The Three Stooges: Difference between revisions

[[File:ThreeStooges.jpg|frame|Meet the brain trust.]]

 

 

 

The Three Stooges are best known for the dozens of short subjects they turned out Columbia Pictures starting in the 1930s. In fact, with 190 short films, not including their features, this trio had the longest film series in Hollywood history.

 

Trope-wise, it is hard to do [[Slapstick]] without referencing the Stooges. They did it all. Wait. Here is the throw-down: If you can come up with a slapstick bit that was not done by the Stooges, the Wiki will award you a delicious, fresh-baked custard pie.<ref>In your face. Let's not forget tradition!</ref> {{spoiler|Notably, the [[Groin Attack]] trope is not on this page. This could be an oversight or deliberate, due to [[Hays Code]] enforcement. The movie definitely has a [[Groin Attack]], but YMMV-- it's not the original Stooges...}}

 

Don't bring any lame [[Too Specific to Trope|one-foot-in-a-wastecan, guy-turns-with-ladder-and-bonks-another-guy-in-the-eye stuff.]] We have no pies for that.

 

 

Has a [[The Three Stooges/Recap|recap page]] in progress.

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* [[Accidental Athlete]]: One of their early shorts.

* [[Adults Dressed as Children]]: Current Trope Illustrator (from ''All the World's a Stooge''.)

* [[All Just a Dream]]: Most of "I Can Hardly Wait", though the audience is shown that it's Curly's dream when it starts in a [[Thought Bubble]]. "Heavenly Daze", and its stock footage reworking, "Bedlam in Paradise", are examples featuring Shemp.

* [[Amusing Injuries]]

* [[Bald of Awesome]]: Curly

* [[Balloonacy]]: In an odd variation of this trope, Moe ''becomes'' a balloon in one episode. In ''Dizzy Pilots'', Moe falls into a tub of tar, and to get the tar off of him, Larry and Curly cut a hole in his clothes and begin filling it up with gas. [[Hilarity Ensues]] as Moe begins to float away when Larry and Curly aren't looking, and they spend the next sizable chunk of the episode trying to get Moe down. He eventually floats through an opening in the ceiling and into the sky. Hearing Moe cry during the ordeal makes this a candidate for [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].

* [["BANG!" Flag Gun]]: Used on occasion.

* [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]]: While Curly could psych himself up when dealing with the bad guys and occasionally needed to be restrained, he never said, "Lemme at 'em! Lemme at 'em!"

* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: Particularly the scene in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocRd-aajW0 "They Stooge to Conga"], in which Curly pierces Moe's scalp, ear, and [[Eye Scream|eye]] with a climbing spike, and somehow Moe is relatively unscathed.

* [[The Bully]]: Moe.

* [[Butter Face]]: Curly or Shemp often ended up wih one of these while Moe and Larry got attractive women.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: The worst things would usually happen to Curly.

* [[Fish Out of Water]]: In the 2012 movie, the stooges never left the orphanage until they were adults and had no knowledge of things like iPhones, Facebook and Twitter.

* [[Flowery Insults]]: [[Drinking Game|Take a shot]] every time Moe calls one of the other stooges a "chowderhead", "numbskull", "mental midget", "muttonhead", "porcupine", or some other creative insult.

* [[Four-Temperament Ensemble]]: [[The Bully|Moe]] is choleric, [[Only Sane Man|Larry]] is phlegmatic, [[Cloudcuckoolander|Curly]] is sanguine, and [[Nervous Wreck|Shemp]] is melancholic.

** In real life, it was otherwise: [[Big Good|M]][[The Perfectionist|oe]] was choleric/melancholic, [[Nice Guy|Larry]] was sanguine, [[The Woobie|Curly]] was melancholic, and [[The Quiet One|Shemp]] was phlegmatic.

* [[Iron Butt Monkey]]: Though this applies to Curly most of all, all three Stooges have their moments.

