Behind the Scenes With The Three Stooges

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Greetings ~

Back in the 1950s, I remember sitting on the sofa every Saturday around noon tuning into my favorite show on TV. The morning cartoons were okay, but the real fun came when the Three Stooges were on. At that time, I really didn't know that these short films were, at that time, around 30-years old. And I didn't know then that two of the Stooges had died. I was just enjoying these nuts going through their course.

Of course, my favorite was Curly. All the slapping, punching, eye poking and prate falls were just plain funny and, as a kid of six to nine years old, these guys made me laugh. Even then I knew it was all fake. We kids might try these acts on our friends but we didn't really poke anyone's eyes. We knew it was all in fun.

Years later I began learning about the Stooges' real lives. I found that it wasn't always funny for them. Both Curly and Shemp Howard died young. And Columbia Pictures really put the screws to them. So, like most regular people, I learned that the Stooges had tragedy and sad times as well.

On this blog we will discover the hard times as well as the good. What happened to them and how they were treated by Columbia Pictures. And there are plenty of photos of them on screen and behind the scenes.

So sit back, you knuckleheads, and enjoy the ride.

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Blog Created: 7-10-2025

Last Updated: 7-11-2025

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The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short-subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical, farce, and slapstick comedy. Six total Stooges appeared over the act's run (with only three working at any given time). The two constants were:

Moe Howard (born Moses Horwitz), 1922–1970, and Larry Fine (born Louis Feinberg), 1925–1970. The "third stooge" was played in turn by:

Shemp Howard (born Samuel Horwitz), 1922–1932, 1947–1955.

Curly Howard (born Jerome Horwitz), 1932–1946.

Joe Palma (born Joseph Provenzano), 1956; stand in for Shemp.

Joe Besser (born Jessel Besser), 1956–1957.

"Curly Joe" DeRita (born Joseph Wardell), 1958–1970.

In the beginning, Ted Healy was the front man to the Stooges.

The act began in 1922 as part of a vaudeville comedy act billed as "Ted Healy and His Stooges", consisting originally of Ted Healy and Moe Howard. Over time, they were joined by Moe's brother, Shemp Howard, and then Larry Fine. The four appeared in one feature film, Soup to Nuts, before Shemp left to pursue a solo career. He was replaced by Moe's younger brother, Jerome "Curly" Howard, in 1932. Two years later, after appearing in several movies, the trio left Healy and signed on to appear in their own short-subject comedies for Columbia Pictures, now billed as "The Three Stooges". From 1934 to 1946, Moe, Larry, and Curly produced over 90 short films for Columbia.

Opener with Curly Howard.

Opener with Shemp Howard.

Curly suffered a debilitating stroke in May 1946. Shemp returned, reconstituting the original lineup, until his death of a heart attack on November 22, 1955, three years and ten months after Curly's death of a cerebral hemorrhage. Film actor Joe Palma stood in (shot from behind to obscure his face) to complete four Shemp-era shorts under contract. The procedure of disguising one actor as another outside of stunt shots became known as the "fake Shemp". Columbia contract player Joe Besser joined as the third Stooge for two years (1956–1957), departing in 1958 to nurse his ill wife after Columbia terminated its shorts division. The studio then released all the shorts via Screen Gems, Columbia's television studio and distribution unit. Screen Gems then syndicated the shorts to television, whereupon the Stooges became one of the most popular comedy acts of the early 1960s.

Opener with Joe Besser.

Comic actor Joe DeRita became "Curly Joe" in 1958, replacing Besser for a new series of full-length theatrical films. With intense television exposure in the United States, the act regained momentum throughout the 1960s as popular kids' fare, until Larry's paralyzing stroke in the midst of filming a pilot for a Three Stooges TV series in January 1970. He died in January 1975 after a further series of strokes. Unsuccessful attempts were made in 1970 and 1975 to revive the act with longtime supporting actor Emil Sitka in Fine's role, but they were each cut short—the first by a movie deal falling through and Moe's wife persuading him to retire, the second by Moe's death.

Opener with "Curly Joe" DeRita.

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History

Ted Healy and His Stooges (1922–1934) ~

The Three Stooges began in 1922 as part of a raucous vaudeville act called "Ted Healy and His Stooges". The act was also known as "Ted Healy and His Southern Gentlemen" and "Ted Healy and His Racketeers". Moe Howard joined Healy's act in 1922, and his brother Shemp Howard came aboard a few months later. After several shifts and changes in the Stooges membership, violinist-comedian Larry Fine also joined the group sometime between 1925 and 1928. In the act, lead comedian Healy would attempt to sing or tell jokes while his noisy assistants would keep interrupting him, causing Healy to retaliate with verbal and physical abuse.

