‘The Boys’ Were in It for the Nyucks

I am a world-renowned authority on the Three Stooges, a distinction that not only looks good on a resume but also is a constant source of pride to my family. Modesty prevents me from being too boastful, mainly because this is not the kind of thing a 46-year-old man likes to brag about, but I am eminently qualified to be a Stooge expert.

First, I have been a Three Stooges fan since I was a kid, have seen virtually all their movies at least a thousand times each and can recite entire Stooge routines from memory, which puts me in great demand on the social circuit.

Second, in 1990, I was first runner-up in the National Curly Howard Sound-Alike Contest. (Contestants had to call a 900 number and do Curly imitations into the telephone. I won $100 and some Stooge paraphernalia.)

And third, I have attended two Three Stooges conventions. Although I once lost the Curly Shuffle Contest to a 4-year-old girl, I became well-acquainted with members of the various Stooge families. I was even poked in the eyes by Moe’s daughter.

So I am not at all surprised that “the boys,” as they were always called, are more popular than ever.

Their short films, which were made for Columbia Pictures from 1934 to 1958, are being shown every Saturday and Sunday morning on cable’s American Movie Classics. And Monday night, ABC broadcast “The Three Stooges,” a two-hour made-for-TV movie that traced the team from its vaudeville beginnings to 1959, when Columbia released the Stooges’ short subjects to television, gaining the boys a new generation of fans--including yours truly.

To understand why the Stooges have become cultural icons, it is important to address two subjects that have brought them their greatest notoriety: sex and violence.

It is a scientific fact that when it comes to sex, men love the Stooges and women hate them. There are, of course, exceptions. Knuckleheads of both sexes know who they are. Still, in 1993, Don Morlan, a film historian and professor of communications at the University of Dayton, delivered a lecture titled “Women Who Hate the Three Stooges and the Men Who Love Them.”

According to Morlan, there are four main reasons that women hate the Stooges: (a) men love them, (b) they’re too violent, (c) they’re ugly and (d) women are not portrayed flatteringly in Stooge films. It doesn’t help that the title of the Stooges’ first Columbia short was “Woman Haters.”

As for violence, the Stooges have long been criticized, mostly by parents of impressionable youngsters, for their antisocial behavior.

When I was a kid, my mother didn’t want me to watch the Three Stooges. She was deathly afraid that one day, whipped into a slap-stick frenzy from prolonged exposure to these lamebrains, I would go down to the cellar, get a hammer from my father’s tool cabinet and bang my little sister over the head with it. I never did, of course, because I probably would have ruined the hammer on my sister’s iron skull.

Also, I heeded the advice given by Officer Joe Bolton, host of a daily Stooges TV show, who always warned kids not to act like the Stooges. “Remember,” he would say, “the Stooges are professionals.” This naturally begged the question: Professionals at what? Aggravated assault?

Today, I am a relatively normal person, a loving husband and father, a contributing member of society who pays his taxes, behaves well in public and does not (as yet) have a criminal record.

I also now am mature enough to understand the Three Stooges as artists. The thing I understand most is that they never pretended to be artists. They would do anything--absolutely anything--for a laugh. Subtlety was not their forte, and they never sought compassion, which is why they have always been reviled by serious film critics. Of course, it is easy to say: “What do they know?”

So I will: “What do they know?”

What I know is that the Stooges were funny. That’s what comedians are supposed to be. It doesn’t matter how they do it. Besides, the Stooges elevated stupidity to an art form. And what they lacked in brains they made up for in a social conscience: They mercilessly attacked the rich and pompous during the Great Depression and were the first comedians to lampoon Hitler.

But the reason the Stooges are so popular is that they make us feel good. They are us as we would like to be. Not all the time, certainly, but at least on those occasions when, pushed beyond endurance by the banes of our existence--a snooty waiter, rude customer, officious clerk, bullying cop, obdurate boss--we would love nothing more than to retaliate with a tweak of the nose or a pie in the face.

We can’t do these things, of course, not in a civilized society that at times seems horribly uncivilized. Then again, we don’t have to. The Stooges do them for us.