Tag Archives: Moe Howard

The First Three Stooges ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be

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Above: Larry, Moe and Curly, not necessarily in that order.

Dateline May 5, 1934 – The Three Stooges release their first short “Woman Haters” and nothing was ever the same again.

The Three Stooges made more than 190 two-reelers over a 26 year period, but they started in the knockabout world of Vaudeville. Ted Healy was already a hit in Vaudeville when, in 1922, he took on new actors for his stageshow. Among them was Moe Howard, a childhood friend that had appeared, briefly, in the earlier act Ted Healy and his Southern Gentlemen.

Moe’s job was to act as an average audience member who is called onstage. Hilarity ensues. The showbiz term for this stock character was “stooge.” Soon Shemp, who was Moe’s real life brother, and Larry Fine joined the act. They appeared with Healy in one short, “Soup To Nuts.” but after a dispute over the movie contract, Larry, Moe and Shemp went solo, or as solo as a trio can go. They also took with them some of the material they had performed with Healy.

Intellectual property rights being intellectual property rights, Healey sued. However, he lost. As it turned out the material was owned by the show’s producer, the Shubert Theatre Corporation, which gave the Stooges the right to perform it.

The Three Stooges then had a brief rapprochement with Healy and were to appear together in a new Shubert production. However, when Healy got a better offer, he quit the show, taking Two Stooges with him; Shemp, who had threatened to quit previously, finally decided to pack it in. In need of a third Stooge, Moe suggested his younger brother. Jerry Howard joined the act as Curly.

Healy and the Stooges signed a contract with MGM in 1933 and made a number of shorts. When that contract expired a year later The Three Stooges split from Healy for good. Soon afterwards they signed with Columbia and released “Woman Haters,” the first official Three Stooges short

Growing up I watched a lot of Three Stooges in my time, but I don’t recall ever seeing this one. It’s all done in rhyme and song, all 20 minutes of it. There’s no way they could carry that over 2 2-reelers, let alone 190. Enjoy:

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Happy Birthday, Moe Howard ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be

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Dateline June 19, 1897 – Moe Howard, future leader of The Three Stooges, was born Moses Harry Horwitz on this date. He would be joined later in life with older brother Samuel (Shemp) and younger brother Jerome (Curly) at different times in one of the longest-running comedy teams in show bidnezz.

Moe Howard began in vaudeville with “Ted Healy and his Stooges,” along with brother Shemp. Soon Healy hired violinist Larry Fine and the Three Stooges were born, more or less, even tho’ they weren’t called that yet. Shemp made one ‘Stooge’ movie with Healy and quit the Stooges to start a solo career. Moe suggested younger brother Jerome/Curly and, after they managed to get rid of Healy, this was the trio that starting making all those Columbia shorts over the years, starting in 1934, and eventually running to 190 with a few cast changes.

In 1946 Curly had a stroke and was replaced by Shemp, who returned to the act where he started. According to the WikiWackyWoo the three Howard brothers made one movie together: 1949’s Hold That Lion. However, further strokes led to Curly’s death in 1952, the year of my birth. Yet, he was very much alive for my childhood.

Shemp died in 1955, yet appeared in four more Three Stooges movies after that, since there was enough footage in the can, but was eventually replaced by Joe Besser. Columbia sold off the Stooge film library to tee vee through the company Screen Gems and that’s when and where subsequent generations learned how to poke people’s eyes out and hit each other over the head with hammers.

Their tee vee poularity led to Moe forming a new Three Stooge ensemble, replacing Joe Besser with Joe DeRita, or Curly-Joe. This trio made several feature length movies and a few guest appearances until they were reduced to a cartoon with filmed live segments bookending the whole dealie.

When he died Moe Howard left behind an unfinished autobiography that was tentatively entitled I Stooge To Conquer, which I would have loved to have been able to read. For many years I belonged to The Official Three Stooges Fan Club [and recently came across all the newsletters in my file cabinet] and read a great deal about their history. The Three Stooges occupy a very narrow niche in Show Biz: Vaudevillians who transitioned to movies who transitioned to tee vee. There were many comedians, none of them slapstick comics for obvious reasons, who transitioned to radio before taking on tee vee.

Yet, despite my love for all things Stooge, this was the worst idea for a remake ever:

The Three Stooges Movie

A dishonour. Watch a real Three Stooges classic. Moe Howard was imitating Adolph Hitler before Charlie Chaplin.

What’s really crazy is how much of this I knew by heart, only using Der Googlizer to make sure I had the dates right. I did. I’m such a dork.