History YMMV / TheThreestooges

** Some supporting players have sizable fan bases, especially Vernon Dent, Christine McIntyre, and Emil Sitka.

* BrokenBase: The short ''[[Recap/TheThreeStoogesCuckooOnAChooChoo Cuckoo in a Choo-Choo]]'', hands down. This is the short in which Larry is playing a Creator/MarlonBrando-esque character who [[CrazyAwesome stole a passenger car off a moving train]], just so his girlfriend's sister can get her [[UpperClassTwit rich drunken boyfriend]] Shemp to propose, because then ''they'' can get married. Unfortunately, Shemp is in love with [[InterspeciesRomance Carey the giant canary]] who exists only in his booze-sodden dreams, and who is played by some poor soul in an [[NightmareFuel utterly hideous]] suit. And Moe is a railroad detective in love with Larry's girlfriend's sister (the one they want to get hitched to Shemp) who finds them and tries to get rid of Shemp so he can marry the sister. There is no middle ground on this one, every Stooges fan either [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome thinks it's terrific]] or sees it as the worst thing they ever did.

** When it comes to the US, the Three Stooges are immensely huge in New England due to the fact that several New Englanders grew up with the Three Stooges playing every Sunday morning on Boston's TV-38 WSBK (currently a Creator/{{CBS}}-owned Creator/MyNetworkTV station; it have previously been Creator/{{UPN}}, then independent again). Creator/BillyWest and the Farrelly Brothers are amongst those New Englanders who have grown up with the Stooges and were influenced heavily by their comedic stylings.

* ArchivePanic: 191 shorts in total: 97 with Curly (85 pre-stroke), 78 with Shemp (74 if we don't count the FakeShemp shorts) and 16 with Besser. There are also the five shorts and film with Ted Healy, as well as various film cameos, TV appearances and post-shorts projects. That is a lot of [[EyePoke eye pokes]] and [[DopeSlap slaps]].

* BrokenBase: The short ''[[Recap/TheThreeStoogesCuckooOnAChooChoo Cuckoo in a Choo-Choo]]'', hands down. This is the short in which Larry is playing a Creator/MarlonBrando-esque character who [[CrazyAwesome stole a passenger car off a moving train]], just so his girlfriend's sister can get her [[UpperClassTwit rich drunken boyfriend]] Shemp to propose, because then ''they'' can get married. Unfortunately Shemp is in love with [[InterspeciesRomance Carey the giant canary]] who exists only in his booze-sodden dreams, and who is played by some poor soul in an [[NightmareFuel utterly hideous]] suit. And Moe is a railroad detective in love with Larry's girlfriend's sister (the one they want to get hitched to Shemp) who finds them and tries to get rid of Shemp so he can marry the sister. There is no middle ground on this one, every Stooges fan either [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome thinks it's terrific]] or sees it as the worst thing they ever did.

** Remember the Stooges' blatant disregard of gun safety in the shorts? In reality, Curly Howard accidentally shot himself in the ankle at age 13 while toying with a rifle. The injury was never properly treated, and caused him pain for the rest of his life. In some shorts where his bare legs are shown, one calf is noticeably thinner than the other.
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: The Three Stooges are fairly popular in Spanish speaking countries, where they are called "Los Tres Chiflados". (In some Spanish dubs, Curly is oddly given a deep, guttural voice in contrast to his English falsetto!)

** The moment in "Film/NuttyButNice" where Curly says "What'll the world do without me?", soon mirrors him being replaced by his older brother Shemp seven years later. Curly being replaced was one complaint for fans that enjoyed the original shorts.

** In the short "Men in Black", a deranged hospital patient (played by Billy Gilbert) claims to see "great, big, giant, green CANARIES!" . About two decades later, "Cuckoo on a Choo-Choo" is released and guess what a hallucinating Shemp is in love with?

* HollywoodHomely: The women who go after Curly and Shemp tend to be this. Curly's dance partner in "Hoi Polloi", to name one, wears a tightly-pinned hairstyle, coke-bottle glasses and a pursed, "I just sucked a lemon dry" face. Her actress briefly drops that look to check her makeup and reveals herself to actually be quite attractive.

* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: The remake shorts are a common example. They rehash old shorts either because the writers have no other ideas, so they could have an excuse to use StockFootage from an earlier short as {{Filler}}, or some other reason. The overuse of StockFootage in later Curly shorts are due to his ailing health and were used to lighten their shooting schedule; this was a lot easier to get away with when they were originally shown in theaters, before the advent of television airings and home video.

** On the other hand, Joe Besser is universally hated, largely due to Besser's contractual stipulation that Moe couldn't hit him; this was like a kiss of death for any shorts featuring him, since annoyingly clownish characters are tolerable only so long as their annoyance is appropriately punished. Indeed, Joe Besser rather than Shemp personifies this more, as Shemp tends to be more popular than not. Even though Besser did relent somewhat on the "don't hit" thing in his later shorts, many fans find his trademark "whining sissy-boy" shtick to be more grating than funny, and one that doesn't really gel with the Stooges' act.