In 1930, Ted Healy and His Stooges (plus comedian Fred Sanborn) appeared in Soup to Nuts, their first Hollywood feature film, released by Fox Film Corporation. The film was not a critical success, but the Stooges' performances were singled out as memorable, leading Fox to offer the trio a contract, minus Healy. This enraged Healy, who told studio executives the Stooges were his employees, whereupon the offer was withdrawn. Howard, Fine, and Howard learned of the offer and subsequent withdrawal, and left Healy to form their own act (billed as "Howard, Fine & Howard" or "Three Lost Souls"). The act quickly took off with a tour of the theater circuit. Healy attempted to stop the new act with legal action, claiming that they were using his copyrighted material. Accounts exist of Healy threatening to bomb theaters if Howard, Fine, and Howard ever performed there, which worried Shemp so much that he almost left the act; reportedly, only a pay raise kept him on board.

Ted Healy.

Larry, Moe and Shemp.

Healy tried to save his act by hiring replacement stooges, but they were inexperienced and not as well-received as their predecessors. Healy reached a new agreement with his former Stooges in 1932, with Moe now acting as business manager, and they were booked in a production of Jacob J. Shubert's The Passing Show of 1932. During rehearsals, Healy received a more lucrative offer and found a loophole in his contract allowing him to leave the production. Shemp, fed up with Healy's abrasiveness, bad temper, and heavy drinking, decided to quit the act and toured in his own comedy revue for several months.

Shemp had been working for the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn, New York since 1931. He first appeared in movie comedies playing small roles and bits in the Roscoe Arbuckle shorts, and gradually worked his way up to star comedian. Shemp stayed with Vitaphone through 1937.

With Shemp gone, Healy and the two remaining stooges (Moe and Larry) needed a replacement, so Moe suggested his younger brother Jerry Howard. Healy reportedly took one look at Jerry, who had long chestnut-red hair and a handlebar mustache, and remarked that Jerry did not look like he was funny. Jerry left the room and returned a few minutes later with his head shaved (although his mustache remained for a time), saying: "Boy, do I look girly." Healy heard "Curly", and the name stuck. Other accounts have been given for how the Curly character actually came about.

Jerome "Curly" Howard was, by far, the funniest Stooge.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) signed Healy and his stooges to a movie contract in 1933. They appeared in feature films and short subjects together, individually, or with various combinations of actors. The trio was featured in a series of musical comedy shorts, beginning with Nertsery Rhymes. It was one of a few shorts to be made with an early two-color Technicolor process. These also included one featuring Curly without Healy or the other Stooges, Roast Beef and Movies (1934), and the recently rediscovered Technicolor short Hello Pop!. Jail Birds of Paradise (1934) was also shot in Technicolor, but as of 2022, no print has been found. The short films were built around recycled Technicolor film footage of production numbers cut from MGM musicals, such as Children of Pleasure, Lord Byron of Broadway, and the unfinished March of Time (all 1930). The studio concluded the series with standard, black-and-white two-reel subjects: Beer and Pretzels (1933) Plane Nuts (1933), and The Big Idea (1934).

Healy and company also appeared in several MGM feature films as comic relief, including:

Turn Back the Clock (1933).

Meet the Baron (1933).

Dancing Lady (1933) (with Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire and Robert Benchley).

Fugitive Lovers (1934).

Hollywood Party (1934).

Healy and the Stooges also appeared together in Myrt and Marge for Universal Pictures.

Lobby card with Healy, Joan Crawford and the Stooges in MGM's Dancing Lady (1933).

In 1934, the team's contract expired with MGM, and the Stooges' professional association with Healy came to an end. According to Moe Howard's autobiography, the split was precipitated by Healy's alcoholism and abrasiveness. Their final film with Healy was MGM's Hollywood Party (1934). Healy and the Stooges went on to separate successes, with Healy dying under mysterious circumstances in 1937.

NOTE: Ted Healy had made several enemies in Hollywood over the years and, after an evening of heavy drinking in bars, Healy was found badly beaten in a parking lot. He would die later that night at the hospital.

Columbia years (1934–1958)

Moe, Larry, and Curly (1934–1946) ~

In 1934, the trio—now officially named "The Three Stooges"—contracted with Columbia Pictures for a series of two-reel comedy short subjects. Moe wrote in his autobiography that they each received $600 per week (equal to $14,103 today) on a one-year contract with a renewable option; in the Ted Okuda–Edward Watz book The Columbia Comedy Shorts, the Stooges are said to have received $1,000 among them for their first Columbia effort, Woman Haters (1934), and then signed a term contract for $7,500 per film (equal to $176,287 today), to be divided among the trio.

Within their first year at Columbia, theater bookings for the Stooges films took off. Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn was able to use the Stooges as leverage, as the demand for their films was so great that he eventually refused to supply exhibitors with the trio's shorts unless they also agreed to book some of the studio's mediocre B movies. Cohn also saw to it that the Stooges remained unaware of their popularity. During their 23 years at Columbia, the Stooges were never completely aware of their drawing power. Their contracts with the studio included an open option that had to be renewed yearly, and Cohn would tell them that the short subjects were in decline, which was not a complete fabrication (Cohn's yearly mantra was "the market for comedy shorts is dying out, fellas").

Columbia president Harry Cohn.

