quite awhile.  Good to have you back.  Anyway, Shemp has always been my favorite stooge.  He was a brillant actor with a heck of a lot of talent.  Many of my favorite shorts are with Shemp (with my favorite overall being "Corny Casanovas") and it's a real shame that he had to die of a heart attack at a fairly early age (60).

[metaldams]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see a small but loyal Udo Dirkschnieder fan club going here!  I do love those mid 80's Accept albums, warts and all, and even though it's an acquired taste (picture Brian Johnson of AC/DC with razors in his throat, for those not familiar), Mr. Dirkschnieder has a powerful voice.  Seriously though, the guy has a great look for a Stooge, those fatigued army pants would've been great third stooge material (I'm sure the German accent would've been a cool twist).  The only thing that may have stopped Udo from being a third Stooge was the height requirement......he wasn't tall enough. 

[CURLYFAN]

Hi,

I am new here and I like what I see so far
My favorite stooge has to be CURLY and when CURLY died they haven't been the same but I do like SHEMP though however Joe Besser was terrible.

[goofontheroof]

I'd say Larry. he's more versatile than the others. in other words, he can play a range of different personalities and when given the chance to take the spotlight in a short (Three loan wolves and the one (name escapes me) where he is the pet dealer). Curly would be a close second place)

[kinderscenen]

I'd say Larry. he's more versatile than the others. in other words, he can play a range of different personalities and when given the chance to take the spotlight in a short (Three loan wolves and the one (name escapes me) where he is the pet dealer).

Ah, the hysterical "He Cooked His Goose" (1952). You have to love a guy who's engaged to three beautiful girls...and to his secretary.

While Larry is my favorite because of the versatility reason given above, there are times when Moe was just surprisingly funny (meaning he wasn't either flying into a rage and/or dishing out slaps o' plenty), and in the surprisingly non-sucky Swing Parade of 1946, Moe turned out to be the funniest of the three (his 'wrong number' bit had me in hysterics!)

Oddly enough, they were the funniest when they didn't stick to the 'formula' (where the 3rd Stooge gets most of the screen time and laughs), and the laughs were pretty much evened out or the focus was on Moe and Larry.

[joe2]

   Whays wrong with U asses??!!  Shemp was a dam good stooge...Larry had his moments....Moe was absolutely funny in his role.....But there is only one Curly.....he was the only one that cud consistantly deliver a laff with just with a face, or a sound out of his mouth wierd sounds.....the boys stole from Harold Lloyd, and  other vaudville acts, like Laural and Hardy....But Abott and Costello stole from Babe Howard!  Poor Curly shudda been up there  with Buster and Groucho.....But Columbia pictures made sure he wud never be...To save more of the shitty money they were paying the boys!

[Pilsner Panther]

I'd have to say Larry. The Porcupine was the "glue" that held the act together, practically all the way from the beginning to the end. To pick a short that I watched recently, check out Larry's facial expressions in the dentist's chair scenes in "The Tooth Will Out." Every comedy team or single comedian of the period had a dentist routine, from Laurel & Hardy to W.C. Fields to the Stooges to Abbott & Costello, and it was an old standard act going back as far as the earlier stage comics like Smith & Dale. But Larry's understated yet hilarious reactions to Moe and Shemp abusing their two hapless patients make this one something special... I like it even better than Fields and Elise Cavanna's risque version in "The Dentist," and that's saying something!

 

[kinderscenen]

 But there is only one Curly.....he was the only one that cud consistantly deliver a laff with just with a face, or a sound out of his mouth wierd sounds.....the boys stole from Harold Lloyd, and  other vaudville acts, like Laural and Hardy....But Abott and Costello stole from Babe Howard!  Poor Curly shudda been up there  with Buster and Groucho.....But Columbia pictures made sure he wud never be...To save more of the shitty money they were paying the boys!

That reminds me of the running joke/gag about Milton Berle and his habit of "stealing" material. Just about every gag seen in a movie has probably been around for many years before that. 

Curly wasn't the only one who could deliver a laugh with just a face--just LOOKING at Shemp can produce a laugh when he's doing nothing at all. Larry's reactions (I'd forgotten about the dentist gag in "The Tooth Will Out) were a major contribution--in fact, he doesn't have more than a few words in the entire 2nd half of the short.

A lot of comedians were "coulda/shoulda" beens. Until recently, I had no idea of how old the Marx Brothers were when they finally "made it." (Yes, they were successful before then, but usually film bumps you up to 'real' fame).

I'm not sure about Columbia's role in thwarting the popularity of the Stooges and also paying them rather poorly. It's a common psychological tactic--I want you to work more, make more money for me, etc., while I pay you as little as possible. Some people will continue to work hard, hoping they won't get fired, others will say the hell with this and either ask for more money or quit. Ask any number of recording artists of the past--a good number will say that they weren't paid diddly and the recording company made millions off of their records. It sucks, but that's business.

