The problem was that Moe died not long after the publicity pictures were taken. They had plans for a movie with Moe, Larry, and Emil, but because Moe was too ill to perform it was done with the remaining Ritz Brothers instead.
No, I was talking about Joe Besser. It would have been quite a stunt for Jerome (Curly) Howard to have been in the Abbott & Costello TV series, as he died before the series began.
I think Vernon Dent was in even more Stooge shorts than Emil was. They were both certainly great.
As for the topic at hand, I always loved Curly, but preferred Shemp. Shemp was the “subtle Stooge” to me - always had some sort of subtle expression or move beyond the obvious slapstick. He also had most of the best lines. Like “I feel like a piece of French toast!” or “Give me another drink; I can still see her face!”
I’m surprised there are any who would choose Shemp over Curly. Curly was sui generis, with originality and perfect delivery, the Groucho of the Stooges. Without Curly, they never would have made it. Shemp was very enjoyable in the stuff he did and did it well, playing a much more likeable character than Moe, but what a chump.
One of my favorite’s of Shemp’s: “Hold yer horses! Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Syracuse!”
That said, Curly IMHO was just the more naturally funny of the two.
As for Joe Besser, I didn’t care for him much. But he did one gag that always made me laugh. He drops a whole bunch of eggs on the floor. He cleans it up by dousing the eggs in wine/vinegar, blow-torching the whole thing alight, essentially scrambling the eggs, then scooping it all up with a shovel!
Moe has a great line in response to this: “A frustrated short-order cook - this guy must be from outer space!”
As far as I can tell the source came from an interview with Moe by Michael H. Price and was related in his book Mantan the Funnyman: The Life and Times of Mantan Moreland. In it Moe is quoted as saying that Columbia insisted dismissed the idea.
Curly is the most natural one to like. He’s the child in all of us. If you’ve never seen the Stooges before, you should make a Curly show your first one. Shemp is much more subtle, he was a brilliant comic but doesn’t have the universal appeal that Curly did. So I like them both, though I think the Curly shows were better if only because by the time Shemp returned to the act, the quality and originality of the series had already peaked.
Looking at Sing a Song of Six Pants, (1947) one can see how the films had changed from the days of Curly at his peak (early 1930s). There is less ‘action’, more jokes.
There was also the fact that as time went on violent slapstick was falling out of favor. By the Curly-Joe era Moe and the boys made the decision to tone down (but not eliminate) the slapping.
Yeah, in Sing a Song of Six Pants, the individual bits are funny without involving slapping as such. Moe making pancakes on the press, Larry trying to remove a spot of sunlight, and Shemp trying to iron curled-up trousers.
You’re right.
