My favorite Stooge bit: they’re out on the sidewalk and Moe points out a “help wanted” sign. Moe: read that.
Curley: I ain’t smokin’.
I’ve never felt a need to weigh in on this. Too often, debates about which is better degrade into debates about why one was great and the other was lousy.
They were both the best at what they did.
The Stooges, in addition to their physical comedy genius, had a wit that was less cerebral than the Marx Brothers, but could certainly go beyond the broad.
One of my favorite lines was from Curly in “Cash and Carry”. They’re in front of President Roosevelt explaining how they inadvertently broke into a federal bank vault. After hearing their story, the president announces that he’s going to “extend to you men executive clemency”, to which Curly replies, terrified, “No! Not that!”
No clever word play. But an incredibly concise picture into the world of the Victim of Coi-cumstance: every time he’s heard important people use big words he couldn’t understand, it’s meant he’s in trouble.
The Three Stooges, whatever you think about their dialogue (and a lot of the dialogue wasn’t top tier), had just a physicality that was hard to match. Look at this scene, where Shemp drops a nickel he needs to make a phone call and Moe tries to help him find it, while Larry waits outside the phonebooth absentmindedly spitting out teeth.
The hospital in Joplin, Missouri, used “Doctor Moe, Doctor Larry, Doctor Curly” as a loudspeaker code for certain emergencies in the early 1970s.
Judge: “Will you swear–”
Curly: “No, but I know all the words!”
I do like the Marx Bros., but as far as witty dialog goes, I’ll stack the Stooges’ “Three Wristwatches” gag against just about anything the Marx Bros. did any day.
I have issue with an earlier assertion that the Three Stooges would be considered too lowly to associate with other stars. In the 50’s, with Shemp, the Three Stooges appeared on the TV shows of Frank Sinatra, Milton Berle, Ed Wynn and Eddie Cantor, among others. All were very big stars at the time, and not above having the Three Stooges on their programs. Additionally, Shemp Howard was friendly with Abbott and Costello, and on the Letters from Stan website, Stan Laurel corresponds often with Ted Healy’s sister Betty, and mentions knowing the Three Stooges (although he mentions not meeting Shemp until 1953). I also would be surprised if the Stooges didn’t cross paths with Buster Keaton at least once during his Columbia years. I don’t think the stars of the time were as cliquish as stated, and while the Stooges and Marx’s had their own circle of friends, I don’t see the evidence that the Marx Brothers would consider themselves above associating with the Three Stooges if fate put them at the same Hollywood party or country club.
As for classic routines, you have to mention the “Maharaja” routine from Three Little Pirates, and the “Swinging to the Alphabet” song from Violent is the Word for Curly, which was directed by former vaudevillian and movie star Charley Chase.
You’d think that with all the time you take between posts to this thread, you’d have have had enough time to read it.
The Stooges didn’t appear often on radio because they were nonentities at the time. Their popularity started growing when television came along. Therefore, it’s not very surprising that they started appearing on tv shows. Who the hosts were mattered very little. The guest lists for those shows - and for shows earlier on radio and on television today: this is close to a universal - were picked by the producers to get ratings by exploiting whoever they could get whose name might be familiar. The host was there to smile and to mouth whatever dialogue the writers wrote that week. They may have been personal buddies, and those did often get preference, but they equally well could have been total strangers.
Since we’re talking about their off-screen lives, it’s important to emphasize that Curly retired after a stroke in 1946 and died in 1952 while Shemp died in 1955. When exactly was the period when they were major stars, and who are “they”?
Similarly, the Stooges and Marxes could have been friends, but there have been millions of words written about them and nobody has yet brought up a single example of anyone saying so. People then as now have social circles and while there is always overlap, people tend to stay within them. The Marxes were top-rank stars starting in vaudeville, and continuing on Broadway, movies, and television. The Stooges weren’t, although they became celebrities from television fame, which was never considered the same thing by old Hollywoodians.
All of this has been said, repeatedly, which is the only reason I’m bothering with this thread again. If you don’t think stars were cliquish, provide some proof. If the Marxes and the Stooges were friends or even as much as said hello to one another, provide some proof. The rest of us have to go by actual Hollywood history as recorded by people who were there and their biographers. You don’t get the privilege of having your guesses and feelings trump that.
What the fuck are you talking about, Expano?
I was pointing out they were on at least some kind of terms with what would be considered major stars.
I guess after appearing on Eddie Cantor or Sinatra’s show, the Stooges opened a door and just found themselves standing in an alley. Fuck, they probably didn’t even get paid.
I don’t know who “they” are either. Maybe it’s in this thread, but fuck if I’m going to read it.
Being a guest on a show does not imply that you are good friends with the star. They could have been buddy buddy, but they just as well could have been in the alley. Except maybe for Rat Pack members, I’m pretty confident that Sinatra didn’t book his own show.
Oh; so?
Perhaps you are thinking of the Weir Bros.