* [[ISophagus]]: Played straight in ''[[The Three Stooges]]'' film ''Disorder in the Court''. When the stooges are reenacting a musical performance during a trial Curly slaps Moe on the back causing him to swallow a kazoo. They then find that when they press on Moe's stomach they can hear the kazoo, and soon Curly and Larry begin to make Moe play "Ach Du Lieber Augustine" by pumping his arm and squeezing his stomach, before he coughs the kazoo up

** In ''Pop Goes The Easel'', his [[Jerkass]] attitude gets cranked [[Up to Eleven]] when, following a clay fight, Moe demands to know who started it, Larry says "YOU did!", Moe responds by angrily yelling "Oh YEAH?!", and then promptly spins around with his hand extended, [[Hair-Trigger Temper|slapping Larry, Curly and three or four other guys with one continuous slap]].

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Moe's character on-screen would sometimes reveal his heart of gold whenever a woman or a child was somehow in trouble.

* [[Maniac Monkeys]]: Gorillas were always bad news in Three Stooges shorts.

* [[Marathon Running]]: In 2011 cable channel Antenna TV began running mini-marathons of the shorts over the weekend.

** For all that Moe loathed Curly onscreen, when Jerome (Curly) died, Moe mourned his brother deeply.

** In addition, perennial supporting player Vernon Dent, who mainly played villains or hot-tempered comic foils, was actually a very generous, friendly, and easy-going person in real life.

* [[Minor Injury Overreaction]]: This was a staple of their comedy. How much would being bopped on the nose actually hurt when Moe's got his fist around it to absorb most of the shock? Curly certainly makes it look agonizing.

** There's also this recurring joke in their shorts:

* [[Offscreen Crash]]: Sometimes used straight and sometimes averted.

* [[Old Shame]] : Although it came later in their careers, they thought it was a mistake to do ''[[Snow White and The Three Stooges]]'' (since the film gave them little screen time, and barely any slapstick).

* [[Open-Heart Dentistry]]: "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard."

** Which has become a ''very'' common [[Shout-Out]] in hospital scenes throughout media.

* [[The Other Darrin]]: Usually crosses over with [[Not Quite Starring]], often after the actual Stooges [[Author Existence Failure|died.]]

** This actually caused a bit of trouble with [[The Movie]], which was stuck in [[Development Hell]] for 11 years because they couldn't find good comic actors to replace the originals. The roles ended up with Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso as Moe, Larry and Curly, respectively.

* [[The Password Is Always Swordfish]]: In one short, when Moe asks Larry to think of a password to enter their room, he deadpans "Open the door!" Cue Moe's standard pretend-to-be-pleased-then-[[Dope Slap|dope-slap]]-the-idiot routine.

* [[Perpetual Poverty]]: Many shorts started with the Stooges either losing a crappy job or having no job at all. Likely [[The Great Depression|a reflection of the times]]. This is a main theme in the movie.

* [[Pie in the Face]]: If not the [[Trope Codifier|Trope Codifiers]], they definitely took this trope and ran with it, several times.

** Although, as some Stooges historians have noted, not nearly as often as the general public might think. Something like 10 or 12 out of almost 200 shorts actually feature pie-throwing.

* [[Pig Latin]]: One of the many [[Running Gag|running gags]].

* [[Plank Gag]]: A favourite of theirs.

* [[The Pratfall]]: Curly in particular made regular use of this.

* [[Pro Wrestling Episode]]: ''Grips, Grunts and Groans''.

* [[Punny Name]]: The law firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, (president I. Fleeceum) among others.

** The map in "You Nazty Spy!" has several, such as the Look Sea and Doublecrossia

* [[Rump Roast]]: Happens in many shorts.

* [[Running Gag]]: More than you could shake a schtick at.

* [[Say My Name]]: In "A Pain in the Pullman"

{{quote|"JOHNSONNNNN!!!"}}

* [[Self-Deprecation]]: More than once in their shorts, such as this exchange in ''Crash Goes the Hash''.

{{quote|'''A butler''': Say, you three remind me of the Three Stooges.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Dozens.

** Any comedic fight scene in which one character attempts to poke another character in both eyes at the same time, only to be foiled by the second character holding up a flattened hand in front of their nose. This gag appears in [[Evil Dead]], during the scene where Ash is being beaten up by skeleton arms rising out of the earth.

*** ''[[Short Circuit]]'' includes a brief appearance by Numbers Two, Three and Four, sent out to retrieve Number Five. "Johnny" reprograms them after a battle and they re-appear before their controllers engaging in Stooge-like shenanigans.