The Stooges thought that their days were numbered and would sweat it out each year, with Cohn renewing their contract at the last moment. This deception kept the insecure Stooges unaware of their true value, resulting in them having second thoughts about asking for a better contract without a yearly option. Cohn's scare tactics worked for all 23 years that the Stooges were at Columbia; the team never once asked for or received a salary increase.

After they stopped making the shorts in December 1957, Moe learned of Cohn's tactics, what a valuable commodity the Stooges had been for the studio, and how many millions more the act could have earned. Columbia offered theater owners an entire program of two-reel comedies (15–25 titles annually) featuring such stars as Buster Keaton, Andy Clyde, Charley Chase, and Hugh Herbert, but the Stooge shorts were the most popular of all.

The Stooges' release schedule was eight short subjects per year, filmed within a 40-week period; for the remaining 12 weeks, they were free to pursue other employment, time that was either spent with their families or touring the country with their live act. The Stooges appeared in 190 film shorts and five features while at Columbia, outlasting every one of their contemporaries employed in the short-film genre. Del Lord directed more than three dozen Stooge films, Jules White directed dozens more, and his brother Jack White directed several under the pseudonym "Preston Black". Silent-comedy star Charley Chase also shared directorial responsibilities with Lord and White.

The Stooge films made between 1935 and 1941 captured the team at their peak, according to film historians Ted Okuda and Edward Watz, authors of The Columbia Comedy Shorts; nearly every film produced became a classic in its own right. Hoi Polloi (1935) adapted the premise of Pygmalion, with a stuffy professor making a bet that he can transform the uncultured trio into refined gentlemen; the plotline worked so well that it was reused twice, as Half-Wits Holiday (1947) and Pies and Guys (1958). Three Little Beers (1935) featured the Stooges running amok on a golf course to win prize money. Disorder in the Court (1936) features the team as star witnesses in a murder trial. Violent Is the Word for Curly (1938) was a quality Chase-directed short that featured the musical interlude "Swingin' the Alphabet".

In A Plumbing We Will Go (1940)—one of the team's quintessential comedies—the Stooges are cast as plumbers who nearly destroy a socialite's mansion, causing water to exit every appliance in the home, including an early television set. This was remade twice, as Vagabond Loafers and Scheming Schemers. Other entries of the era are considered among the team's finest work, including Uncivil Warriors (1935), A Pain in the Pullman and False Alarms (both 1936), Grips, Grunts and Groans, The Sitter Downers, Dizzy Doctors (all 1937), Tassels in the Air (1938), We Want Our Mummy (1939), Nutty but Nice (1940), and An Ache in Every Stake and In the Sweet Pie and Pie (both 1941).

A great actor and a really funny guy, Dudley H. Dickerson did several bits in Stooges short films.

With the onset of World War II, the Stooges released several entries that poked fun at the rising Axis powers. You Nazty Spy! (1940) and its sequel I'll Never Heil Again (1941) lampooned Hitler and the Nazis at a time when America was still neutral. Moe was cast as "Moe Hailstone", an Adolf Hitler-like character, with Curly playing a Hermann Göring character, replete with medals, and Larry a Joseph Goebbels-type propaganda minister. Moe, Larry, and director Jules White considered You Nazty Spy! their best film. Yet, these efforts indulged in a deliberately formless, non-sequitur style of verbal humor that was not the Stooges' forte, according to Okuda and Watz.

NOTE: Rumor has it that Hitler hated the Stooges so much for their making fun of the Nazis that he considered issuing a hit contract on them. No evidence of that actually happening exists.

Other wartime entries have their moments, such as They Stooge to Conga (considered the most violent Stooge short), Higher Than a Kite, Back from the Front (all 1943), Gents Without Cents (1944) and the anti-Japanese The Yoke's on Me (also 1944). However, taken in bulk, the wartime films are considered less funny than what preceded them. No Dough Boys (1944) is often considered the best of these farces. The team, made up as Japanese soldiers for a photo shoot, is mistaken for genuine saboteurs by a Nazi ringleader (Vernon Dent, the Stooges' primary foil). The highlight of the film features the Stooges engaging in nonsensical gymnastics for a skeptical group of enemy agents expecting renowned acrobats.

The Stooges had fun mocking the Nazis during World War II.

Vernon Dent, (seated) Often starred with the Stooges in the Columbia shorts.

Wartime also brought on rising production costs that resulted in fewer elaborate gags and outdoor sequences, Del Lord's stock in trade; as a result, the quality of the team's films, particularly those directed by Lord, began to slip after 1942. According to Okuda and Watz, entries such as Loco Boy Makes Good, What's the Matador?, Sock-a-Bye Baby (all 1942), I Can Hardly Wait and A Gem of a Jam (both 1943) are considered to be lesser-quality works than previous films. Spook Louder (1943), a remake of Mack Sennett's The Great Pie Mystery (1931), is sometimes considered one of their weakest shorts because of its repetitious and rehashed jokes. Three Smart Saps (1942), was an improvement, reworking a routine from Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925), in which Curly's loosely stitched suit begins to fall apart at the seams while he is on the dance floor.

