Alex Dame
Startouched
This thread is dedicated to the character I enjoyed the most from my favorite black-and-white comedy team, The Three Stooges
! With over twenty years of slapstick, pratfalls, and wisecracks, as well as a remake movie about them, The Three Stooges are pretty famous and well-known. While I may not have seen EVERY episode starring this comical trio, I have seen plenty, including every episode with Curly Howard. Liking these vaudeville legends is understood easily enough (A friend of my Aunt's said that it made me a typical man), but why Curly Howard is my favorite may require a more detailed explanation.
Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe De Rita all had their good points, but Curly Howard was, to me, the most entertaining Stooge and, by contrast, Joe Besser was my LEAST favorite. Moe Howard was a lot of fun as the bully-tyrant of the trio, and I wholeheartedly agree that he was a genius. His cartoon-like antics of disciplining his two cohorts, and coming up with quick-witted insults were always a way to get a quick laugh, not to mention he had a habit of stealing the ideas of Larry and Curly. Clearly the most abusive of the Three Stooges, there was a part in the more up-to-date remake movie where Moe separated from the other two and abused other people on national television. He's pretty funny, but I still like Curly better.
As for Larry, well, I've seen a couple of cartoons suggesting that Larry may have been an unnecessary part of the team. The first of these was an episode of Pinky and the Brain in which the lab mice got a new cage-mate named Larry. Larry worked with Pinky and the Brain on one of Brain's crazy schemes, but this time, Pinky, Brain, and Larry got into a fight that was decidedly reminiscent of The Three Stooges. Eventually, Brain kicks Larry out of the cage because he wrecks the balance between the two, but they soon get another mouse named Zeppo (Presumably calling into question the relevance of Zeppo from the Marx Brothers). The other cartoon was an episode of the 1980's show "Paw Paw Bears", in which Dark Paw's Aunt Pruny had a strange two-headed creature working for her. In this cartoon, one of the creatures' heads resembled and acted like Moe, while the other resembled and acted like Curly, and the Moe head brutalized the Curly head. The absence of a Larry head called his relevance into question.
To be fair, questioning Larry's relevance isn't without credence. He was the "middle man", and therefore neither the boss nor entirely the foil. That said, I think the series would have been considerably less funny if they'd been a duo and done without Larry. While not being as abused as Curly, Larry may have been the Stooge that acted smartest, and he seemed braver around Moe than Curly was. Also, of the three, he probably had the most ridiculous haircut, with curly red hair around a bald head while Curly was effectively bald and Moe had hair like a bowl. A big reason that I can think of why Larry was important was to make gags that made it clear Curly was getting a bad deal in comparison to everyone else, or to give Moe another person to demonstrate slapstick on. That said, Larry was skilled in musical instruments and kept up as an active member of the trio long after Curly Howard suffered his stroke. He's a good Stooge, but I still like Curly better.
While the trio have had replacements for Curly Howard, and the trio itself is undeniably famous, there may be no better known Stooge than Curly. The most often abused, and used as a horse, bloodhound, battering ram, or even a bull, this bald and overweight sensation has had his sound effects "Nyuk, Nyuk", and "Woob woob woob woob" quoted so often through the years that I've lost count. Notably, as often as he was hit, kicked, slammed, splashed, blown-up etc., he and his character were also the kindest of the three stooges. That said, he was just as opportunistic and destructive as his colleagues. According to what I've read, Curly's older brother, Shemp was originally intended for Curly's role, but Curly beat him to it. Ironically, Shemp ended up replacing him after his stroke.
The character of Curly Howard has been seen in various parodies and cartoons. Probably the most notable of these is Hannah Barbara's Jabberjaw, which featured a surrealistic and decidedly elastic talking shark that talked similarly to Curly, including the high-pitched voice. Coincidentally, the high-pitched voice, overweight body, and bald head were all factors shared by Uncle Fester of The Adam's Family, though Uncle Fester's dark circles around the eyes, tendency to wear black robe-like clothes and pastey white complexion offset this humor. With apparent bad luck, animal-like behavior, jokes about his lack of brains, and a head that can bend the teeth of a saw or crash through a wall without a scratch (Not to mention that clicking trick he did with his hands sometimes. I don't know what it's called, but it looked cool.), Curly Howard is definitely my favorite Stooge.
