Why do they keep being friends with Moe when he hits them all the time?
In the act because they are stooges and stooges don’t know better.
Outside the act, for the $$$$$.
I figured there would be some sort of pyschological reason there.
Like Larry, Curly, Shemp, and Joe were abused at children, and therefore didn’t recognize abuse as an aberrant form of behaviour, not to be tolerated.
Or pehaps it is MOE who is at fault. Perhaps his family was so weak that Moe from an early age had to take on more responsiblity then he knew how to handle correctly. So he turned into a dictatorial bastard, and his friends Larry, Curly, Shemp and Joe were working with him to change this.
Of course, in real life, Moe Howard was the opposite of his character…a shy intovert who disliked conflict and strong emotional displays. But the real reason the act was that way was because all three of them were stooges of Healy, and when Healy and they broke up, Moe stepped into Healy’s character.
What do you mean “in real life?”
This was reality TV before there was TV
No, in the Columbia short subjects, they were always billed as Moe, Larry, and Curly (and Shemp and Joe). No last names.
The “Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard” was in “Men in Black,” their third film (and the only one to get an Oscar nomination), but it was not used after that.
And, from most accounts, Moe had a way of letting his hand go limp when he slapped a face, so the victim felt nothing. The eye poke never got anywhere near the eye (usually the side of the face, if he touched you at all). Sound effects made it all sound like contact was being made.
Actually, my recollection was that if you watched carefully, Moe’s eyepoke landed squarely on the brow or forehead. The victim would then flinch so violently that you never noticed.
Were they always playing the same characters from short to short? The only ones with any continuity I can think of offhand are “You Nazty Spy” and “I’ll Never Heil Again”.
FTR: Both Moe and Shemp are referred to by last name in “The Brideless Groom” (1947).
Not “nyucklehead”?
