Retro : Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk! Woo, Woo, Woo, Woo! : TBS SALUTES CURLEY THE STOOGE WITH AN EIGHT-HOUR MARATHON

A movie reference book describes Curly Howard simply as an “American comedy actor; the fat, bald member of the Three Stooges.”

Well, any knucklehead soitenly knows that Curly was the pun and soul of the slapstick comedy team.

On Friday, TBS devotes an entire night to the rotund funster. “TBS Salutes the Three Stooges: Happy Birthday Curly” features eight hours of vintage shorts starring Curly, Moe and Larry. Sounds like more fun than a couple of knocks on the noggin’ or two-finger pokes in the eyes.

Jerome (Curly) Howard was born Jerome Lester Horowitz in Brooklyn 90 years ago. Originally, the Stooges began in vaudeville in 1923 as Ted Healy and His Stooges. At that point, the act consisted of Healy, who later died under mysterious circumstances, and brothers Moe Howard (Moses Harry Horowitz) and Shemp (Samuel Horowitz). Bozo-haired Larry Fine (Lawrence Feinberg) joined the act in 1928.

They made their first screen appearance in 1930 in “Soup to Nuts,” where they were billed as the Racketeers. Shortly afterward, Shemp left to start a solo acting career and Curly came on board. The foursome appeared in a few more films, including Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy’s first, “Dancing Lady.”

But by 1934, Healy and the Stooges had parted company. The trio went over to Columbia and began making two-reelers. They continued churning them out at an average of eight per year until 1958. Their first short was 1934’s “Woman Haters,” in which the dialogue was in rhyming couplets. At Columbia, the team really jelled, with Curly’s monkeyshines stealing every scene he was in. His “‘Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!” laugh became wildly imitated, as well as his excitable exclamation: ‘Woo, Woo, Woo, Woo!”

The Stooges lost the 1934 Oscar for best short subject to Disney’s animated “Three Little Pigs.” The following year, the comedy team got back at Disney by starring in the short “Three Little Pigskins.”

Curly suffered a stroke in 1946. His last Stooges short was “Half-Wits Holiday,” released in 1947. He died Jan. 19, 1952, in San Gabriel. After Curly’s stroke, Shemp came back and continued until his death in 1955. He later was replaced by Joe Besser and then Joe DeRita. But the Three Stooges were never the same without Curly.

Among the classically lowbrow shorts are “Three Little Beers”; “Hoi Polloi,” which bears an amazing resemblance to the 1983 Eddie Murphy hit “Trading Places”; “Cactus Makes Perfect”; “Men in Black,” which received an Oscar nomination; “Violent Is the Word for Curly”; “Punch Drunk,” and “Woman Haters,” the first Curly, Moe and Larry Columbia Studios short.

During the marathon, TBS will air the results of its “Calling All Curlys” contest, which features the top Curly impressions sent in on videotape by viewers.

“TBS Salutes The Three Stooges: Happy Birthday Curly” begins Friday at 5:05 p.m. on TBS.