That said, he had a number of replacements after his rather inconvenient stroke. I know the nature of a stroke makes it hard to consider one convenient at ANY time, but I say inconvenient because it happened when the studio was filming Half-Wits Holiday (A remake of their earlier comedy "Hoi Polloi"). Poor Curly had his medical problem before the short could be finished, and the end of Half-Wits Holiday didn't include him. I can't help but wonder if many people didn't even notice he wasn't there . Anyway, Shemp replaced Curly, and, as far as I'm concerned, he did a pretty decent job of being a clueless foil. But things just weren't the same without Curly's overweight, childlike appearance or his trademark noises. Still, Moe and Larry made a number of very successful comedies with their new third person.
I can't remember why (Probably also due to medical complications), but Shemp eventually left the trio as well, and Joe Besser was made the third Stooge, though Moe and Larry had wanted vaudeville veteran Joe De Rita. Joe Besser was funny in his own childlike way, whining and overreacting, and his personality as "Stinky" was amusing on the Abbott and Costello show, in addition to which, he did voice-overs for a number of cartoon characters. That said, Joe Besser was a lousy Curly at best (In my opinion anyway). He wasn't nearly as good of a victim as Curly, his whining didn't support his role as a nitwit at all, and he was the only one to ever hit Moe without fear.
However, Joe Besser as the third Stooge was only ONE of the problems Moe and Larry had to deal with at the time. They had to compete with television and, worse than that, they were both getting too old for their famous pratfalls. Later on, however, Moe and Larry DID team up with Joe De Rita, and they did cartoons with live action before and after, as well as starring in a few movies together. Granted, the cartoons of theirs were nothing to crow about. In fact, the movie "The Three Stooges in Orbit" had the Three Stooges themselves complaining and badmouthing it.
Anyway, the Three Stooges gave us a good run with over twenty years in their career, and all of their shorts are on DVD as well as under public domain on Youtube. Curly Howard may not have been active as a member of the trio throughout the entire run, but the comedies he was in were the best, and I'm not the only one who thinks so, according to the comments on Youtube. Of course, if anyone reading this has any other opinions on the matter, I'd encourage sharing.
I don't know the best way to finish here, so I'll just quote a comment I came across on Youtube: "So long, Curly. And thanks for all the Woobs and the Nyuks.
! With over twenty years of slapstick, pratfalls, and wisecracks, as well as a remake movie about them, The Three Stooges are pretty famous and well-known. While I may not have seen EVERY episode starring this comical trio, I have seen plenty, including every episode with Curly Howard. Liking these vaudeville legends is understood easily enough (A friend of my Aunt's said that it made me a typical man), but why Curly Howard is my favorite may require a more detailed explanation.Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe De Rita all had their good points, but Curly Howard was, to me, the most entertaining Stooge and, by contrast, Joe Besser was my LEAST favorite
. Moe Howard was a lot of fun as the bully-tyrant of the trio, and I wholeheartedly agree that he was a genius. His cartoon-like antics of disciplining his two cohorts, and coming up with quick-witted insults were always a way to get a quick laugh, not to mention he had a habit of stealing the ideas of Larry and Curly. Clearly the most abusive of the Three Stooges, there was a part in the more up-to-date remake movie where Moe separated from the other two and abused other people on national television. He's pretty funny, but I still like Curly better.As for Larry, well, I've seen a couple of cartoons suggesting that Larry may have been an unnecessary part of the team. The first of these was an episode of Pinky and the Brain in which the lab mice got a new cage-mate named Larry. Larry worked with Pinky and the Brain on one of Brain's crazy schemes, but this time, Pinky, Brain, and Larry got into a fight that was decidedly reminiscent of The Three Stooges. Eventually, Brain kicks Larry out of the cage because he wrecks the balance between the two, but they soon get another mouse named Zeppo (Presumably calling into question the relevance of Zeppo from the Marx Brothers). The other cartoon was an episode of the 1980's show "Paw Paw Bears", in which Dark Paw's Aunt Pruny had a strange two-headed creature working for her. In this cartoon, one of the creatures' heads resembled and acted like Moe, while the other resembled and acted like Curly, and the Moe head brutalized the Curly head. The absence of a Larry head called his relevance into question
.To be fair, questioning Larry's relevance isn't without credence. He was the "middle man", and therefore neither the boss nor entirely the foil
