50 Fun Facts About The Three Stooges

For which studio did the Three Stooges make their famous 190 comedy shorts?

They stayed 24 years and, thanks to Harry Cohn's scare tactics, never once asked for a raise.

Which two Stooges were the constants across the act's entire 1922–1970 run?

Six men were Stooges over the years, but only three at any one time.

Under which vaudeville comedian did the act begin in 1922?

Healy sang or told jokes while his noisy stooges interrupted, and he retaliated with abuse.

What does the show-business term "stooge" originally mean?

Healy's act was also billed as His Southern Gentlemen and His Racketeers.

What was the first Hollywood feature film Ted Healy and His Stooges appeared in, in 1930?

Fox singled out the Stooges and offered them a contract without Healy, who furiously got it withdrawn.

What instrument did Larry Fine play as a vaudeville comedian before joining the act?

He joined Healy sometime between 1925 and 1928.

What was Curly Howard's real first name?

He was the youngest Howard brother and joined in 1932 when Shemp left.

What did a freshly shaved Jerry Howard say that Healy misheard as Curly?

Healy had said the long-haired, mustached Jerry did not look funny.

How did Jerry Howard look before he shaved his head to become Curly?

He kept the handlebar mustache for a while after the haircut.

With which studio did Healy and his stooges sign in 1933, making shorts like Nertsery Rhymes?

Nertsery Rhymes used an early two-color Technicolor process and recycled MGM musical footage.

Which 1933 MGM musical featured the Stooges alongside Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Fred Astaire?

Their last film with Healy was Hollywood Party in 1934, after which the partnership ended.

What was the Stooges' first short for Columbia in 1934?

One account says they got $1,000 between them for it before signing a $7,500-per-film term contract.

Which Columbia president kept the Stooges unaware of their popularity for 23 years?

His yearly mantra was that the market for comedy shorts was dying out.

How many shorts per year did the Stooges' Columbia schedule call for?

They were filmed within 40 weeks, leaving 12 weeks free for family or touring the live act.

Which director made more than three dozen Stooge films at Columbia?

Jules White directed dozens more, and his brother Jack White used the pseudonym Preston Black.

Hoi Polloi (1935), with a professor betting he can refine the trio, borrows from which play?

The plot was reused twice, as Half-Wits Holiday in 1947 and Pies and Guys in 1958.

Which 1938 short features the musical interlude "Swingin' the Alphabet"?

It was directed by silent-comedy star Charley Chase.

In A Plumbing We Will Go (1940), what do the Stooges nearly destroy?

Water pours from every appliance, including an early television set; it was remade twice.

Which 1940 short lampooned Hitler while America was still neutral?

Moe, Larry and director Jules White considered it their best film.

What was the name of Moe's Hitler-like dictator in You Nazty Spy!?

Curly played a Göring type covered in medals and Larry a Goebbels-style propaganda minister.

Which 1943 short is considered the team's most violent?

Spook Louder, by contrast, is often called one of their weakest for its rehashed jokes.

Who was the Stooges' primary on-screen foil, playing the Nazi ringleader in No Dough Boys?

He appeared opposite the trio in dozens of shorts.

Why did Moe reject Columbia's 1935 offer to star the Stooges in a full-length feature?

He said it was hard enough stealing gags for two-reelers without making a seven-reeler.

On the set of which film did Curly suffer the stroke that ended his career on May 6, 1946?

It ended a 14-year career; he made only one more brief on-screen appearance.

Which 1947 short is the only film with all four original Stooges on screen at once?

Curly visited the set and Jules White had him do a cameo for fun; it was recycled in Booty and the Beast.

How many shorts did Shemp make with the Stooges after returning in 1946?

He also split a low-budget Western feature, Gold Raiders, with cowboy star George O'Brien.

Which director joined in 1945 and let Shemp develop his own Stooge persona?

He directed Brideless Groom, Who Done It? and his own favourite, Punchy Cowpunchers.

What was the title of the 1949 ABC pilot for a Stooges TV series that Columbia blocked?

Columbia allowed guest appearances on shows like Texaco Star Theater but not their own series.

Where had Shemp been on the night he died in a taxi, November 22, 1955?

His daughter-in-law confirmed it was a massive cerebral hemorrhage, not the heart attack often reported.

Which actor doubled for Shemp, shot from behind, in four shorts after his death?

Disguising one actor as another outside stunt shots is now called a fake Shemp.

What name did the Stooges' practice of disguising a stand-in give to filmmaking?

The four fake-Shemp shorts were Rumpus in the Harem, Hot Stuff, Scheming Schemers and Commotion on the Ocean.

Which comedian, known as Stinky on The Abbott and Costello Show, became the third Stooge in 1956?

He appeared in the final 16 shorts, often considered the team's weakest.

What unusual clause did the third Stooge of 1956–58 have in his contract?

He had noticed that one side of Larry's face looked calloused from years of slaps.

Which 1958 short had no supporting cast at all, with the Stooges working entirely alone?

A Merry Mix Up the year before had cast them as three sets of triplets.

What was the last Stooge short filmed, on December 19–20, 1957?

Jules White closed the shorts unit the next day, and the trio was fired after 24 years.

Which was the final Stooge short to reach theaters, on June 4, 1959?

Columbia had enough finished shorts to keep releasing them for 18 months after firing the team.

Why was Moe refused entry when he visited Columbia to say goodbye after the firing?

He called it a crushing blow to his pride.

Which Columbia TV subsidiary syndicated the Stooge shorts to television starting in 1958?

By September 1959 all 190 shorts were airing regularly, aimed squarely at children.

Why did Moe suggest that Joe DeRita shave his head?

Curly-era shorts had proved the most popular on TV, so DeRita became Curly Joe.

On whose NBC variety show did Curly Joe make his first national appearance with the Stooges in 1959?

They re-created their Stand-In sketch, with Curly Joe as the silent double who takes all the punishment.

What was the first of the Stooges' comeback feature films, released in 1959?

It was produced by their agent, Harry Romm.

Which Olympic skater co-starred in the money-losing 1961 film Snow White and the Three Stooges?

Co-written by Wizard of Oz scribe Noel Langley, it lost about $2.3 million.

Who produced the 1960s Stooge features like The Three Stooges Meet Hercules?

Maurer later salvaged the Kook's Tour pilot into a 52-minute home-video special.

As what did the Stooges cameo in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)?

The same year they had a bigger role in 4 for Texas with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

How many animated cartoons were made for the 1965 series The New 3 Stooges?

The trio filmed 41 live-action skits to wrap around them and voiced their cartoon selves.

What was the travelogue-sitcom pilot the Stooges were filming when Larry had his stroke in 1970?

The unfinished footage became a 52-minute special released to home video in 1973, the team's last performance.

Which longtime Stooges straight man was lined up to replace Larry after his stroke?

He posed for publicity photos but never performed; a 1975 comeback died with Moe.

What illness was Moe diagnosed with a week before filming Blazing Stewardesses in 1975?

He died on May 4, 1975; the Ritz Brothers took the Stooges' place in the film.

Much of the Stooges' seeming gibberish was actually which language?

In Mutts to You, Larry's Chinese laundryman is really telling a cop to stop annoying him in Yiddish.

The Stooges' inside-joke initials A.K. for pretentious big shots stood for what?

It is a Yiddish idiom for an old person of diminished capacity.