Three Little Pigskins

This Three Stooges short is from 1934: 

Also known as “The Three Stooges short featuring Lucille Ball.” This was one of her earliest credited roles, in fact. She did not have much of an opportunity to showcase many of her talents in the roll of one of a trio of molls of a pro football team’s owners… who are also gangsters.

In a common trope for Howard, Fine, & Howard, they were portrayed as characters so broke they needed to beg for nickels. In the midst of the Great Depression, naturally the audience would sympathize w/ them. Due to a misunderstanding, the ladies believe that the trio are The Three Horsemen (a reference to The Four Horsemen, a famous college football quartet at Notre Dame in the 1920’s), college football stars.

Before the big football game that comprises the final few minutes, the comedy comes from the misunderstanding and the boys chillin’ with the girls in a large apartment. I did laugh that in heels, Ball towered over the Stooges. They were all of short stature but even if you ever noticed, it was never a big deal. Once on the gridiron, they made mockery of football as they later did to other sports. Even garnering a laugh for me was that their numbers were ½, a ? and the chemical formula to hydrogen peroxide.

Three Little Pigskins was more than just a supporting role for someone that became legendary a few decades later. It is also more than the short where the leads refused to be gang-tackled by actual football players; this was a wise decision as two of their stunt doubles suffered broken bones.