Scooby Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2018)

A really fun direct to video movie teaming Scooby-Doo! and Batman.


 The Mystery Inc. Gang first meet the Caped Crusader in 1972 in an episode of The New Scooby Doo Movies entitled The Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair. However the most entertaining meeting of the world greatest detectives was in the direct to video movie Scooby Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold. This came as no surprise to me as Batman: The Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite superhero TV shows. It was smart, funny and never took itself too seriously and this film does exactly the same thing.

The movie begins with The Mystery Inc. gang solving a crime involving creepy puppets. When they catch the ghosts and go to unmask them, they discover that they are in fact the Martian Man Hunter and Detective Chimp. Batman then enters applauding telling the group they have proven themselves worthy of being a part of their organization, The Mystery Analysts of Gotham (also in the group are Black Canary, Plastic Man and the Question). During a meeting an alarm sounds alerting them that there has been a break in at Gotham Chemical Storage. When they get there, they discover a ghost called The Crimson Cloak, who may have a connection to Batman's past. Things get worse when The Mystery Inc. Gang is suspected of the crime.

Rather than being made by the crew that makes most of the direct to video Scooby Doo movies, this film was made by the people who made, the Batman: The Brave and the Bold TV show and that is completely evident. This movie is much more inline with that show than anything. For one thing we see many of the reoccurring characters from the series (portrayed in the same way as the show) throughout the film. Also like any episode of the show while it can be enjoyed by those who do not know much about superhero mythos there is also a lot of fantastic references and Easter eggs for us DC superhero fans. As such this movie gets everything right that the show did so well. What is equally impressive is that despite the feature length this movie never feels over long or stretched out (a fault with many of the Scooby Doo feature films). It is given the perfect amount of time here. None of this is to say however that this movie is lacking in the Scooby Doo department. Actually this is done very well. The Mystery Inc. gang is always completely in character and a joy to watch. Though certain Scooby Doo clichés are parodied here, one can tell that the filmmakers have complete respect for Scooby Doo. In fact the Scooby Doo gang (especially Daphne) get some of the funniest lines in the movie, and Scooby and Shaggy in the Arkham Asylum cafeteria is a complete delight. Despite this being a movie that never takes itself too seriously, the storyline and mystery are actually quite good and one could image a serious superhero film being made with a similar plot.

If you are either a Batman or Scooby Doo fan, I can't recommend this movie enough to you. It is pure silly fun and isn't that why you would watch a film like this.

-Michael J. Ruhland  

Yogi Bear and The Three Stooges Meet the Mad, Mad, Mad, Dr. No-No (1966)

Many of you are aware that Scooby-Doo! met The Three Stooges in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo! Movies. However Scooby wasn't the only Hanna-Barbera character to meet The Three Stooges. That smarter than your average bear, Yogi also meet the threesome. However there were two major differences. One was that this was not animated and the second was that The Three Stooges were voiced by themselves here. This was released as a record album rather than a cartoon episode. The record album came from Hanna-Barbera Records in 1966, and is very similar to the style of an old radio show, with the story being told through narration. Both the Stooges and Hanna-Barbera were no strangers to record albums. Hanna-Barbera made plenty of similar albums on their label that lasted from 1964 to 1967 and The Stooges had been releasing record albums since 1959. This would mark The Stooges last record album. A often forgotten but very enjoyable part of the comedy team's career.

This is a very enjoyable album that is just as silly as it sounds. The jokes consist of very corny puns, but the makers of this album are completely aware of this and take great joy and just how corny these puns can get. Along with these corny puns is some silly but clever satire on the mad scientist trend in movies and TV. Both Yogi and The Stooges are completely in character and this should make the album a delight to fans of both. I hope you enjoy this album as much as I did.

-Michael J. Ruhland 

     

Silent Film of the Month: Flying Elephants (1927)

Run Time: 17 minutes. Studio: Hal Roach Studios. Director: Frank Butler. Writer: Hal Roach. Titles: H.M. Walker. Producer: Hal Roach. Main Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Viola Richard. Special Effects: Roy Seawright. Editor: Richard Currier.

Before Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy became one of the most popular duos in film history, they made some movies together in which they did not work as a team. These films often bared little to no resemblance to what later Laurel and Hardy movies would be. This has lead many Laurel and Hardy fans to write these off as lesser films. However some of these movies are delightful on their own terms and one example of this is the silent short film, Flying Elephants.

Not only do Stan and Ollie not work as a team in this film, but they are actually antagonistic towards each other with a plot somewhat reminiscent of the Charlie Chaplin short, His Prehistoric Past (1914). Back in the Stone Age, King Ferdinand rules that all men must be married or face the penalty of banishment, death or both. Unfortunately for the boys they are not married and must find wives quickly. This leads to a large battle between them over a single woman played by Viola Richard (in one of her larger roles (she mostly played small parts in various silent Laurel and Hardy and Charley Chase comedies)). Aside from just being antagonistic to each other, their characters are far from fully formed here. Stan is not Stanley but rather a simpleton with nothing more to his personality. He spends the movie skipping and prancing around in a way the later Stanley would never do. This characterization was in tune with Stan Laurel's early solo silent shorts, but within a year would completely disappear. As the characters are not fully formed yet, most of the humor rather than coming from the characters, as would be the case in later Laurel and Hardy films, comes from the most over the top cartoony gags possible including one that is literally a cartoon involving elephants flying. Though some credit the animation to Walter Lantz (of Woody Woodpecker fame), it was actually done by Roy Seawright who would become the studio's special effects man.

