Find-A-Grave -- Shemp Howard

I love Shemp of the Three Stooges.

I've been watching the films after he replaced Curly.

Shemp is genuinely and wildly funny. I laughed really hard when Moe got his foot crushed by a car falling on it. When they got him out, Shemp says, "So how was it? Pretty heavy?" Something like that. A funny, funny line.

Here's Shemp's final resting place. He's in a mausoleum, slid into a wall. He died in 1955.

I'm not going to "leave a note" at his grave's webpage, unless there's some indication that he's been reading them. But what would I say if I did? "Uh, Shemp, hi. Sorry you're dead. Some people, you may know, groan when they see you're going to be in the film instead of Curly. I love Curly, too, but I don't groan (anymore), because I think you're very great. How are the other three? Are they where you are? Do all Stooges go to heaven?"

I'm Loving Shemp

The other day I made the necessary transition from Curly to Shemp in my quest to watch all the Three Stooges' Columbia short films. Curly had to go and have a stroke on me, meaning he dropped out of the group. (Just because it happened a long time ago, before I was even born, I still take these things very personally.)

I've seen Shemp over the years. I'm sure I remember some of these from childhood. We always watched the Stooges on TV at my grandparents. And definitely the one about "I have a sister this high, I have a brother this high" ("Fright Night"), to me is the classic Shemp scene. Very memorable to me. Some of the others, just speaking of the first Shemp episodes, I've seen on video cassettes, since "Six Pants" and "Brideless Groom" are, I believe, commonly duplicated, being out of copyright somehow.

Reading up on it, in "Brideless Groom," I read Shemp actually had his nose broken in the scene where the young lady is slapping him and finally slugs him.

These are very funny films. Shemp does a marvelous job. There's quite a different vibe from the Curly films. But Shemp is not lacking anything when it comes to being an entertaining and wonderful Stooge. And Larry and Moe never lost a thing either. I laughed out loud several times, but once unexpectedly, when Shemp has a fishbowl stuck on his head (in "Hold That Lion"). He's going "glub, blug," etc., trying to tell Moe and Larry to get it off. Moe says, "What'd he say?" And Larry just repeats the nonsense "glub" stuff. Moe's mad. It's a funny funny scene.

The Traumatic Transition

The new Three Stooges volume is out this week. I knew it was coming in March but not exactly what week.

Here's an interesting snippet from the NY Times:

THE THREE STOOGES COLLECTION, VOL. 5: 1946-1948 Sony continues its series of meticulously restored Three Stooges shorts with 25 titles that bridge the traumatic transition from Curly to Shemp. ($24.96, not rated)

I like the phrase there. The episodes in this collection "bridge the traumatic transition from Curly to Shemp."

Shemp has his own thing, various delights that are uniquely Shemp. I've been guilty over the years of going "Oh, it's a Shemp one!" but now I'm over that, I hope. I like Shemp OK. His "bee bee bee bee" noise, his "I have a brother this high," the way his hair goes crazy when he's being punished in various ways...

I've watched Shemp but not as much as Curly, so I hope the transition isn't too traumatic. It was probably traumatic for the Stooges. Curly was a brother, then Shemp came back into the act with Curly's troubles.

The problem with Shemp isn't so much Shemp, but the iconic look of a guy with bangs, a guy with frizzy hair, and a guy with a butch that you need.

A Plumbing We Will Go

I was watching the Three Stooges' classic "A Plumbling We Will Go" this morning. I notice it always gets 4 or 5 stars, whichever is the best, from critics and fans.

I like it too. It's got lots of cool things, including the Stooges appearing in a magician's magic box. They're mistaken for plumbers, since they've stolen a plumber's truck, and when they come in to work on the plumbing, that's the last of the plumbing.

Curly is in the bathroom, and he doesn't realize that hooking up a piece of pipe to another piece of pipe that has water pouring from it will also soon have water pouring from the new pipe. He's very surprised. But he manages, with some extra work, to make a complete pipe trap, and there he is in the middle.

Larry thinks a lady's girdle is a straitjacket. But whatever it is, it makes a nice patch on a hole in the heating pipe he accidentally made. Moe is in the basement, directing the others in some of their labors, including Curly pulling the wires out of electrical pipe. They think a pipe is no place to keep wires.

An interesting bit in this show is the lady of the house demonstrates her new television. I don't think it's an actual television, but it at least looks like one. The announcer sends them to Niagara Falls, and it's exciting for the guests to see it. But then, because the Stooges have mixed the electricity and the water pipes, soon the TV screen is punctured and water comes pouring out.

At the end the magician is back and this time they have a nice special effect to have the Stooges plus motorcycle cops coming from the magician's box. You can see it faded out at the edges because it's some kind of overlay, but it seems like a nice way to end the comedy.