Some comedian, I forget who, once said, “All guys like the [Three] Stooges. All women think they’re assholes.”
I would guess that not all guys like the Three Stooges… but I must say that every woman I’ve ever asked has said that she hates them.
So… are there any women here who will actually admit to liking the Three Stooges? Men who don’t?
(BTW, I’m a man, and yes, I like the Three Stooges… a very guilty pleasure. Although I don’t care for any of the latter-day Curleys.)
47 male here. No, slapstick doesn’t entertain me.
Never liked them, even as a kid. Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, Red Skelton, and others from that era, even Leo Gorcey & The Bowery Boys were funny and fun. But the Stooges were just stupid. I hated it when that’s all they had for “funnies” at the movies. Cartoons, yes. Serials, yes. Stooges, no.
Loved the old shorts with Curly.
Liked the old shorts with Joe Besser quite a bit (quirky, and a bit of a departure from the usual Stooges stuff).
Didn’t much care for the Sixties movies with Curly Joe DeRita.
HATED practically everything with Shemp.
I’m a female and I always loved the Stooges. But mainly the stuff from the 30s and 40s. By the 50s, they started looking so old it kinda creeped me out to see old men acting so silly.
As a kid I loved the stooges. As an adult I still kinda like to watch a few episodes from time to time. My wife thinks they’re just plain dumb. Especially the one where the look for the tomb of King Rootin Tootin. (which is a fav of mine)
Nyet, nyet, nyet.
I don’t mind a a short exposure to them, but anything more than 15 or so minutes is just too much. They are too predictable.
56 yo male. I loved them as a kid (with Officer Joe Bolton), and I think they hold up pretty well. They were definitely uneven (not unexpected with 190 shorts plus features), but at their best, they were very funny, and no just for slapstick. As a general rule, that meant Curly and sometimes Shemp.
Love the Stooges. My wife just shakes her head and walks out of the room.
38 year old male, and I could never stand them, even as a kid.
Love the Stooges. Male, 37. And they weren’t always slapstick…the one where they’re teaching a roomful of pretty young women is actually one of the ones that always stick in my mind… “See-say-say, see-say-see, see-sigh-icky-ai-icky-ai-ay, Sicky-say-see-say-so, sigh-icky-ai-say-so…”
Or something like that.
Female, 40
I definitely liked them as a kid. I don’t seek them out now, but have watched a few shorts with my kid and certainly don’t hate them. I appreciate the Stooges as part of my fascination with the evolution of entertainment in terms of vaudeville to movies to TV. I think my enjoyment of them waned as I became old enough to notice and mind the sameness.
I have a neighbor who LOVES them, to the point of having all sorts of VHS tapes and DVDs, and posters and “collectibles”. That really escapes me. I get having recordings of their work…but not the knick knacks. I mean, I really like John Cusack movies, and have several on DVD, but I don’t want a statue of him with a teeny body and a giant head on a shelf in my house.
Ooh…I just had a great idea for a John Cusack bobblehead…holding up a bobble BOOMBOX!
Why, soitainly! Nyuck! Nyuck! Nyuck!
52, and male. I’ve loved them since I was 3. I can remember watching them on Paul Shannon’s show in Pittsburgh and they would make occasional personal appearances. Moe, Larry, and Curley Joe were still all active then. They had made their final film, “The Outlaws Is Coming,” co-starring Adam West (who would shortly become TV’s Batman) and were doing live action cuts and voicework for their animated shorts.
Comcast has started running them in their On Demand service again. They’ve started with some of the best, such as “Women Haters,” “Punch Drunks,” and “The Three Little Pigskins.” I just wish they would run them uncut, without all of the made-for-TV bumpers in the middle.
It’s true that Moe didn’t age well in the shorts (Larry, harder to tell), but the amusing thing was how much earlier footage they were recycling toward the end of their run of shorts - such as the High Society Pie Fight from ‘Hoi Polloi’ (I think), which I know I saw used in at least 3 other shorts.
Let’s not even get into them reusing entire plots such as the stolen rocket fuel formula, or Larry as a two-timing Pet Store owner, or…well, Hoi Polloi & it’s derivatives…
So put me down as some of their work (especially 30s & early 40s) was great, but a lot of the later stuff was painful (even when it wasn’t warmed-over repeats).
Female (but a very unconventional one who mostly likes “guy” things) here.
Sorry, but I have to come down on the side of my gender with this one. Can’t stand the Stooges. But then again, I don’t like most slapstick humor.
Almost 43 year old chick. Love 'em.
My 18 year old son, however, who you would THINK would like them, thinks his mother is an idiot for watching them.
I don’t think the Stooges are funny in and of themselves, but I think it’s hilarious that anyone would think they’re funny. So in a strange way they amuse me.
There is a bit of a “so bad they’re good” element to my enjoyment of them, I guess, as well as the “historical artifact” angle mentioned by another poster.