Also appearing in this film are Laurel and Hardy's favorite nemesis, James Finlayson and the always delightful to see Tiny Sanford.  Tiny Sandford was not tiny at all in fact he was pretty dang large. He often played bullying characters in both Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy films, mostly in small uncredited roles. James Finlayson is part of one of the movie's biggest laughs as Ollie strategically removes his aching tooth.

Fans of Hal Roach comedies will know that most of these films were shot in or around Culver City. This was an exception. It was instead shot in Moapa, Nevada. Moapa was not much at this time, in fact it was pretty darn close to empty. This is why this location was chosen for shooting, it pretty much was the middle of nowhere making it perfect for a film taking place in the stone age. The cast and Hal Roach had to travel out there by a train from L.A. as the function of this area was to be a brief water stop for the railroad.  

I admit when I first saw this short by myself, I found it somewhat entertaining but also kind of underwhelming. What changed my mind was viewing this film at the Old Town Music Hall with an audience and live musical accompaniment. Seeing it this way really brought the movie to life. I enjoyed it in a way I did not the first time. There are probably two reasons for this. One of them was that I entered this film with a more open mind and the second was that I was seeing a silent movie the way it was meant to be seen. I can't recreate that experience for you on a blog, but as you watch the video below I ask you to watch it with an open mind and enjoy it for what it is.

 

One exhibitors review was highly negative stating, "Not a laugh in it." Another refered to it as simply a "fair comedy."

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used

https://laurel-and-hardy-blog.com/2018/10/05/flying-elephants-1927/

Hal Roach Presents A Silent Film Comedy Christmas

Hello my friends and Merry Christmas. With apologies to Mack Sennett, no producer ever brought us a better selection of live action comedy films than Hal Roach. After all how can any comedy fan not love Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, Our Gang, Charley Chase or the much underappreciated Boyfriends films. Since Christmas is so close, I feel it is only right to celebrate with a selection of two classic comedy shorts produced by Hal Roach and centering around my favorite time of year. Both of these films comes from the silent era and in my mind are Christmas classics. 

First up is one of my favorite silent comedy films (not just shorts, but films), a classic starring Laurel and Hardy, Big Business (1929). One of the most important rules in all Laurel and Hardy-dom is the law of tit for tat. If someone does something bad to you, you must do something worse to them. This film takes that idea to extremes by doing what Laurel and Hardy films do best. This is to start with a simple somewhat mundane idea (like selling Christmas trees) and step by step turn it into over the top slapstick comedy. This type of comedy has never and will never be better than in this fantastic comedy.


Anyone interested in where classic films were shot should watch this video as well.

A 1926 advertisement in The Motion Picture News Magazine.


Up next comes a Christmas themed short staring Hal Roach's second most popular comedy team, Our Gang, Good Cheer (1926). Though sentimentality would later find its way into the Our Gang films, during the silent era, this was rare. However Good Cheer is an exception featuring a surprising amount of sentimentality. Of course being a Christmas film helps make this one of the more successful sentimental Our Gang shorts. This is a purely delightful film from start to finish. One exhibitor's review from The Exhibitors Herald was very positive stating "Another dandy from Our Gang." Another was not as positive calling the film "Only fair." Another exhibitor's review from the same magazine was much harsher in its criticism stating "This is what I would call a very poor comedy and from the reaction, the audience felt the same way." Still another review (not an exhibitor's this time) was extremely positive stating "A great comedy and full of the usual bright titles that make these distinctive. When you consider that this was made in September during the hottest weather Hollywood had this year, it's all the more remarkable!" 

-Michael J. Ruhland

P.S. For anyone interested I have written about another silent Christmas themed comedy short from Hal Roach Studios on this blog and you can read that by clicking here. 

Movie Review: Stuber

Michael's Movie Grade: C+

A dumb turn your mind off kind of movie, but if you are in the right mind set it's fun.

This film has a unique premise, but other than that you know where it is going to go at all times. This is a story we have seen before quite often and will see again quite often (the logic of it all also doesn't often make sense). Despite this though I admit I had fun watching it. While not every joke is incredible, there are no jokes that are really bad either. On top of that some of the jokes are quite funny. Much of the humor comes from the interplay between our two main characters (Dave Bautista, Kumail Nanjiani). Luckily this is the movie's strongest point. While the tough guy and the wimpy but good hearted guy is a typical movie comedy pairing, I couldn't help but enjoy the way these two played off each other. The chemistry is darn near perfect, and the dialogue between them is often quite well written. I also love how both complement the other, with one's strength being the other's weakness. This makes them feel like a real team and a perfect match story-wise as well as comedy-wise.  Also delightful and adding a lot to this movie is Vic's (Dave Bautista) daughter (Natalie Morales). She has good chemistry with both the two leads and provides the film's only real sense of heart (Stu's romantic life doesn't really achieve the heart that it is going for). The action is quite good (if at times needlessly bloody) and this part of the film certainly delivers some good-old fashioned excitement.

