Ants in the Pantry

This is the start of 1936 shorts for the Stooges: 

(Short # 12 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

This was another short viewed often due to it being on one of the three VHS tapes of Stooge material that my parents purchased for me as a kid. That will not factor into my rating; Ants in the Pantry will forever be amusing.

The trio are exterminators; their employer (A. Mouser) is rankled that business is down. He tells them to plant pests in a house so that the owners would hire them. They happened to choose a mansion hosting a soiree at the time. After planting mice, moths, & ants, Beulah Burlap indeed hires them; despite her plea to not be conspicuous, Howard, Fine, & Howard are indeed that, culminating in a disastrous incident at a piano where a sack full of cats are hidden.

The expected mayhem from them is great; so is the one-liners such as this classic bit: Larry is poked in the eyes, he yells, “I can’t see! I can’t see!” The other two respond in unison, “What’s the matter?” w/ the reply, “I got my eyes closed” resulting in another eye poke. The final scene is a fox hunt which has little to do with the rest; still, no complaints. One Stooge rides a bicycle on this hunt, another a donkey. As the final gag has always made me chortle, Ants in the Pantry is a short I’ll always dig.

As sometimes occurred, this story was remade for a Shemp short; in this case, 1951’s Pest Man Wins… which allegedly is even better than this but I don’t have any memories of ever watching it. I’ll find out in a few months.