(Now where was I going with this response?  )

[joe2]

  Hmmm, I had forgotten about those dentist sketches. I agree that the W.C. sketch was very, very funny...that woman hanging by a tooth with her legs wrapped around him had me crying with glee. The stooges was just as funny...the rubber legged patient flailing around! You know, I wonder if other teams like the Marx Bros. had done shorts like the boys, they would have been as funny as them? Stooges crammed jokes, mayhem and sight gags into 20 minutes with no need for songs or a boring love interest. God knows thier feature films were abissmal!  Another thought: Would the Stooges have benifitted by an ocasional musical soundtrack like the Little Rascals were? Thinking of the funny music used in the scene where Jackie Cooper tells Chubsie Ubsie there will be something weighing heavy on his nose.

[Pilsner Panther]

  Hmmm, I had forgotten about those dentist sketches. I agree that the W.C. sketch was very, very funny...that woman hanging by a tooth with her legs wrapped around him had me crying with glee. The stooges was just as funny...the rubber legged patient flailing around! You know, I wonder if other teams like the Marx Bros. had done shorts like the boys, they would have been as funny as them? Stooges crammed jokes, mayhem and sight gags into 20 minutes with no need for songs or a boring love interest. God knows thier feature films were abissmal!  Another thought: Would the Stooges have benifitted by an ocasional musical soundtrack like the Little Rascals were? Thinking of the funny music used in the scene where Jackie Cooper tells Chubsie Ubsie there will be something weighing heavy on his nose.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Marx Brothers' feature films were abysmal (that's how it's spelled), and not all of them had irrelevant musical numbers interrupting the plot. "Duck Soup," generally considered to be their best, doesn't, and if I remember right, neither do "Monkey Business" or "Horse Feathers," although I haven't seen either film in years, so I'm not sure about that. Irving Thalberg, the "boy genius" of MGM, apparently thought that musical numbers would improve anything, even Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers comedies that didn't need any improving in the first place.

I did watch "The Cocoanuts" recently, and yes, the musical numbers are terrible. Even though the songs are by Irving Berlin, they're far from his best work, and the schmaltzy "When My Dreams Come True" makes too many appearances. Also, the dancing is amateurish, the supporting cast (except for Margaret Dumont and Kay Francis) seems to have come straight from summer stock, and as Simon Louvish points out in his recent biography of the Marxes, the leading man bears an unfortunate resemblance to Richard Nixon.

So, we're lucky that we live in the age of fast-forward; use it, and you can watch all the great comedy routines ("Vy a duck?") and ditch the musical numbers.

As to whether the Stooges would have benefited from a musical soundtrack, for the answer to that, all you have to do is watch "Woman Haters." I don't know whose decision it was never to have them use a musical score again, but it was a good one!

[joe2]

    First off, let me thank you for correcting my abysmal spelling. 2nd, my reference to shitty feature films meant the Stooges, not the Marx's! And by musical soundtrack I did not mean a total musical short like the one you mentioned. That was one of the 1st Colombia shorts for the boys, and I believe it was well recieved by the audience of the day. I personally dont mind that little song they sing for most of 20 minutes. One more thing about the Marx Bros.: The critics all seem to agree that "A night in Casablanca" was a piece of crap, but it is my favorite Marx Bro. film!! What do I see that no one else does???

[Baggie]

 Compared to the others, A Night In Casablanca is crap, but it is still good in places, and I like it. My least favourite Marx Bros film is Room Service. All the later ones including Go West and At The Circus were poorer than the earlier ones, but all have good bits in them, and I can sit though them all, even Love Happy - but not Room Service.

[kinderscenen]

To make this Stooge related--I seem to recall that Ernie (Kay) Besser was a/the choreographer for "The Cocoanuts." At least that's what my memory's telling me. 

The Stooges' movies--I'm not sure where they went wrong.  Well I take that back--most of the problem was the fact that they were geared to children.  The shorts were well loved by children, and Curly was a major factor in getting young fans, but still--I wouldn't say that they were geared to children.  Twenty years later, you have to deal with concerned citizens' groups, etc., who claimed the fellows were too violent.

I can't say that if the Stooges had been their usual violent selves, the movies would've been better. But they couldn't have been worse.

[Pilsner Panther]

    First off, let me thank you for correcting my abysmal spelling. 2nd, my reference to shitty feature films meant the Stooges, not the Marx's! And by musical soundtrack I did not mean a total musical short like the one you mentioned. That was one of the 1st Colombia shorts for the boys, and I believe it was well recieved by the audience of the day. I personally dont mind that little song they sing for most of 20 minutes. One more thing about the Marx Bros.: The critics all seem to agree that "A night in Casablanca" was a piece of crap, but it is my favorite Marx Bro. film!! What do I see that no one else does???

Looks like I misread your sentence there, joe2. It seemed to me that the reference was to the Marx Brothers, from the way it was put together.

As to the quality of their later films, "Go West" was the last decent one, IMO. They went into a decline just like Laurel & Hardy did right around the same time, the early-to-mid 40's. For some of the same reasons, too: the budgets for the films were drastically cut, the teams themselves were getting older and less energetic, and they didn't have a sympathetic producer to look out for their interests any more (that is, Irving Thalberg in the Marxes' case and Hal Roach in L & H's).

I'll say this, at least, for "A Night In Casablanca:" it's funnier than "Room Service," but that's probably not saying very much.

 

And I have a soft spot for "The Big Store," myself, while most Marx fans seem to hate it.