*** During the "Beware the Creeper" episode of the Batman animated series, the Joker's henchmen-of-the-episode sported Stooge-like haircuts, and the bald one even engaged in Curly-like self-face-slapping.

* [[Signature Laugh]]: Curly's "Nyuk-Nyuk-Nyuk".

* [[Slapstick]]: Gee, [[Captain Obvious|ya think?]]

** A notable exception is in 'I'm a Monkey's Uncle'. Moe and Larry have 'courted' (read: bopped) Aggie and Maggie. Shemp is [[Butter Face|less enthusiastic]] about Baggie, and she ends up wooing him after a flying tackle. Another tribe comes on them and accuses the boys of stealing the women, and hurls spears; all three land in the rumps. Of Moe, Larry, and ''Baggie'' (as she's carrying Shemp).

* [[The Smart Guy]]: Though none of them were really that gifted intellectually, Larry was probably the marginally most intelligent and sensible of the three in most of the shorts, even if he came off somewhat eccentric. Though it usually displayed itself with him being more street than book smart.

* [[Snake Oil Salesman]]: The Stooges become this in ''Dizzy Doctors''.

* [[Stand in Portrait]]: A rare three-dimensional example, seen in ''The Hot Scots'' as well as other shorts.

* [[Stock Footage]]: Many later shorts recycle material from earlier ones. Only less funny. Curly's failing health towards the end of his career is part of the reason this was done.

** Most of Shemp's later shorts were remakes of earlier shorts, a cost-cutting measure by Columbia's short subjects department.

** Also don't forget that Curly actually came in to replace Shemp, who wanted to do a solo career. (So Shemp actually ''returned'', after Curly's untimely death.)

** The "Emil" in question is frequent costar Emil Sitka, who replaced Larry Fine as the "middle Stooge" after Larry overworked himself into a stroke and had to retire.

* [[Styrofoam Rocks]]: Used quite often, though it helped sell their slapstick humor by having them survive being hit in the head with rocks or bricks with only minor pain.

** This is even [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''Beer Barrel Polecats'', when Moe and Larry are breaking rocks over Curly's head in prison while he nonchalantly sews a uniform. He stops them at one point when Moe is grabbing another rock.

* [[Tap on the Head]]: Always accompanied by chirping birds afterwards.

* [[There Is Only One Bed]]: In episodes where they weren't sleeping in three stacked bunk beds that were almost certain to collapse, the stooges all shared one bed, which usually resulted in more hilarity.

{{quote|Shemp: There must be a way to get that ring back without getting in trouble with the censors. }}

* [[This Is a Work of Fiction]]: "You Nazty Spy!" claims that "Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle."

* [[The Tooth Hurts]]: Used in "I Can Hardly Wait", where Curly gets a toothache.

* [[Trademark Favorite Food]]: Burnt toast and a rotten egg - "I've got a tapeworm and it's good enough for him".

** Yes, but one of them was ''[[I Love Lucy|Lucille Ball]]''!

** Not to mention the lovely and talented Christine McIntyre, whom many Stooge fans fondly dub "the female Stooge".

{{quote|'''Stooges:''' We are morons tried and true! And we'll do our yell for you! ''(start making weird faces and noises)''}}

* [[What Could Have Been]]: "Kook's Tour" as a TV series.

** Curly was supposed to have a part in "Malice in the Palace" as the cook who the stooges mistakenly think is chopping up a dog and a cat and cooking them, but unfortunately Curly was too sick to play the part so it was given to Larry. Had Curly been able to do it, it would have been the only time Curly would appear in a Shemp short as more than just a brief cameo.

* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: In ''Even As I.O.U.'', the plot of the first half of the short, where the stooges are helping a homeless mother and her child, is forgotten after they go to the horse races to raise money for them.

* [[Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?]]: The stooges are basically doing something different in every episode, that is when they actually have a job.

* [[You Can Say That Again]]: In "Micro-Phonies", as they see a beautiful woman:

{{quote|'''Curly''': My, ain't she pretty!

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Double Acts and Groups]]

[[Category:Short Film]]

[[Category:Films of the 1930s]]

[[Category:Films of the 1940s]]

[[Category:Films of the 1950s]]

[[Category:TV Series]]