The Stooges made occasional supporting appearances in feature films. Most of the Stooges' peers had either made the transition from shorts to feature films (Laurel and Hardy, The Ritz Brothers) or starred in their own feature films from the onset (Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello). However, Moe believed that the team's slapstick style worked better in short form. In 1935, Columbia proposed to star them in their own full-length feature, but Moe rejected the idea, saying, "It's a hard job inventing, rewriting, or stealing gags for our two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures without having to make a seven-reeler (feature film). We can make short films out of material needed for a starring feature, and then we wouldn't know whether it would be funny enough to click."

Film critics have cited Curly as the most popular member of the team. His childlike mannerisms, natural comedic charm, and uncouth, juvenile humor made him a hit with audiences, particularly women and children. However, Curly having to shave his head for the act led him to feel unappealing to women. To mask his insecurities, he ate and drank to excess and caroused whenever the Stooges made personal appearances, which was around seven months of each year. His weight ballooned in the 1940s, and his blood pressure became dangerously high. Curly's wild lifestyle and constant drinking eventually caught up with him in 1945, and his performances suffered.

After Curly's stroke, he wasn't the same. He was slower, his timing was off and he had gained more weight.

During a five-month hiatus from August 1945 through January 1946, the trio committed themselves to making a feature film at Monogram, followed by two months of live appearances in New York City, with performances seven days a week. Curly also entered a disastrous third marriage in October 1945, leading to a separation in January 1946 and divorce in July 1946, at great cost to his already fragile health. Upon the Stooges' return to Los Angeles in late November 1945, Curly was a shell of his former self. They had two months to rest before reporting back to Columbia in late January 1946, but Curly's condition was irreversible. They had only 24 days of work over the next three months, but eight weeks of time off could not help the situation. In those last six shorts, ranging from Monkey Businessmen (1946) through Half-Wits Holiday (1947), Curly was seriously ill, struggling to get through even the most basic scenes.

During the final day of filming Half-Wits Holiday (1947) on May 6, 1946, Curly suffered a debilitating stroke on the set, ending his 14-year career. They hoped for a full recovery, but Curly never appeared in a film again except for a single cameo appearance in the third film after Shemp returned to the trio, Hold That Lion! (1947). It was the only film that contained all four of the original Stooges (the three Howard brothers and Larry) on screen simultaneously. According to Jules White, this came about when Curly visited the set one day, and White had him do this bit for fun. Curly's cameo appearance was recycled in the remake Booty and the Beast, released in 1953.

In 1949, Curly filmed a brief scene for Malice in the Palace (1949) as the restaurant's cook, but it was not used. Jules White's copy of the script contained the dialogue for this missing scene, and a production still of Curly does exist, appearing on both the film's original one-sheet and lobby card. Larry played the role of the cook in the final print.

Moe asked his older brother Shemp to take Curly's place, but Shemp was hesitant to rejoin the Stooges, as he was enjoying a successful solo career. He realized, however, that not rejoining the Stooges would mean the end of Moe and Larry's film careers. Shemp wanted assurances that rejoining them would be only temporary and that he could leave the Stooges once Curly recovered. However, Curly's health continued to deteriorate, and it became clear that he could not return. As a result, Shemp resumed being a Stooge full-time for nearly a decade. Curly remained ill until his death of a cerebral hemorrhage from additional strokes on January 18, 1952. He was 48-years old.

Shemp appeared with the Stooges in 76 shorts and a low-budget Western comedy feature titled Gold Raiders (1951) in which the screen time was evenly divided with cowboy hero George O'Brien. Shemp's return improved the quality of the films, as the previous few had been marred by Curly's sluggish performances. Entries such as Out West (1947), Squareheads of the Round Table (1948), and Punchy Cowpunchers (1950) proved that Shemp could hold his own. New director Edward Bernds, who joined the team in 1945 when Curly was failing, sensed that routines and plotlines that worked well with Curly as the comic focus did not fit Shemp's persona, and allowed the comedian to develop his own Stooge character. Jules White, however, persisted in employing the "living cartoon" style of comedy that reigned during the Curly era, forcing either Shemp or Moe to perform lackluster imitations of gags and mannerisms that originated from Curly. Most acutely, it created the "Curly vs. Shemp" debate that overshadowed the act upon Curly's departure. The Stooges lost some of their charm and inherent appeal to children after Curly retired. Curly, Larry, and Moe behaved like three cartoon characters, while Shemp, Larry, and Moe behaved like three vaudevillians -- but some excellent films were produced with Shemp, an accomplished solo comedian who often performed best when allowed to improvise on his own.

The films from the Shemp era contrast sharply with those from the Curly era, largely owing to the individual directing styles of Edward Bernds and Jules White. From 1947 to 1952, Bernds hit a string of successes, including Fright Night (1947), The Hot Scots, Mummy's Dummies, Crime on Their Hands (all 1948), Three Arabian Nuts (1951), and Gents in a Jam (1952). Three of the team's finest efforts were directed by Bernds: Brideless Groom (1947), Who Done It? (1949), and Punchy Cowpunchers (Bernds's own favorite, 1950). White also contributed a few fair entries, such as Hold That Lion! (1947), Hokus Pokus (1949), Scrambled Brains (1951), A Missed Fortune, and Corny Casanovas (both 1952).