This is never going down as a great movie or a work of art, but for what it is, it provides 93 minutes of dumb escapist fun.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Silent Film of the Month: The Chaser (1928)

Run Time: 60 minutes. Studio: Harry Langdon Corporation. Director: Harry Langdon. Writers: Robert Eddy, Al Giebler, Clearance Hennecke, Harry McCoy, Arthur Ripley. Cinematographers: Frank Evans, Elgin Lessley. Main Cast: Harry Langdon, Gladys McConnell, Helen Hayward, Bud Jamison. Editor: Alfred DeGaetano.

Probably no silent movies have worse reputations than Harry Langdon's self directed films. The common belief among silent film fans is that Harry Langdon was a very talented comedian making excellent films but when he got power hungry and decided to direct the films himself the quality quickly fell and the films just became weird. However I would argue that the two self directed movies that can be seen today (Heart Trouble is currently a lost film) are actually excellent films. While Three's a Crowd (1927) is my favorite of the two, I do have a strong fondness for The Chaser as well.

The Chaser was quite a change of pace after Three's a Crowd. Three's a Crowd had more pathos than any Charlie Chaplin movie. Three's a Crowd is while a comedy a profoundly sad one. The Chaser however eschews such sadness for more pure comedy. True this comedy is very dark but so had been the comedy for many of Harry's most popular films. So one could easily argue that this movie was a return to that.

The film's storyline is very simple. Harry (Harry Langdon) spends much of his time away from home much to the annoyance of his wife (Gladys McConnell). His wife decides to sue him for divorce. However a judge (Charles Thurston) with a twisted sense of humor decides to instead have the two switch places. The wife will go to work, while the husband stays at home and takes care of all of the chores there, as well as wearing a dress of course.

Unlike Three's a Crowd with its more dramatic storyline, a film like The Chaser is a film that depends heavily on the humor. Luckily for us this movie is really funny. The scene where Harry tries to get a chicken to lay an egg shows Harry doing what he does best and getting plenty of laughs doing it. I also love the absurdity of everyone thinking Harry is a woman simply because of the dress, despite there being nothing else feminine about his appearance or actions. Any other silent film comedian would have made the character act more traditionally feminine (think of Fatty Arbuckle's many drag scenes), but Harry being a subversive comic and playing a character who would never do this, Harry gets just as many laughs by not doing the usual gag, but by instead turning it on its head. The suicide note contains some absolutely brilliant dark humor. To be fair the scene involving Harry's ability to kiss women and make them faint goes on a bit too long and the idea was funnier when done in the Harry Langdon short, Soldier Man (1926). Still the majority of the humor is really funny and the film is a delight.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph this movie borrowed a gag from Solider Man. This was not the only one of Langdon's classic shorts borrowed from here. Also borrowed from is one of Harry's most famous short films, Saturday Afternoon (1926). In that short, Harry is a henpecked husband whose "friend" (Vernon Dent) convinces Harry to go along on a night out on a double date behind his wife's (Alice Ward) back. The same basic storyline becomes the third act of The Chaser. In The Chaser the friend was played by Bud Jamison. Interestingly in the talkie era Vernon Dent and Bud Jamison would be The Three Stooges' most common costars both playing similar roles where they would get the worst consequences from the Stooges' actions. Dent was Harry's most common costar appearing in many many Harry Langdon shorts and features. Bud Jamison appeared in less Harry Langdon films than Dent, but he had previously been in Harry's feature film His First Flame (1927) and would later be in the lost Harry feature Heart Trouble (1928).

An advertisement for the film in Variety.

You can see two great ways showings of this movie was advertised in the below page of First National News.

The Chaser may not be my favorite Harry Langdon feature, but I still think it is much better than its reputation and certainly deserves more positive attention. This is a fun and often hilarious comedy that I really enjoy and I hope you might like it as well.

This movie is on YouTube so you can watch it below. Enjoy.



-Michael J. Ruhland 

Tillie's Punctured Romance 1920 Revival

Here is a very silly 1920 article about a rerelease of Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), often considered the first feature length film comedy.



The following pages of The Motion Picture Herald discusses this 1920 revival more seriously.





Here is a classic advertisement for this revival.

The movie is in public domain so you can watch it on YouTube.

 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Silent Film of the Month: Shot in the Excitement (1914)

Run Time: 15 Minutes. Studio: Keystone. Director: Rube Miller (most likely). Producer: Mack Sennett. Cast: Al St. John, Alice Howell, Rube Miller, Josef Sickward, Edwin Frazee, Grover Ligon. Release Date: October 26, 1914.

With the sheer amount of short films put out by Keystone studios in the 1910's, it is no surprise that some of these films are completely overlooked today, even one as funny as Shot in the Excitement. It is even less surprising that this forgotten film is from the same year Charlie Chaplin was working at Keystone, since not surprisingly the Chaplin films get more attention than one with much less remembered stars (this film had the same release date as Charlie Chaplin's fantastic Dough and Dynamite).

As the film starts Alice (Alice Howell) is painting a fence when her two suiters (Al St. John, Rube Miller) see her. The two suiters get into a slapstick fight over her involving paint, cannon balls and a fake spider. There is not much more to the story but when a comedy is funny what else does it need?

