I View Two More Three Stooges Shorts

The first was 1935's Pop Goes the Easel: 

(Short # 7 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

“Don’t worry, you know the old saying… easel come, easel go.”

The first classic Stooge short, I’ve come to realize via going through these chronologically. I’ll offer an explanation as to why.

Once again the boys are all poor, begging for a job via signs; audiences in the Great Depression will sympathize. As happened in later shorts, circumstances caused them to be chased by a police officer, and their hiding place is unfamiliar ground. In this case, an art school will rue the day that Moe, Larry & Curly enter their rooms.

Pop Goes the Easel made me laugh often. There’s no shortage of memorable jokes & one-liners. There is plenty of creative slapstick, gags and different objects that are used, usually by Moe to his two pals. The gags are quite funny, including what proved to be a frequent trope: Curly and/or the other two dress in drag to avoid capture/confrontation.

The cop occasionally appears throughout and the highlight: the first instance of food/a similar substance being thrown at people, escalating to pure chaos. In this case, it wasn’t pie or pastries; rather, it was clay but the result was the same. If you look close enough it was clearly two different takes edited together (the most glaring example is that a brunette character is replaced by a blonde) but it’s irrelevant in this case with all the laughs and slapstick.

Oh, and it’s neat that in a brief moment involving two girls playing hopscotch, the girls were played by the daughter of Moe Howard and the daughter of Larry Fine.

The second was 1935's Uncivil Warriors: 

(Short # 8 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

It wasn’t my plan this weekend to post two reviews of Stooge shorts on Sunday. What changed: fatigue throughout the weekend, plus discovering earlier on Sunday that a Letterboxd was also starting an objective to review all The Three Stooges Columbia shorts. Hopefully they have as good a time w/ the task as I am so far. As for Uncivil Warriors, the Civil War setting thankfully did not lead to any moments that aged horribly by 2025 standards, aside from one iffy line concerning “a suntan” that doesn’t offend me but others may feel different.

As much as I love Buster Keaton’s The General, it is unfortunate due to the implications that he plays a Confederate soldier. At least here, Howard, Fine, & Howard are Union soldiers. They are tasked for a clandestine mission behind enemy lines to acquire information.

To utter what has become a common refrain, several gags introduced here would appear in later shorts. They had a large bag of tricks, for sure. It ranged from the “Good Time Charlie” bit (don’t ask) to the oblivious consumption of inedible items. In this case, a mix-up in a kitchen results in the boys eating a potholder thinking it’s cake, resulting in a feathery mess.

While not a highlight for me, it’s still a fine 19 minutes where Bud Jamison amusingly portrayed a Colonel Buttz and Curly dresses as a woman again. Time was spent outdoors and that aspect alone was a nice change of pace.