Edward Bernds and Jules White.

Another benefit from the Shemp era was that Larry was given more time on screen. Throughout most of the Curly era, Larry was relegated to a background role, but by the time that Shemp rejoined the Stooges, Larry was allotted equal time, even becoming the focus of several films, in particular Fuelin' Around (1949) and He Cooked His Goose (1952).

The Stooge shorts were always welcome in theaters -- more specifically, those theaters that still found room for two-reel comedies in their programs. Many exhibitors singled out these slapstick comedies as their most popular short-subject attraction. In annual surveys of theater owners, the Stooge two-reelers generally placed among the top five live-action shorts series, behind the Pete Smith Specialties and the March of Time and This Is America documentaries. The Stooge series might well have placed even higher, as the trade journal Showmen's Trade Review commented in 1948: "The Three Stooges series fails to appear higher than it does simply because the double-feature policy precludes the wide exhibition this series might otherwise get. Perhaps the greatest tribute to the Stooges comedies is the fact that they have appeared among the Leading Short Subjects for 10 years. Some may come, some may go, but the Three Stooges seem to go on forever making people laugh and forget their troubles."

Television debut ~

The Three Stooges made their first appearance on television (in person, not their old films) in 1948. They were guest stars on Milton Berle's popular Texaco Star Theater and Morey Amsterdam's The Morey Amsterdam Show. By 1949, the team filmed a pilot for ABC-TV for their own weekly television series, titled Jerks of All Trades. Columbia Pictures blocked the series from going into production, but allowed the Stooges to make television guest appearances. The team went on to appear on Camel Comedy Caravan (also known as The Ed Wynn Show), The Kate Smith Hour, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Frank Sinatra Show, and The Eddie Cantor Comedy Theatre, among others.

Changes in film production ~

In 1952, the Stooges lost some key players at Columbia Pictures. The studio decided to downsize its short-subject division, resulting in producer Hugh McCollum being discharged and director Edward Bernds resigning out of loyalty to McCollum, and having had creative differences with Jules White. Screenwriter Elwood Ullman, who had worked closely with Bernds, also resigned. Bernds's departure left only White to direct the Stooges' remaining Columbia comedies. Not long after, the quality of the team's output markedly declined, with producer-director White now assuming complete control over production. DVD Talk critic Stuart Galbraith IV commented that "the Stooges' shorts became increasingly mechanical...and frequently substituted violent sight gags for story and characterization." Production was also significantly faster, with the former four-day filming schedules now tightened to two or three days. In another cost-cutting measure, White created a "new" Stooge short by borrowing footage from old ones, setting it in a slightly different storyline and filming a few new scenes, often with the same actors in the same costumes. White was initially very subtle when recycling older footage; he would reuse only a single sequence of old film, re-edited so cleverly that it was not easy to detect. The later shorts were cheaper and the recycling more obvious, with as much as 75% of the running time consisting of old footage. White came to rely so much on older material that he could film the "new" shorts in a single day. New footage filmed to link older material suffered from White's heavy-handed directing style and penchant for telling his actors how to act. Shemp, in particular, disliked working with White after 1952, when White was the Stooges' only director.

Three years after Curly's death, Shemp Howard died of a heart attack at age 60 on November 22, 1955, during a taxi ride home with a friend after attending a boxing match. Moe was stunned and contemplated disbanding the Stooges. Columbia, though, had promised exhibitors eight Stooge shorts for the year but only four had been completed, forcing producer Jules White to manufacture four more shorts "with Shemp". Old footage of Shemp was combined with new footage of Columbia supporting player Joe Palma doubling for him. These last four films were Rumpus in the Harem, Hot Stuff, Scheming Schemers, and Commotion on the Ocean (all released in 1956).

Joe Palma dubbed for Shemp who had died. Here Palma is shown bending over in one of the Stooges' shorts.

Joe Besser replaces Shemp (1956–1958) ~

Columbia was the last studio still producing live-action two-reel comedies; Warner Bros. ended its one-reel Joe McDoakes series in 1956, and the market for comedy shorts had all but ceased. As a result, Jules White told Columbia president Harry Cohn that he was shutting down the two-reel-comedy department. White canceled all of his comedy-shorts series in 1956, but Cohn insisted on keeping the Stooge comedies coming. In his own way, Cohn was sentimental about the team; Larry Fine recalled that Cohn once told the Stooges, "As long as I'm president, you've got a job at Columbia."