I would imagine a person who has read or heard about Keystone films but haven't seen many will find this to be exactly what they expect. This film is full of over the top acting, fast paced slapstick and impossible gags. Though this is what you mostly hear about Keystone comedies it is not always the case. Some of them are slower moving than you'd except from that description and deal more with farce than slapstick. In fact many of the Keystone shorts of this era would be lost on a modern audience as they parody melodramatic conventions that are no longer in vouge. Not so with this film. Shot in the Excitement is a live action cartoon in every respect. In fact I would dare a cartoon fan to look at a scene involving a bobby-trapped bench and not think of so many classic cartoons of the 1940's and 50's. It is for one to look at a film like this today and think that the acting is simply over the top because the movie is over 100 years old and very primitive. However that is not the case here. Watch most silent dramas and you will not see any acting as over the top as this. Similarly watch some of the lighter less slapstick orientated light comedies of this era and you will also see more subtle acting. The over the top acting is part of the humor of this film. Think of how in a Tex Avery cartoon, who will see over the top exaggerated takes but if you watch a superhero cartoon the reactions will be much more subdued. The reason for this is simply a matter of style. No one criticizes a Tex Avery cartoon for being over the top, but rather enjoy it for being so over the top and unsubtle. So why not just look at this film as a live action Tex Avery cartoon? If you choose to look at it that way this is a delightful short. In fact this is one of my favorite non-Chaplin, non-Mabel shorts from Keystone during the 1910's.


Though they may not know him by name, fans of silent comedy shorts, will probably recognize Al St. John. Al St. John was the nephew of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and appeared in many of Arbuckle's best shorts. He would often play a similar role in those shorts as he played here, often being a romantic rival for Arbuckle. St. John was in many ways the king of over the top cartoony acting. While there were quite a few comedians who made a living mugging to a camera, few did it as well as St. John, and his work never fails to make me smile. In Billy Wilder's brilliant Sunset Boulevard (1950), Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) would say "We didn't need dialogue we had faces." This is certainly true of Al St. John, he had a very memorable and recognizable face and could make one laugh simply by using it. Fans of talkie B westerns may recognize him as well. He played a character named Fuzzy Q. Jones in a large number of the Billy the Kid B-Westerns starring Buster Crabbe as the outlaw. For many of those westerns he was credited as Al 'Fuzzy' St. John.


It is often thought that during the silent era, women did not engage in the rough and tumble stuff. Those who don't watch much silent films may think of women during that era only playing the kind of image of purity that Lillian Gish played in Broken Blossoms (1919) or Edna Purviance played in so many Chaplin films. This was not so though. Female comedians played just as much over the top slapstick as the men. Alice Howell is a great example of this. This film was made during the actress' time at Keystone. During this period she was mostly playing supporting roles to the more famous comics (most famously she was the dentist's wife in the Chaplin Keystone, Laughing Gas (1914)). Still even in these years she tended to steal the show. One may notice something looking at the picture at the top of this article. Alice looks anything but glamorous. Truth be told she was definitely a beautiful woman, but she had no trouble making herself look less attractive for comic reasons. This can also be said of the over the top acting she does in this short, which involves quite a bit of mugging. She is just as much a rough and tumble comedian as any of the men at this time, and at the top of her game (which she is here), she can hold her own with the majority of them. In later years Alice would get bigger roles than most of her Keystone films, but unfortunately the majority of those are lost. Still what we have in these Keystone films is a talented woman who can steal the scene from the scene-stealers themselves.  


The following is a review of the short from Moving Picture World (dated October 31, 1914).


"Eccentric rube characters appear in diverting number. The humor is all of the slapstick sort, varied by amusing tricks and antics. The photography is good and the close is especially amusing for this type of film."


Watch the short below.




-Michael J. Ruhland
   

Some Cartoons for Saturday Morning #4 - Silent Edition

Happy Saturday morning again my friends. Of course you know that means it is time to look at more classic cartoons. Today let's try something a little different and look at some great silent cartoons. 

First up is a cartoon staring the most famous cartoon character of the silent era. This is of course Felix the cat. Felix as many of you know is turning 100 this year having debuted in 1919 with Feline Follies. By the cartoon we are going to look at today, Felix was as popular to movie going audiences as any of the great silent movie live action stars. Speaking of the great live action stars you will see animated versions of many of them here including William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, Ben Turpin, Will Hays, Gloria Swanson and most delightfully Charlie Chaplin. Yes the scene with Charlie Chaplin is fantastic. When our hero shows Will Hays his acting ability, he does an imitation of Charlie Chaplin. Charlie accuses the feline of stealing his stuff and gives chase. There is some actual history behind this joke. Producer Pat Sullivan and animator Otto Messmer had previously made a series of animated shorts featuring an animated version of Chaplin's little tramp and this work with the tramp inspired much of Felix's personality and movements. This is maybe one of the most popular silent Felix shorts and certainly one of the best. In fact it received a spot in Jerry Beck's book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons. So without further ado here is Felix in Hollywood (1923).




Since I mentioned them earlier, I feel this is a perfect time to share one of Pat Sullivan and  Otto Messmer's Charlie Chaplin cartoons. The story of having the Tramp as a farmhand was done in Chaplin's live action short, The Tramp (1915). Borrowed directly from that short is a gag involving milking a cow. So here is Charley on the Farm (1919).

