TUBE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (2)

By: Chris Spurgeon
August 2, 2018

One of 25 installments in a series of enthusiastic posts analyzing and celebrating a few of our favorite TV shows from the Fifties (1954–1963).

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THE THREE STOOGES | 1959–on

I grew up in suburban Philadelphia in the early- to mid-1960s, and in my little world there was nothing more important than making it home from school by 3:30. At that magic moment I’d turn on our black-and-white TV, tune to UHF channel 29 (via a weird aftermarket electronic gizmo attached to the set), sit down, and be in the presence of genius. For at 3:30 every afternoon channel 29 aired The Three Stooges.

Let’s make no mistake here, the Stooges were geniuses. In the same way the Beatles mastered their craft through hundreds of hours of live performance in little clubs in Germany and England, the Stooges spent decades doing slapstick on vaudeville stages all across America. The sheer number of eye-pokes, cheek-slaps, noggin-knocks, and hair-pulls given and received during those years staggers the imagination. But it armed them with an unparalleled sense of comic timing and rhythm — the Bolshoi Ballet wishes they could do something as precisely choreographed as a Stooges’ three-way slap sequence. All of this translated seamlessly to the screen via the 190 shorts the group made for Columbia Pictures between the early ’30s and late ’50s, and aired on TV from 1959 right up to the present day.

Sitting on the living room floor I knew nothing of vaudeville, or of the health problems that plagued the Stooges and led to the then inexplicable way Curly was sometimes the third Stooge while other times it was Shemp. (Like all right-thinking kids I preferred Curly, but I eventually had a grudging respect for Shemp as well. I imagine it’s similar to the way a Mozart fanatic will occasionally enjoy a piece by Salieri.) I didn’t know how the studio screwed the Stooges out of possibly millions of dollars over the years, and I hadn’t yet learned enough audio and film production to fully appreciate the technical artistry of the sound effects that accompanied every single one of the thousands of moments of physical assault, workplace accidents, and random acts of a capricious and cruel god that the Stooges endured. I only knew that it was hilarious, that it would be on again tomorrow, and that it was perfect.

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ALSO SEE: The Original Stooge (Curly invents punk).

TUBE YOUR ENTHUSIASM: Series Introduction | Luc Sante on LOONEY TUNES | Chris Spurgeon on THE THREE STOOGES | Adrienne Crew on MY THREE SONS | Barbara Bogaev on ROCKY & BULLWINKLE | Devin McKinney on THE TWILIGHT ZONE | James Hannaham on THE NAT KING COLE SHOW | Mimi Lipson on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES | Jessamyn West on THE JETSONS | Gary Panter on THE OUTER LIMITS | Peter Doyle on THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS | Mark Kingwell on ROUTE 66 | Josh Glenn on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW | Lynn Peril on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW | Rob Walker on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER | Dan Reines on DAVEY & GOLIATH | Adam McGovern on HIGHWAY PATROL | Erik Davis on HAVE GUN — WILL TRAVEL | Greg Rowland on THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW | Annie Nocenti on THE AVENGERS | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on GUNSMOKE | Sarah Weinman on NAKED CITY | Douglas Rushkoff on THE HONEYMOONERS | Kio Stark on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS | Gordon Dahlquist on PERRY MASON | Brian Berger on CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? | CODA: Crystal Durant on Marc Anthony & Pussyfoot shorts | CODA: Mike Watt on “A Stop at Willoughby”

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

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