By this time, Moe Howard and Larry Fine were carrying the short-subject series as a two-man team, with Shemp Howard seen entirely in older footage. Larry suggested that he and Moe could continue working as "The Two Stooges." Columbia flatly refused, having promoted the team as "The Three Stooges" for decades, and Moe was forced to recruit a third Stooge. Several comedians were considered, including burlesque comic and former Ted Healy stooge Paul "Mousie" Garner, and noted African-American comedian Mantan Moreland, but Columbia insisted on a comedian already under contract to the studio. They agreed on Joe Besser, who appeared in the final 16 Stooge shorts at Columbia. Besser had been starring in his own short-subject comedies for the studio since 1949 and appeared in supporting roles in a variety of movies, so his screen character was sufficiently familiar.

Joe Besser with Moe Hoard.

Besser had observed how one side of Larry Fine's face appeared "calloused", so he had a clause in his contract specifically prohibiting him from being hit beyond an infrequent tap, though this restriction was later lifted. "I usually played the kind of character who would hit others back," Besser recalled.

Despite Besser's prolific film and stage career, Stooge entries featuring him have often been considered the team's weakest. During his tenure, the films were assailed as questionable models for youth, and in response began to resemble television sitcoms. Sitcoms, however, were available for free on television, quickly making the short film an artifact of a bygone era. Besser was a talented comic, and was quite popular as "Stinky" on The Abbott and Costello Show, but his whining mannerisms and resistance to slapstick punishment did not match the films' established format of continuous physical comedy. His presence, though, did create verbal friction between Moe and Larry, improving their mutually insulting banter.

The Besser Stooge shorts were of inconsistent quality, alternating between fresh, original material and tired rehashes. Fully half of these shorts contained all-new scripts, experimenting with science-fiction, fantasy, and musical-comedy formats. The other eight scripts were remakes, based on earlier Stooge comedies. Budgets were lower than ever, and Moe and Larry's advanced ages prohibited them from performing much of their trademark physical comedy. Besser had suggested that Moe and Larry comb their hair back to give them a more gentlemanly appearance; while both Moe and Jules White approved of the idea, they used it sparingly. Their other films—remakes of older comedies—required the familiar Stooge haircuts to match the older footage.

In general, the remakes among the Besser shorts had the traditional Stooges knockabout, such as 1958's Pies and Guys (a scene-for-scene remake of Half-Wits Holiday, which itself was a reworking of the earlier Hoi Polloi), Guns a Poppin (1957), Rusty Romeos (1957), and Triple Crossed (1959). In contrast, Hoofs and Goofs and Horsing Around, both featuring a trained horse, and Muscle Up a Little Closer (all 1957) mostly resembled the sitcoms of the era. A Merry Mix Up (1957) cast the Stooges as three sets of triplets, and Oil's Well That Ends Well (1958) had no supporting cast at all, with the Stooges working entirely by themselves for the only time in their Columbia career. The musical Sweet and Hot (1958) deserves some credit for straying from the norm. The American science-fiction craze also led to three entries focusing on space travel: Space Ship Sappy, Outer Space Jitters (both 1957), and Flying Saucer Daffy (1958).

Jules White finally closed the comedy-shorts unit at the end of 1957. His final Stooge comedy was Flying Saucer Daffy, filmed December 19–20, 1957. Within the week, the Stooges were fired from Columbia Pictures after 24 years of employment.

No formal goodbyes or congratulatory celebrations occurred in recognition of their work and of the money that their comedies had earned for the studio. Moe visited Columbia several weeks after the dismissal to say goodbye to several executives, but was refused entry without the current year's studio pass. He later stated that it was a crushing blow to his pride.

The studio had enough completed Stooge films to be released over the next 18 months, though not in the order in which they were produced. The final Stooge release, Sappy Bull Fighters, did not reach theaters until June 4, 1959. With no active contract in place, Moe and Larry discussed plans for a personal-appearance tour. In the meantime, Besser's wife suffered a minor heart attack and he preferred to stay local, leading him to withdraw from the act.

Comeback with Joe DeRita (1958–1970) ~

After Besser's departure, Moe and Larry began looking for potential replacements. Larry suggested former Ted Healy stooge Paul "Mousie" Garner, but based on his tryout performance, Moe later remarked that he was "completely unacceptable." Weeks later, Larry came across burlesque performer Joe DeRita, who had starred in his own series of shorts at Columbia back in the 1940s, and thought he would be a good fit.

Moe, Larry and Joe DeRita in an auto polish commercial in the 1960s.

The early days of television provided movie studios a place to unload a backlog of short films that they thought no longer marketable, and the Stooge films seemed perfect for the burgeoning genre. ABC had even expressed interest as far back as 1949, purchasing exclusive rights to 30 of the trio's shorts and commissioning a pilot for a potential series, Jerks of All Trades. However, the success of television revivals for such names as Laurel and Hardy, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, and the Our Gang series in the late 1950s led Columbia to cash in again on the Stooges. In September 1958, Columbia's television subsidiary Screen Gems offered a package consisting of 78 Stooge shorts (primarily from the Curly era), which were well received.

An additional 40 shorts hit the market in April 1959. By September 1959, all 190 Stooge shorts were airing regularly. With so many films available for broadcast, daily television airings provided heavy exposure aimed squarely at children. Parents who had grown up seeing the same films in the theaters began to watch alongside their children.