. That said, I think the series would have been considerably less funny if they'd been a duo and done without Larry. While not being as abused as Curly, Larry may have been the Stooge that acted smartest, and he seemed braver around Moe than Curly was. Also, of the three, he probably had the most ridiculous haircut, with curly red hair around a bald head while Curly was effectively bald and Moe had hair like a bowl. A big reason that I can think of why Larry was important was to make gags that made it clear Curly was getting a bad deal in comparison to everyone else, or to give Moe another person to demonstrate slapstick on. That said, Larry was skilled in musical instruments and kept up as an active member of the trio long after Curly Howard suffered his stroke. He's a good Stooge, but I still like Curly better.While the trio have had replacements for Curly Howard, and the trio itself is undeniably famous, there may be no better known Stooge than Curly. The most often abused, and used as a horse, bloodhound, battering ram, or even a bull, this bald and overweight sensation has had his sound effects "Nyuk, Nyuk", and "Woob woob woob woob" quoted so often through the years that I've lost count. Notably, as often as he was hit, kicked, slammed, splashed, blown-up etc., he and his character were also the kindest of the three stooges
. That said, he was just as opportunistic and destructive as his colleagues. According to what I've read, Curly's older brother, Shemp was originally intended for Curly's role, but Curly beat him to it. Ironically, Shemp ended up replacing him after his stroke.The character of Curly Howard has been seen in various parodies and cartoons. Probably the most notable of these is Hannah Barbara's Jabberjaw, which featured a surrealistic and decidedly elastic talking shark that talked similarly to Curly, including the high-pitched voice. Coincidentally, the high-pitched voice, overweight body, and bald head were all factors shared by Uncle Fester of The Adam's Family, though Uncle Fester's dark circles around the eyes, tendency to wear black robe-like clothes and pastey white complexion offset this humor. With apparent bad luck, animal-like behavior, jokes about his lack of brains, and a head that can bend the teeth of a saw or crash through a wall without a scratch (Not to mention that clicking trick he did with his hands sometimes. I don't know what it's called, but it looked cool.), Curly Howard is definitely my favorite Stooge.
That said, he had a number of replacements after his rather inconvenient stroke
. I know the nature of a stroke makes it hard to consider one convenient at ANY time, but I say inconvenient because it happened when the studio was filming Half-Wits Holiday (A remake of their earlier comedy "Hoi Polloi"). Poor Curly had his medical problem before the short could be finished, and the end of Half-Wits Holiday didn't include him. I can't help but wonder if many people didn't even notice he wasn't there . Anyway, Shemp replaced Curly, and, as far as I'm concerned, he did a pretty decent job of being a clueless foil. But things just weren't the same without Curly's overweight, childlike appearance or his trademark noises. Still, Moe and Larry made a number of very successful comedies with their new third person.I can't remember why (Probably also due to medical complications), but Shemp eventually left the trio as well, and Joe Besser was made the third Stooge, though Moe and Larry had wanted vaudeville veteran Joe De Rita. Joe Besser was funny in his own childlike way, whining and overreacting, and his personality as "Stinky" was amusing on the Abbott and Costello show, in addition to which, he did voice-overs for a number of cartoon characters. That said, Joe Besser was a lousy Curly at best
(In my opinion anyway). He wasn't nearly as good of a victim as Curly, his whining didn't support his role as a nitwit at all, and he was the only one to ever hit Moe without fear. However, Joe Besser as the third Stooge was only ONE of the problems Moe and Larry had to deal with at the time. They had to compete with television and, worse than that, they were both getting too old for their famous pratfalls
. Later on, however, Moe and Larry DID team up with Joe De Rita, and they did cartoons with live action before and after, as well as starring in a few movies together. Granted, the cartoons of theirs were nothing to crow about. In fact, the movie "The Three Stooges in Orbit" had the Three Stooges themselves complaining and badmouthing it. Anyway, the Three Stooges gave us a good run with over twenty years in their career, and all of their shorts are on DVD as well as under public domain on Youtube. Curly Howard may not have been active as a member of the trio throughout the entire run, but the comedies he was in were the best, and I'm not the only one who thinks so, according to the comments on Youtube
. Of course, if anyone reading this has any other opinions on the matter, I'd encourage sharing.I don't know the best way to finish here, so I'll just quote a comment I came across on Youtube: "So long, Curly. And thanks for all the Woobs and the Nyuks
.