The next film is one of Walt Disney's excellent series of Alice Comedies. This series was intended as a reversal on the Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell cartoons. Those films featured an animated KoKo the clown entering a live action world. The Alice comedies on the other hand featured a live action girl entering an animated world. The effect was fantastic and many of the Alice Comedies are just fantastic entertainment. The live action little girl was originally played by Virginia Davis. After her contract was not renewed because her parents were not happy with her being payed less, the part was taken over by Margie Gay who plays the role here. This is Margie's first time playing the lead in an Alice Comedy. It also marked another first, this was the cartoon debut of Pete, who would later be the nemeses of such Disney characters as Oswald the Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. The character is still in use today thanks to shows like Mickey and the Roadster Racers or video games like the Kingdom Heart series. So here is Alice Solves the Puzzle (1925).




Speaking of Walt Disney here is one of his classic Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. The story of this film will seem familiar to Disney fans, as it was remade as the Mickey Mouse cartoon, Building a Building. I have written about that Mickey Mouse cartoon, here. Notice in both the Oswald and Mickey Mouse Pete is the villain. This however is an excellent cartoon in its own right, so here is Sky Scrappers (1928).




Last but not least is one of Earl Hurd's great Bobby Bumps cartoons. Earl Hurd is probably best remembered today for being one of the creators of cel animation. However he should be just as remembered for the Bobby Bumps cartoons, because they are fantastic. I love all the fourth wall jokes here as well as the gags that could only be done in silent cartoons. This is one of the best of the series and a must watch for all fans of silent cartoons. So here is Bobby Bumps Puts a Beanery on a Bum (1918).






So stayed tooned next Saturday morning for more cartoons. Until then peace love and cartoons.

-Michael J. Ruhland




   

The Three Stooges in "Men in Black" (1934)

Running Time: 19 minutes. Release Date: September 12, 1934. Shooting Dates: 8/29/34 - 9/1/34. Production Number: 152. Director: Raymond McCarey. Writer: Felix Alder. Photography: Benjamin Kline. Editor: James Sweeny. Cast: The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, Curly), Dell Henderson, Jeanie Roberts, Ruth Hiatt, Billy Gilbert, Little Billy, Bud Jamison, Hank Mann, Bobby Callahan, Phyllis Crane, Arthur West, Joe Mills, Irene Coleman, Carmen Andre, Helen Splane, Kay Hughes, Eve Reynolds, Eve Kimberly, Lucille Watson, Billie Stockton, Betty Andre, Arthur Rankin, Neal Burns, Joe Fine, Charles Dorety, Charles King.


Hello again lamebrains and knuckleheads, it is time to look at one of the earliest Stooge shorts for Columbia and the only one nominated for an Oscar. Despite the title, Men in Black, this film has nothing to do with Johnny Cash or aliens. Instead the title is a parody of a recent film called Men in White (1934). That film, which stared Clark Gable and Myrna Loy was a drama about doctors.

Ray McCarey was not one of the typical Stooge directors, having only directed this and Three Little Pigskins (1934) for the team. However he did direct Shemp (without any other stooges) in a short entitled Salt Water Daffy (1933). Comedy fans might know McCarey best for directing the Laurel and Hardy feature, Pack Up Your Troubles (1932). He also directed an excellent Our Gang short, Free Eats (1932). He would go on to direct such feature films as You Can't Fool Your Wife (1940), Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939), It Happened in Flatbush (1942) and The Falcon's Albi (1946). Ray McCarey was the younger brother of one of my favorite directors, Leo McCarey.

To advertise the film publicity stills were shot with the Stooges and Jeanie Roberts (who played the nurse in the short). These were adlibbed by the Stooges during a break from filming. They can be seen below.




Because they have been in the senior class too many years, the Stooges are now doctors as long as they devote their work to duty and humanity. This short ends up not having too much of a storyline as the rest is pretty much little skits involving them as a doctors.

This is an excellent and very funny short. I love the running gag of the boys entering and coming out of a door with a different mode of transportation including a horse and mini-racing cars. I love the scene with the Stooges in the room with a mentally unstable man. That is especially great as the Stooges get to work with Billy Gilbert one of the greatest character actors of the era (probably best remembered today as the professor in Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box (1932), Joe Pettibone in His Girl Friday (1940), Herring in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) and the voice of Sneezy in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). He would also later appear in the Stooges short, Pardon My Scotch (1935).) Another highlight is the hilarious surgery scene. The great ending doesn't hurt either.    


The building used in the film's opening was The Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. Joan Howard Mauer (Moe's daughter) gave birth to her two sons there. It is now a Church of Scientology.


