The Three Stooges

I've been watching some of the Three Stooges movies again. I have the various sets, the chronological DVD releases. Some of them I'm not a big fan of, in particular any that have to do with Nazis or the Japanese in WWII. Every Stooges film is dated in a sense, but these are especially so.

The one I really dislike is "They Stooge to Conga." It's the most violent episode, and I'm not that squeamish about normal Stooges violence, but this one is way beyond comfortable. And it involves the Nazis. Seeing Moe go through the wall and get injured (in reality he was injured doing this) isn't so bad, but having to see the spike go in his eye or head is too much.

"Busy Buddies" is an episode I've had. We used to record some of them off TV and watch them over and over. So I know exactly what to expect in it, and love it as an episode. My family has Curly's line "I drink coffee" as a catch phrase type of thing.

In "Crash Goes the Hash" there's something that bothers me. There's an actual reference to the Three Stooges in it! They show up to be butlers at someone's party and in all their acting up, a guy says, scolding them, that they remind him of the Three Stooges! I have a problem with that, because if the Three Stooges exist in the world at the same time as these three guys, wouldn't everyone notice that they're identical to them? And wouldn't it make these three guys very self conscious of their antics? So that's too circular for me, like one of those time machine conundrums.

I wonder why there aren't Three Stooges outtakes and alternate takes. The way a lot of their wilder antics went, they had to be set up and redone over and over to get them precisely right. Like when the dummy flies over the fence in "Busy Buddies," I have to believe that wasn't done in one take. I'd love to see some film of them actually making the films.