After the Curly-era shorts were found to be the most popular, Moe suggested that DeRita shave his head to accentuate his slight resemblance to Curly Howard. He adopted first a crew cut and later a completely shaven head, thus becoming "Curly Joe". Howard, Fine, and DeRita found themselves in great demand for personal appearances and guest shots on television. DeRita made his first nationwide appearance with the Stooges on Sunday, January 11, 1959, on the Steve Allen variety show on NBC; the Stooges re-created their "Stand-In" sketch, with Moe and Larry making a western movie and Curly Joe (who did not speak) as the hapless double who takes all the punishment.

The Three Stooges, Larry, Joe DeRita and Moe on the Steve Allen Show, 1959.

Columbia, which was still releasing Stooge shorts to theaters, cashed in on the Stooges' spectacular show-business comeback by signing the team for new feature-length films. The first, Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959), was produced by the Stooges' agent, Harry Romm. The second was a quickie compilation film produced by Romm, Stop! Look! and Laugh! (1960), with "The Original Three Stooges" seen entirely in old short-subject extracts with Curly Howard, and new footage with ventriloquist Paul Winchell and animal act The Marquis Chimps.

The Stooges were hired by Twentieth Century-Fox to co-star in a Technicolor feature with Olympic skater Carol Heiss; Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961), co-written by Noel Langley of The Wizard of Oz, fell short of box office expectations, ultimately losing $2,300,000 when the domestic and international returns were tallied. The Stooges resumed making their new kiddie-matinée features, which were now produced independently by Moe's son-in-law Norman Maurer and released through Columbia: The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962), The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962), The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963), and The Outlaws is Coming! (1965).

3-Stooges in Orbit.

The team had an extremely brief cameo in the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), appearing as firemen. They appeared in a larger capacity in 1963 in 4 for Texas starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Throughout the early 1960s, the Stooges were one of the most popular and highest-paid live acts in America. They played theaters, summer festivals, fairgrounds, and other venues, and twice performed as the featured act at the Canadian National Exhibition. In 1968, they toured Hawaii where they starred in the International 3-Ring Circus at the Honolulu International Center.

The Stooges also tried their hand at another weekly television series in 1960 titled The Three Stooges Scrapbook, filmed in color and with a laugh track. The first episode, "Home Cooking", featured the boys rehearsing for a new television show. Like Jerks of All Trades in 1949, the pilot did not sell, though Norman Maurer was able to reuse the footage (reprocessed in black and white) for the first 10 minutes of The Three Stooges in Orbit.

The trio also filmed 41 short comedy skits for The New 3 Stooges in 1965, which features a series of 156 animated cartoons produced for television. The Stooges appeared in live-action color footage, which preceded and followed each animated adventure in which they voiced their respective characters.

During this period, the Stooges appeared on numerous television shows, including The Steve Allen Show, Here's Hollywood, Masquerade Party, The Ed Sullivan Show, Danny Thomas Meets the Comics, The Joey Bishop Show, Off to See the Wizard, and Truth or Consequences.

The 3-Stooges with Ed Sullivan.

Final years (1970–1975) ~

In late 1969, Howard, Fine, and DeRita began production on another half-hour pilot, this time for a syndicated 39-episode TV series titled Kook's Tour, a combination travelogue-sitcom that had the "retired" Stooges traveling to various parts of the world with the episodes filmed on location. On January 9, 1970, during production of the pilot, Larry suffered a paralyzing stroke, ending his acting career along with plans for the television series. The pilot was unfinished and several key shots were missing, but producer Norman Maurer edited the available footage and made the pilot a 52-minute special that was released to the home-movie and Cartrivision videocassette home-video markets in 1973. It is the last film in which the Stooges appeared and the last known performance of the team.

Kook's Tour.

Following Larry Fine's stroke, plans were made for Emil Sitka (a longtime "straight man" in the Stooges films) to replace him in a new feature film, written by Moe Howard's grandson, Jeffrey Scott [Maurer], titled Make Love, Not War. Moe Howard, Joe DeRita, and Emil Sitka were cast as POWs in a World War II Japanese prison camp, plotting an escape with fellow prisoners. The film would have been a departure from typical Stooge fare, with dark-edged humor and scenes of war violence, but insufficient funding prevented production from advancing beyond the script stage.

Emil Sitka.

Also in 1970, Joe DeRita recruited vaudeville veterans Frank Mitchell and Mousie Garner to tour as The New Three Stooges. Garner had worked with Ted Healy as one of his "replacement stooges" decades earlier and was briefly considered as Joe Besser's replacement in 1958. Mitchell had appeared in two of the Stooges' short subjects in 1953. The act fared poorly, with minimal bookings. By this time, Moe's wife had prevailed on him to retire from performing slapstick due to his age. For the next several years, Moe appeared regularly on talk shows and did speaking engagements at colleges, while DeRita quietly retired.

Moe Howard.