A lot changed from script to screen in this movie. One of the strangest was a switching of Moe and Larry's lines in one scene. In the original script, Larry asks a patient what her name is, she responds "Anna Conda." Moe would have said to this "Anna Conda - 95th and 1/8th." In the actual film, Moe asks the patient for her name and both Larry and Moe get the punch line. The Stooges themselves adlibbed a scene in this film. In this scene Moe tells Larry "Move that cart." Larry responds "I'll move it when I'm ready." Moe says in a tough voice "Are you ready?" Larry says "Yeah! I'm Ready!" This routine later became one which would be associated with the team. They would preform it again in Three Dumb Clucks, We Want Our Mummy, I Can Hardly Wait, Who Done it? and The Three Stooges in Orbit. Also cut out was a joke involving Curly vaccinating a woman. Curly would have asked if she wanted it on the arm or the leg. She would have responded "Where it won't show." Curly would have asked "What business are you in?" She would have responded "I'm a fan dancer." Curly would say "Stick out your tongue." A running joke in this film is that the Stooges would always run through a glass door in break it. There was one joke involving this that did not make the final cut. Here is how the script describes that joke, "The three stooges dash madly towards the door, but as they open it the laborer, in the corridor, had evidentially been picking something up in front of the door and the impact of his body against the door breaks the glass again, spreading it all over the floor." Joan Howard Maurer believed that the gag was probably cut out because it was too violent and also wasn't funny. Another scene cut involved the stooges working on a man whose knee hurts. He would have said "Oh my knee - oh my knee" to which Moe would responded "What's the matter? You being singing mammy songs?" Latter Larry would have said "I'll take his reflex." Curly would have responded "I'll take his watch." They would have later been in raincoats with beer spigots and mallets to test his reflexes. This film would have also had a completely different ending. Beautiful triplets would have told the stooges they would marry our heroes, "providing you do the most wonderful thing in the world for humanity." They would have got out an axe and said "We're going to subdivide you." Yes that ending deserved to wind up on the cutting room floor. It is interesting to note the Curly is not called Curly in the script but rather "Dr. Jerry."  

This is of course the film one of the lines most associated with the Stooges comes from. This line is of course "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard." This phrase can be heard in countless movies and TV shows to reference the Stooges.

The following are exhibitors reviews from the Motion Picture Herald.


March 9, 1935"Men in Black: Three Stooges - Maybe you call this a comedy but my patrons did not. Who told the stooges they could act? This is poor comedy and entirely too silly to be funny. Let's have better shorts and less of this kind of entertainment. Running time 19 minutes. -J.J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, N.C. general patronage."

March 27, 1937"Men in Black: Three Stooges - Very good. Played it twice so you know what we think of it. - Harlan Rankin, Plaza Theatre, Tilbury, Ontario, Canada."

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources UsedThe Three Stooges: Book of Scripts by Joan Howard Maurer.

The Three Stooges Scrapbook by Joan Howard Maurer, Jeff Lenburg, Greg Lenburg.  
 




  

 

Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #2

Happy Saturday morning, my friends. Once again it is time to look at some classic cartoons.

Lets start off with a classic cartoon short from the one and only Disney studio. Now it has become common when talking about golden age cartoons to talk about Warner Brothers and MGM being full of wild and crazy humor, while Disney cartoons were sweet and cute. People say that Disney cartoons despite their technical advancements were simply not as funny as the ones from those other studios. If we are to go by this than obviously the Goofy cartoon had to be an exception. By the 1940's the Goofy films had become as funny as any other cartoon series coming out of Hollywood. These were fast paced and funny cartoons that could rival the best from other studios. This is especially true of the ones directed by Jack Kinney. Kinney was Disney's wildest and funniest short subject director at the time as a quick look at any of his Goofy or Donald Duck cartoons would prove. The following is from a fantastic series of Goofy shorts that are often known as the "How To..." shorts. These would feature a narrator (Fred Shields in this film) telling us how to do a certain activity as Goofy tries to demonstrate with little luck. The following is one of the best of these cartoons, How To Play Golf (1944).



One of the most popular animated TV shows of the late 1950's and early 1960's was The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-1962). The show was extremely popular with a large demographic of people from all ages. Looking at this show there is no wonder why. It is one of the most cleverly written, funniest and all together entertaining TV shows ever to grace the small screen. Many of you may know that this show was divided into three segments. These were a Yogi Bear cartoon (Later to be replaced by Hokey Wolf when Yogi got his spin off show), a Pixie and Dixie cartoon and a Huckleberry Hound cartoon. In-between these cartoons though were short "bumpers" featuring the character interacting with one another and introducing the cartoons as well as plugging their sponsor Kellogg's. Here are some of these, many of which are just as fun as the main cartoons themselves.





 Now comes a classic Looney Tunes take on the Grasshopper and the Ants story called Porky's Bear Facts (1940). At this time Looney Tunes were in black and white while their sister series Merrie Melodies were in color. All Looney Tunes at this time featured Porky Pig, while Merrie Melodies featured a variety of starring characters. This cartoon is directed by the legendary Friz Freleng, who was actually mostly directing Merrie Melodies at this time.




I am quite a fan of Van Beuren's Little King cartoons of the 1930's and here is a great one here, The Fatal Note (1933). This one features animation by legendary Jim Tyler. It is also the first of the series. The director is Vernon Stallings who would direct some excellent entries in this series. Disney buffs might know him as a writer on some great Disney films including Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), Song of the South (1946), Magician Mickey (1937), and Ferdinand the Bull (1938). During the silent era he worked as a director on the Colonel Heeza Lair cartoons. Before becoming an animated character, the Little King enjoyed success as a popular newspaper comic strip, written by O. Soglow. In The Fatal Note I love the design of the villain and the scene involving the fight on the stairs. So without further ado here is the cartoon,

How about a Pink Panther cartoon now. This is one I personally love and in my mind one of the best post-1960's cartoons with the character. Like many of the best Pink Panthers this one features a crew of Looney Tunes veterans, including director Art Leonardi, Writer John Dunn, animators Don Williams and Virgil Ross, background artist Richard H. Thomas and cameraman John Burton. So here is Pink Plasma (1975).


