OK, I admit it. I love the Three Stooges! Maybe it's a generational thing, because baby boomers like me had been deluged with the Three Stooges shorts on Television throughout our formative years. These were the days when there was no Nickelodeon, no Cable, and our TV had only 4 channels. We essentially had to watch whatever the broadcasters wanted to give us. So for me, it was Warner Brothers Cartoons and the 3 Stooges.

I'm guessing everybody who reads this article has seen the boys in action, but do we really know who these bizarre people truly were?

We refer to them today as Larry, Moe and Curly (or Shemp, Or Joe, or Curly Joe), but they actually began in 1922 along with Ted Healy in a vaudeville act known as Ted Healy and his Stooges.

The ensemble consisted of Ted Healy, Samuel Howard (Shemp), Harry Moses Howard (Moe),and Larry Fine (Larry). In 1931, Shemp and Ted Healy didn't see eye to eye, and so he (Shemp) quit the group for a career in feature films. Moe suggested his younger brother Jerome as a substitution, but Healy was not very impressed thinking that Jerome's long hair and facial hair was out of character for a Stooge. Jerome dealt with the situation by temporarily leaving the room and rapidly coming back having a shaved head and face. Hence, the adorable personality of Curly was born!

This ensemble lasted another three years until Healy's abrasiveness (and alleged alcoholism) eventually brought things to a head. The boys kicked him out, and Moe evolved into the leader of the team. He subsequently negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for an undetermined number of shorts. This is when the Three Stooges, as we now know them, started their long sojourn into comedy history.

For the following twenty five years, the three Stooges starred in 190 movie shorts; the longest in Hollywood history. They also appeared in 12 movies and entertained millions worldwide with their physical routines, catch phrases, and masterful comedy.

In 1946, An apparent show-stopping event happened: Curly suffered a stroke. He was never exactly the same after that, and passed away six years afterwards. The boys turned to Shemp once again, as he was asked to rejoin the ensemble. The Stooges, with Shemp as Curly's replacement, filmed 77 more shorts along with a feature film known as Gold Raiders (1951). Additionally, in 1949, Moe, Larry and Shemp created a pilot for a three Stooges television show known as 'Jerks of All Trades'. Unfortunately, the program was not purchased by the networks. However, the show is in the public domain and obtainable on home video.

The boys took one more hit when Shemp passed away of an abrupt heart attack in The fall of of 1955. A guy named Joe Besser replaced Shemp in 1956, acting in 16 short movies. Curiously, Joe had a sentence in his contract particularly barring him from being struck too hard, although it was ignored as time went on. Regrettably, Joe was a poor substitution for his two predecessors, plus the market for brief films was shrinking. These two factors led towards the steady drop of the Stooges popularity. Columbia Pictures finally got around to firing the Three Stooges in 1957.

Nevertheless, a new media type was about to take over: Television. In 1959, Columbia Pictures widely distributed the entire Three Stooges film library to the Tv networks and the Stooges were rediscovered by their original market (now in middle age). In addition, a entire new group of consumers (Baby Boomers) had been unveiled to the masters of slapstick comedy.

Stoogemania rapidly grabbed the attention of the entire nation, which put Moe and Larry back in the spotlight again. Joe Besser, on the other hand, did not rejoin the act, so Moe quickly signed Joe DeRita as his replacement. DeRita shaved his head and became Curly-Joe, because he looked like the original Curly.

This final edition of the Three Stooges went on to make thirty nine short films along with a couple of full-length films in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. In 1969 they filmed a pilot for a brand new Television series known as 'Kooks Tour', which was a program about the retired Stooges traveling the globe, with episodes filmed on location. Unfortunately, during production, Larry sustained a stroke that halted his acting vocation as well as the Television series. Larry suffered another stroke in December 1974 and one month later suffered a deadly stroke and died in January 1975.

It was believed that they could continue, a number of movie ideas were pondered, however Moe Howard passed on in May 1975. Even though Curly-Joe (Joe DeRita) did occasional live work with a new group of Stooges in the early 1970s, the Three Stooges, as we knew them, were history.

I hope you appreciated this look at the Three Stooges. They were truly a unique ensemble, and we will probably never see their kind again.