The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Two: 1937-1939 DVD Review
By Casey Richards
You are either with us or against us. Yes, when it comes to The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Two: 1937-1939, there really is no in between. You’ll either love the hysterically uncouth antics of Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard, or you’ll turn up your nose at their shenanigans. If you’re in the latter group, that’s okay. You’re in the perfect position for the rest of us to grab you by the nose and lead you over to the TV for another look.
In “Dizzy Doctors,” the Stooges have a hectic schedule—they wake up at ten o’clock, eat breakfast, and then head back to bed for a nap by five after ten. This doesn’t exactly please their working wives, who insist that the slugabeds get jobs. They are in luck, though: Brighto Tonic (tagline: “Brightens Old Bones”) is looking for salesmen. Being the Stooges, they don’t quite understand that the product is made for ingestion. Instead, they try selling it as an all-purpose cleaner. They end up dissolving someone’s shoes, removing a spot (and the fabric) from a cop’s jacket, and stripping the paint off of a fancy car. When they finally figure out that Brighto is a medicine, they run off to the local hospital where things come to a head...literally...when they try to use Brighto as a topical cure for dandruff.
Really, though, the plots can be summarized in one or two sentences. The Stooges set a new low in etiquette when, believing they are trained escorts rather than exterminators, the guests at a swanky party begin to follow their lead (“Termites of 1938”). Curly is “tetched by tassels” when the trio is mistakenly hired to redecorate a socialite’s home (“Tassels in the Air”). When Curly wins $50,000 in a jingle writing contest, the Stooges move into the Hotel Coste Plente and are pursued by gold diggers. Too bad the $50,000 prize amounts to $4.85 after taxes and fees (“Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb”). Tired of being short order chefs, the trio trades their shares in a diner for shares in racehorse Thunderbolt, a swayback nag they coax into running by shoving red peppers down its gullet (“Playing the Ponies”). The Stooges break out of jail to prevent their newly-wealthy father from divorcing their mother and marrying a swindler (“Three Dumb Clucks”). They open a Rube Goldbergian dog grooming service and are inadvertently accused of kidnapping their customer’s baby (“Mutts to You”).
These plotlines are the mere starting point of a series of sight gags, slapstick, pratfalls, head-butting, and eye-poking, all accompanied by all an imaginatively vivid soundtrack (“Boink!” “Whoop whoop whoop whoop!” “Ruff! Ruff!”). Sophisticated? No. Laugh-out-loud funny? Yes.
For you sticklers, yes, The Three Stooges shorts were made for the big screen rather than for television. But when the shorts were syndicated in the 1950s, they became beloved by generations of TV viewers. This collection presents twenty-four shorts in the order they were releases: “Grips, Grunts and Groans,” “Dizzy Doctors,” “Three Dumb Clucks,” “Back to the Woods,” “Goofs and Saddles,” “Cash and Carry,” “Playing the Ponies,” and “The Sitter-Downers” from 1937; “Termites of 1938,” “Wee Wee Monsieur,” “Tassels in the Air,” “Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb,” “Violent is the Word for Curly,” “Three Missing Links,” “Mutts to You,” and “Flat Foot Stooges” from 1938; and “Three Little Sew and Sews,” “We Want Our Mummy,” “A Ducking They Did Go,” “Yes, We Have No Bonanza,” “Saved By the Belle,” “Calling All Curs,” “Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise,” and “Three Sappy People” from 1939.
The shorts are divided onto two discs. Each disc is housed in a clear, slim keepcase. The backs of the keepcases include the titles of the shorts as well a brief synopsis. The keepcases slide into an outer cardboard sleeve.