Now for a Terry Toon staring the one and only Mighty Mouse. This is Mighty Mouse and the Wolf (1945), directed by one of Terry Toons most prolific directors, Eddie Donnelly. With how many superhero reboots we have today, where's Mighty Mouse's Reboot?


Stay toned for more next Saturday morning. Until then peace, love and cartoons.


-Michael J. Ruhland

The Three Stooges in "You Nazty Spy" (1940)

Running Time: 18 minutes. Release Date: January 19, 1940. Shooting Dates: 12/6/39 - 12/9/39. Production Number: 472. Working Title: Oh You Nazty Spy. Director: Jules White. Writers: Clyde Bruckman and Felix Alder. Photography: Harry Davis. Editor: Arthur Seid. Cast: The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, Curly), Dick Curtis, Don Beddoe, Richard Fiske, Florine Dickenson, Little Billy, John Tyrell, Joe Murphy, Lorna Grey, Bert Young.


Hello again knuckleheads and lamebrains. Today we are going to look at what both Moe and Jules White (the director of this short and head of Columbia's shorts department) considered their favorite stooge short, You Natzy Spy.  Larry considered this one of his favorites as well.

While later in the 1940's making fun of Hitler would become a main ingredient of American slapstick comedies, that was not so in 1940. At this time the U.S.A. had not entered World War 2. Though Charlie Chaplin began production on The Great Dictator (1940) before this Stooge film began production, You Nazty Spy was released earlier. This makes this film the first American screen comedy to extensively parody Hitler.

The title of this short comes from a line of dialogue delivered by Moe, where the words "Nasty spy" are used. As was common practice during the making of these Stooge films, the title was created after the script was written.

As this picture begins we see three ammunitions manufactures talking. There is peace in the kingdom of Moronica, and business is down. With this they decide to hire a dictator to disrupt the peace. They pick out Moe Hailstone. Moe agrees as long as he can work with Curly Gallstone and Larry Pebble. They agree and the three go out so Moe can make his first speech. The crowd is so easily led that they do what ever each sign Larry holds up says. After seeing Curly reading a book Moe decides to burn all the books all except for Curly's little red book which Moe keep for himself. Mattie Herring a spy comes in pretending to read the boy's fortunes. The boys look over a map and decide how they will divide up the surrounding countries. The boys then have a "peace" conference, where they declare their plans to rule over everything. This leads to a huge slapstick fight. However a revolt is led against the boys. In their escape, the boys end up in a lion's den and are eaten by lions.


This is an excellent short on every level. The film injects much more witty satire than most Three Stooges shorts and this satire is very funny. However this satire does not take away from the typical Three Stooges humor. There is plenty of that here and it is just as funny as ever. I especially love Moe and Curly after dancing, deciding to "sit the next one out" and play pattycake, as well as the big slapstick fight at the "peace" conference. The jokes come fast and furious and the laughs never let up. I also love the crazy map where each country has a punny name. A similar map would be used in the later stooges short, Malice in the Palace (1949) and it would be just as funny there. Both shorts showed they knew how funny this map was since they give us time to read all the names.  

The ending of the film was changed from script to screen. In the script after the lions ate the trio, they would be given dialogue. The first lion would say "Ach! Dot taste awful." The second lion would answer "Yah! I got indigestion!" The third would say "Me too! Phooey!" This is not how the finished film ends though instead the film ends with one lion burping. To be honest the ending we got was a funnier one. Added to the script was the gag where Larry gets a golf ball in the mouth.



During the scene in which Moe makes himself look like Hitler, the result is uncanny. Curly's impression of Mussolini is equally good.

While the rest of the jokes hold up extremely well today, there is one joke that is undoubtedly uncomfortable. This is a brief joke that mentions a concentration camp. It should be noted that when this film was made the full horror of such camps was not known to most people. This makes the joke more offensive today than it was in 1940. The Great Dictator similarly had a scene with a very tame looking concertation camp, that equally feels wrong today. With how hilarious both You Nazty Spy and The Great Dictator are it is easy to overlook these scenes and enjoy both films for how great they really are.

This became the only stooge short to get a direct sequel, this was I'll Never Hail Again (1941). For those of you keeping score there are twelve slaps and three eye pokes in this film.

The following is an article in Showman's Trade Review (dated January 3, 1942).

"Tieing in with the current 'V for Victory Campaign' campaign, Manager John Alterman, Jr. of the Dal Sac Theatre, Dallas staged a 'Big V Short Show' recently.

"Though all the regular publicity channels - program, newspaper, handbills, lobby and marquee advertising, etc. - he plugged the collection of timely short reels.

"Subjects booked for the occasion included 'Recruiting Daze,' color cartoon; "Fighting 69 1/2th,' Merrie Melody; 'Home Guard,' color cartoon; 'You Nazty Spy,' Three Stooges comedy, and 'Drafted at the Depot,' Edgar Kennedy comedy."



