Hey kids (of all ages), it's Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!
Continuing with the theme of theatrical properties that were terminated by the studios due to competition with TV, only to be quickly resurrected due to demand created by TV. (…
Hey kids (of all ages), it's Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!
Continuing with the theme of theatrical properties that were terminated by the studios due to competition with TV, only to be quickly resurrected due to demand created by TV. (See POPEYE, TOM & JERRY, and the LOONEY TUNES.) This time with the twist of the original not being a cartoon. Strictly-speaking, anyway...
Two-reel (12-20 minute) comedy short films were already a dying medium in the early 1930s. LAUREL AND HARDY were switching to features. The OUR GANG was shifting down to one-reel format. Only some real knuckleheads would go into the racket at that point...
Enter three veterans from Ted Healy's vaudeville / film troop. Not only did the brothers Howard and Larry Fine go into two-reelers when everyone else was getting out of them, they made a big success there for over two decades!
About half way through the shorts production, Curly (the youngest Howard brother) had to retire due to health issues. He was replaced by oldest brother Shemp, who was also former Healy trooper. After Shemp's sudden death in '55, Joe Besser (the only Stooge better-known for his other work) replaced him... But not for very long. Columbia Studios axed production at the end of '57. Besser went on to other things, and "Curly-Joe" DeRita came on as the final Third Stooge.
We know how this goes... The Columbia shorts hit television shortly afterwards, and the Stooges became bigger than ever. They parlayed their new popularity into new projects, including a number of successful, long-form matinee films, and this...
THE NEW 3 STOOGES were cartoons featuring the trio (actually voiced by themselves) with live-action intro and closing bits featuring the Boys, in color, which was sort of a novelty for them. As an economy measure, the live-action wraparounds were done to suit a general subject, so each pair could be used for three of four different cartoons. Except for this one. The October 1965 pilot cartoon uses unique live parts. It is also the only one to feature the familiar voice talent of Paul Frees. (Perhaps a little TOO familiar in this case.)
The Stooges had been animated before. In Warner Bros. cartoon cameos, as well as their own aborted attempt at a series from a few years earlier... They would return in 'toon form in the '70s. First as recurring guests on the NEW SCOOBY MOVIES (voiced by impersonators, despite the Stooges still being around), then (after the 1975 deaths of Moe and Larry) in their own series as bionic superheroes, apparently engineered by the same folks who built DYNOMUTT.
I kid you not. It was the '70s. We were all pretty stoned.
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