To a modern, general public, the Stooges are certainly the more well known, beloved act. Marx Bros seem to be more for film buffs and afficianados. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Marxes referenced in anything newer than maybe I Love Lucy (excepting Groucho, but that’s more for his later gameshow hosting personna, I didn’t even know he was part of a brother act for a long time) but you can find Stooge references all over the place. Cheers, Friends, etc.
I don’t mean any of this as a knock (knyuck?) on the Marx Bros work. I’ve never even seen any of their stuff. But it’s just silly to say they’re anywhere near as well known to the modern public or as entrenched in the collective consciousness. They just aren’t.
It’s all about exposure. I see that the Three Stooges run weekly on several cable channels. The Marx Brothers are restricted to a few prestige showings and DVD boxed sets. It’s the same reason, I believe, that Warner Brothers cartoons made it bigger than Walt Disney in the public mind, and Godzilla reih=gen as King of the Monsters – they were cheap and available to show, often, on TV. I’m not denying the wonderfulness and subversiveness of the WB cartoons, but the reason people remember them fondly and barely know the Disney short cartoons is that Disney charged a lot for theirs and kept them under wraps, but Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were seen every weekday afternoon and on weekends as well.*. Godzilla got more play than even The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (which it was an imitation of, and whose animation they wanted to duplicate, but couldn’t, because of the cost) or The Giant Behemoth, because it came cheap.
*Not that quality didn’t play a part, too. Kids troday don’t fall in love with most of the Hanna Barbera ouevre because it was nowhere near the quality of WB products.
Check out A Night At The Opera.
Their best film.
The ocean liner stateroom scene is a scream.
I say this held past I Love Lucy (50s) and was still the case in the 60s & 70s. Groucho and Harpo were common currency and Chico was remembered. You could put references to them in any variety show and be understood. People on sitcoms would go to masquerade parties as the Marx bros. One episode of Welcome Back Kotter used them–of course Gabe Kaplan was a student of them but still.
Stooges references were rare iirc–even though many many TV stations ran the shorts over and over during the 60s and the feature films ran too, and there was an animated kids show, and maybe comic books still.
Alan Alda frequently imitated Groucho Marx in MASH.
There are four points brought up in this thread that should be addressed:
- The Stooges and Marx Bros. could not have met because they occurred in two different generations
That is incorrect. I showed in post #12 that their careers were actually ran pretty parallel to each other
- No A-list celebrity would touch the Stooges with a 10-foot pole
That is wrong also. I showed in post #86 that there is televised proof that the Stooges on at least one occasion rubbed elbows with Frank Sinatra, Danny Thomas, Milton Berle and Ed Wynn. Sinatra was still at the peak of his career at the time, Berle was white-hot at the time. He might be forgotten, but they don’t get bigger than Eddie Cantor. And that is just televised appearances that you can actually see. That’s not counting who they could have met at parties and social occasions - as the Letter to Stan site mentions Stan Laurel meeting Shemp Howard at the Brown Derby.
- The Stooges were an accident of history
That is just an attempt to lower the Stooges by chalking up their success to an accident. By the same logic, you could say the Beatles were an accident if some kid hadn’t wandered into Brian Epstein’s store asking for “My Bonnie”, or Apple was an accident if Bill Fernandez hadn’t introduced Jobs and Wozniak. All of history can be put down to accidents. The truth is Columbia early on tried to market their other shorts to T.V., but Andy Clyde and Joe DeRita did not take off like the Stooges did.
- There is no possible scenario under which the Stooges and Marx could have met.
Celebs hobnobbed at parties and social gatherings all the time. The Laurel/Shemp meeting mentioned above is one tiny example. Another possible scenario would be Larry Fine and Chico Marx, both heavy gamblers, running into each other at the track.
The Stooges had a contract - bad though it was - with Columbia, a major studio. Ted Healy, their former straight man, was huge and one of the most highly paid performers of his time. People and other celebrities knew who the Stooges were. It would not be like Max Hardcore meeting Francois Truffaut, as some people in this thread would portray it.
There is no documented account of any one member the two respective teams meeting each other. But the reasons put forth in this thread so far for the impossibility of such a meeting have been balderdash.
Man, I’d love to know more about the comet with the eccentric orbit that Temp User is riding on that only brings him close enough to Earth to send signals once every few months. Think of the contributions to science that go wasted on a Three Stooges thread!
OK, here’s a serious question. Since you admit that there’s “no documented account of any one member the two respective teams meeting each other” what do you think the reasons are for that if you don’t like ours?
See you again about September 23 when our orbital paths cross.
Nobody said 1, 2, or 4. Please stop bumping an old thread to demonstrate your inability to understand what you’ve read.
My now wife, when I first showed her a Marx Bros. movie remarked, “that’s who Alan Alda imitates so much on MASH.” After kicking her out, I shouldn’t have let her back in.
The Marx Brothers knew and met Ted Healy at the very least