Larry suffered another stroke in mid-December 1974, and another one in January 1975, even more severe. After slipping into a coma, he died a week later from a cerebral hemorrhage on January 24, 1975.

Larry Fine at lunch at the Highlander Inn and Larry at home standing in front of his wheelchair.

Before Larry's death, the Stooges were scheduled to co-star in the R-rated comedy Blazing Stewardesses, featuring Moe and Curly Joe with Emil Sitka in the middle spot as Harry, Larry's brother. The team was signed and publicity shots were taken, but one week prior to March's filming date, Moe was diagnosed with lung cancer and the Stooges had to back out; he died on May 4, 1975. Producer Sam Sherman briefly considered having former Stooge Joe Besser appear in his place, but ultimately decided against it. Another veteran comedy team, The Ritz Brothers, Harry and Jimmy, replaced the Stooges and performed much of their own schtick, including the precision dance routine first seen in Sing, Baby, Sing (1936), co-starring original Stooge leader Ted Healy.

As for the remaining original replacement stooges, Joe Besser died of heart failure on March 1, 1988, followed by Joe DeRita's death of pneumonia on July 3, 1993. Emil Sitka was announced as a Stooge, but never performed as such beyond posing for a few publicity photographs in character; he died on January 16, 1998, six months after being disabled by a stroke.

Legacy and perspective ~

Over 60 years since their last short film was released, the Three Stooges remain popular. Their films have never left American television since first appearing in 1958. Authors Ted Okuda and Edward Watz assess the Stooges as hard-working comedians who were never critics' favorites, a durable act that endured several personnel changes in careers that would have permanently sidelined a less persistent act. They would not have lasted as long as they did as a unit without Moe Howard's guiding hand.

Okuda and Watz's book The Columbia Comedy Shorts puts the Stooges' act in critical perspective:

Many scholarly studies of motion-picture comedy have overlooked the Three Stooges entirely – and not without valid reasoning. Aesthetically, the Stooges violated every rule that constitutes "good" comedic style. Their characters lacked the emotional depth of Charlie Chaplin and Harry Langdon; they were never as witty or subtle as Buster Keaton. They were not disciplined enough to sustain lengthy comic sequences; far too often, they were willing to suspend what little narrative structure their pictures possessed in order to insert a number of gratuitous jokes. Nearly every premise they have employed (spoofs of Westerns, horror films, costume melodramas) has been done to better effect by other comedians. And yet, in spite of the overwhelming artistic odds against them, they were responsible for some of the finest comedies ever made. Their humor was the most undistilled form of low comedy; they were not great innovators, but as quick-laugh practitioners, they place second to none. If public taste is any criterion, the Stooges have been the reigning kings of comedy for over 50 years.

Beginning in the 1980s, the Stooges finally began to receive critical recognition. The release of nearly all their films on DVD by 2010 allowed critics of Joe Besser and Joe DeRita—often the recipients of significant fan backlash—to appreciate both men's unique styles of comedy. The DVD market has also allowed fans to view the entire Stooge film corpus as distinct periods in their long career, rather than unfairly comparing one Stooge to another (the Curly vs. Shemp debate continues to this day, with Joe Besser not even mentioned in the same breath).

The team appeared in 220 films, but authors Okuda and Watz agree that their series of 190 two-reel comedies for Columbia is their enduring legacy. In 1984, American television personality Steve Allen said, "Although they never achieved widespread critical acclaim, they did succeed in accomplishing what they had always intended to do: They made people laugh."

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Museum ~

Gary Lassin, grandnephew-in-law of Larry Fine, opened the Stoogeum in 2004 in Spring House, Pennsylvania, 25 miles (40 km) north of Philadelphia. It features three floors of exhibits and an 85-seat theater. Peter Seely, editor of the book Stoogeology: Essays on the Three Stooges, said that the Stoogeum has "more stuff than I even imagined existed." Some 2,500 people visit it yearly, many during the annual Three Stooges Fan Club gathering in April.

A display at the museum.

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In foreign languages ~

In most other languages, the Three Stooges are known by some corresponding variant of their English name. In Chinese, however, the trio is known idiomatically as Sānge Chòu Píjiàng (三個臭皮匠) or Huóbǎo Sānrénzǔ (活寶三人組). Sānge Chòu Píjiàng, literally "Three Smelly Shoemakers", which derives from a saying in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Sāngè chòu píjiàng shèngguò yīgè Zhūgě Liàng (三個臭皮匠，勝過一個諸葛亮) or "Three smelly shoemakers (are enough to) overcome one Zhuge Liang [a hero of the story]", i.e. three inferior people can overpower a superior person when they combine their strength. Huóbǎo Sānrénzǔ translates as "Trio of Buffoons". Likewise in Japanese they are known as San Baka Taishō (三ばか大将) meaning "Three Idiot Generals" or "Three Baka Generals".

The Stooges weren’t only stars in the U.S. They had their admirers – and impersonators – all over the world, including in Japan. These three Larry, Moe and Curly-Joe lookalikes replicated the Stooges in the 1963 movie The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (right), made after their late-1950s resurgence in popularity.