The following is an exhibitors review from the Motion Picture Herald (dated March 14, 1941)

"Oh You Nazty Spy: Three Stooges - Columbia couldn't do better. This picture is a scream from start to finish. These stooges can't be beat. - C.S. Caporal, Bison Theatre, Oklahoma City, Okla. General and Neighborhood Patronage."
 
The following are exhibitors reviews from the Motion Picture Herald (dated May 25, 1940)

"Oh You Nazty Spy: Three Stooges - A satirical comedy on Hitler that was a knockout. The best stooge comedy to date. Running Time 19 minutes. -A. J. Inks, Crystal Theater, Ligonier, Ind. Small town patronage."

"Oh You Nazty Spy: Three Stooges - Here is a very clever satire on dictators which would be good in itself. Add to that the three Stooges and you have plenty of slapstick and action. It went over very well. I still get a point I didn't get before every once in a while when I start thinking about it. - W. Varick Nevins, III, Alfred Co-op Theater, Alfred N.Y. Small college town and rural patronage."-Michael J. Ruhland


Resources UsedThe Three Stooges: An Illustrated History by Michael Fleming.

The Three Stooges Scrapbook by Jeff Lenburg, Greg Lenburg and Joan Howard Murer

The Three Stooges: Book of Scripts by Joan Howard Maurer

The Three Stooges and Television Cartoons

I have a special fondness for The New Three Stooges Saturday morning cartoon series. The low budget for animation may be a bit too obvious at times, and the stooges were showing their ages in the live action parts, but the series has a very nice and unique charm that I love.

However even though this was The Stooges' first TV series, it was not the first one planed. A lot of you may be aware of a live action TV pilot starring the Stooges that was never picked up called Jerks of all Trades as it has shown up on a lot of public domain DVDs. However the team also had some other animated series planned before this one. One of these was called Stooge Time, and it would have opened up with a 7minute live action sketch featuring the team. After this for about 30 seconds the team would have sprayed each other with seltzer bottles, and that would have magically turned them animated and this would lead into a cartoon. The animation would have been achieved on this show through an invention of Moe's son in law, Norman Maurer, called Artiscope. Artiscope was a system that would film live actors and from there would create animation that would look like it was hand drawn, but really have no animators working on it. This device can be seen briefly in The Three Stooges feature film The Three Stooges in Orbit (Norman Maurer was the producer and a writer for the movie). Another animated TV show with the Three Stooges that never became a full series was The Three Stooges Scrapbook. A pilot was made for this series. Because the Stooges were becoming much more popular with children due to TV, parent groups were complaining about the violence of their films. However cartoons with equal amounts of violence were also popular with children and there were (at this time at least (by the 1970's this would have changed drastically) far less complaints about children watching these. So the show would open in live action and then move into an animated cartoon. The cartoons would feature more slapstick violence than the live action segment would. Unfortunately the cartoons were of very poor quality and because of this the series would never be released. However some brief clips of the pilot (including animated ones) do appear in The Three Stooges in Orbit.

Luckily in 1965 with The New Three Stooges the team finally had a Saturday Morning TV cartoon. Like The Three Stooges Scrapbook this series featured live action wraparounds with the Stooges introducing cartoons where the Stooges would provide their own voices. The first cartoon was called Little Bomb Maker Me and was done by Jay Ward Productions (famous for Rocky and Bullwinkle) and was done in a different style. However after this Cambria Pictures took over the series and did the rest of the cartoons. The live action segments were often directed by Edward Bernds, who directed many of the Stooges best shorts of the 1940's. Often appearing in these live action segments was Emil Sitka, who already had a long career as a supporting player for The Stooges. The main director and writer for the animated segments was David Detiege, who had previously been a writer for Humphry Bear shorts (for Disney) and Looney Tunes. Often the live action wraparounds would be reused even when the cartoons were new. Curly Joe felt that this hurt the show as someone would turn on the channel and see a wrap around and therefore would assume they had seen this episode before, even though they hadn't.

Norman Maurer while working at Hanna-Barbera in the 1970's would write for animated versions of The Three Stooges. He would write two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies that would feature the Mystery Inc. Gang teaming with The Three Stooges (Ghastly Ghost Town, Ghost of the Red Baron (both episodes aired in 1972)). Unfortunately the Hanna-Barbera studio did not hire real stooges to do the voices. Though Larry's voice was impaired at this time due to a stroke, Larry was sad that he was not asked. He said if given enough time to rehearse he could sound like his old self. Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe did receive $2,000 each for the use of the characters though. Maurer later pitched an idea to Hanna-Barbera and other TV studios about animated kid stooges in a series he would call, The Little Stooges. Unfortunately this show was never picked up but if you read the excellent book The Three Stooges Scrapbook you can see some great art for this planned show. Hanna-Barbera would make a Three Stooges cartoon series in the late 1970's with The Robotic Stooges. These cartoons first aired as part of the Hanna-Barbera variety show, The Skatebirds in 1977. That show was cancelled quickly but since the cartoons proved popular The Robotic Stooges got its own TV show that ran from January 28, 1978 to December 30, 1979.

-Michael J. Ruhland