A Plumbing We Will Go

(Short # 46 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

There is certainly nostalgia with my rating; blame it on its presence on a VHS tape purchased by my parents when I was a kid. At the same time, this has near-universal acclaim by fans as one of the best shorts they ever did—I agree. After a stroke of luck in being found innocent of a crime they committed, they ran afoul of the law again. Cop Bud Jamison chases them and after an incident involving a snake oil salesman doing a magician act (he’s seen again at the end), they hijack a plumber’s truck and by a stroke of luck, they stop at a mansion which has a leaky pipe in the basement.

Whether together or separated, they were riotous. Everything went wrong; Moe stayed in the basement while Curly spent some time in an upstairs bathroom, under the belief that this would shut off the water-- Larry went outside to do the same. There was no shortage of sight gags, puns, and destruction throughout. A Plumbing We Will Go was the introduction of Dudley Dickerson, a Black actor who in a later era would have received more work and been better recognized for his talents.

He was spotlighted here as the chef. As the plumbing job went from the sublime to the ridiculous, his reactions to the bedlam were tremendous. It was more than the typical bit part he typically was saddled with. Also a delight was the punchline to the joke involving… a television, then incredibly rare and only something the uber-rich could afford. As the ending was absurd in the best way, Plumbing is a classic that will never grow old.