The Three Stooges - Seriously

Back when I was an acquisitions librarian in an academic library, I was confronted one day by an angry cataloger. (It was an extremely nerve racking experience and I was shaky for days afterward. Catalogers are fierce, dangerous creatures and you don't want to cross em. Ever.) She was outraged at one of our recent acquisitions. It was a book on The Three Stooges.

How dare we, she expostulated, purchase a book on such a trivial subject for an academic library where the rule is that all of the books should have unpleasant, dull covers, no pictures except for charts and graphs, weigh at least 5 lbs and bear titles that would encourage any reasonably sane person to leave them on the shelf. (As one of the more appealing examples, I recall a book entitled Brown Adipose Tissue. Yum! The color of its cover was also most appropriate to the title. It was a definite twofer. However, it was a bit on the slim side, there evidently not being much to say about brown adipose tissue, at least not then.)

I was fast on my feet in those days and I said the three words that left her frustrated, stymied and balked of her prey, that is me.

"Popular culture studies."

She stared at me for a minute then ground her teeth and stalked away. Once she was out of sight, I started to peruse the offending item. In truth, it was not a weighty study of Larry, Curly or Moe or Joe or Curly Joe or even Shemp. It was gossipy and photo laden. I found it completely intriguing. And I was not a big Stooges fan.

I am female and the Stooges are definitely a guy thing. I can remember watching them on "Slam Bang Theater" every afternoon after school with my cousin Geren and trying to figure out why he howled with laughter whenever Moe poked Curly or Larry or Joe or Curly Joe or even Shemp in the eyes. It just looked painful to me. But it was all so frenetic and full of inventive energy that I couldn't tear my eyes away. I just didn't find it funny.

From the book, I learned that The Stooges got their start with a vaudeville headlining comedian named Ted Healy in the early years of the 20th century. At that point, I became hooked on The Stooges as a phenomenon. I also learned that the Ted Healy style of striding confidently onto a stage with the arms swinging in order to establish dominance over the audience became the pattern for other comedians such as Jack Benny and Bob Hope.

A stooge was a kind of straight man for the main comedian. Ted Healy was the verbal wit and his stooges gave him examples of idiocy to sharpen his wit on. He would also bash them around a bit (a role that Moe took up subsequently). Then, through a series of let's say, soicumstances, Larry, Curly and Moe discovered that their brand of idiocy was funny enough by itself so they detached themselves from Mr. Healy and became The Three Stooges on their own.

I think that the longevity of The Stooges' appeal deserves a serious look, but please, no academic studies because once that happens the appeal is dead. One thing though, every once in a while in one of those slight gossipy photo laden tomes on the Stooges, the author will invariably say, "they weren't doing Shakespeare" or something close. I beg to differ. If you plucked them up from a vaudeville stage or from any one of their short films and plunked them down at the original Globe theater in the middle of one of Shakespeare's plays, they would be right at home and I mean Larry or Moe or Curly or Joe or Curly Joe or even Shemp. And I'm serious.

At the Fort Worth Library, we have most of the 190 Three Stooges short films on DVD. You can get started here.