* SeasonalRot: The Curly-era shorts for example. After their 85th short ''Film/IdiotsDeluxe'', Curly had gotten [[OutOfFocus less focus]] in most shorts and had less slapstick moments, especially in [[spoiler:not partaking in the pie fight in their last short ''[[Film/HalfWitsHoliday Half-Wits Holiday]].]]
** Aside from the stooges themselves aging, other contributions to the seasonal rot include Columbia's cost-cutting measures on their shorts department, resulting in overuse of StockFootage, repetitive gags and recycled plots. This probably would have happened whether Curly had been replaced by Shemp or not.

** Some of the editing when they were using StockFootage got pretty bad, to the point where Curly makes unintentional cameos in some of the remade Shemp shorts because of it.

** Any of their episodes involving Native Americans (such as ''Back to the Woods'' and ''Woops, I'm an Indian!'') are clearly a product of their time, and might make modern audiences uncomfortable.

* NeverLiveItDown: Joe Besser got a bad rep with fans of the series for being contractually forbidden to be comically hit in his Three Stooges shorts, leading him to be perceived as an ImmuneToSlapstick third wheel in the films. In reality, Besser did take part in a fair bit of slapstick abuse, it was merely the comedic slaps and bonks from Moe he tended to shirk from, and even then there were exceptions or clever variations to get around this, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc1tgVM_N08 as evidenced here]].

* VindicatedByCable: The Stooges ended up becoming more popular than they ever had been before in the 1950s once their shorts were moved to television. Indeed, the very decision to award the Stooges a contract to do full-length films in the 1960s was a direct result of the popularity of their shorts on TV.
** In 2011, the cable channel Antenna TV started airing nightly [[MarathonRunning marathons]] of the shorts on the weekends.

* HoYay: In ''The Brideless Groom'', where Moe and Larry are trying to find Shemp a wife so he can get an inheritance, Moe gets so happy after it seems like they've succeeded that he kisses Larry. A random person walking down the hall as it happens gives them a very disturbed look, and Moe promptly slaps Larry. This was GettingCrapPastTheRadar in those days.

** Curly-Joe, for the most part. It also helped that the guy he was replacing was the aforementioned (and widely hated) Besser, and managed to be an effective stooge in his own right.

* ArchivePanic: 191 shorts in total: 97 with Curly (85 pre-stroke), 78 with Shemp (74 if we don't count the FakeShemp shorts) and 16 with Besser. There's also the five shorts and film with Ted Healy, as well as various film cameos, TV appearances and post-shorts projects. That's a lot of [[EyePoke eye pokes]] and [[DopeSlap slaps]].

* AcceptablePoliticalTargets: ThoseWackyNazis are always portray as so stupid they make the Stooges look competent by comparison. Best exemplified when Moe disguises himself as Hitler and orders two Nazi guards to blow their brains out. The response is priceless:

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Shemp.
** At first, [[ReplacementScrappy he had a rocky start from replacing Curly]] when the latter had his stroke. But [[VindicatedByHistory as time went on]], he became accepted by all.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Shemp. At first, [[ReplacementScrappy he had a rocky start from replacing Curly]] when the latter had his stroke. But [[VindicatedByHistory as time went on]], he became accepted by all.

** Overlapping with HarsherInHindsight, depending on your viewpoint; Playing to an empty stadium was just another joke in ''Film/ThreeLittlePigskins'', before becoming a global reality in wake of the COVID pandemic.

** Curly-Joe [=DeRita=], for the most part, [[AvertedTrope avoided]] this trope. It also helped that the guy he was replacing was the aforementioned (and widely hated) Besser.

** On the other hand, Joe Besser is universally hated, largely due to Besser's contractual stipulation that Moe couldn't hit him; this was like a kiss of death for any shorts featuring him, since annoyingly clownish characters are tolerable only so long as their annoyance is appropriately punished. Indeed, Joe Besser rather than Shemp personifies this more, as Shemp tends to be more popular than not. Even though Besser did relent somewhat on the "don't hit" thing in his later shorts, many fans find his trademark "whining sissy" shtick to be more grating than funny.

** On the other hand, Joe Besser is universally hated, largely due to Besser's contractual stipulation that Moe couldn't hit him; this was like a kiss of death for any shorts featuring him, since annoyingly clownish characters are tolerable only so long as their annoyance is appropriately punished. Indeed, Joe Besser rather than Shemp personifies this more, as Shemp tends to be more popular than not.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: Most of the time, such as when a stooge falling from a large height is obviously a stunt dummy, this only serves to add to the hilarity.

* UncannyValley: For those who grew up watching these shorts for years in black and white, actually viewing the colorized version looks eerily surreal.

--> “But sir, we are Nazis! We have no brains!”

* NeverLiveItDown: Joe Besser got a bad rep with fans of the series for being contractually forbidden to be comically hit in his Three Stooges shorts, leading him to be perceived as an ImmuneToSlapstick third wheel in the films. In reality, Besser did take part in a fair bit of slapstick abuse, it was merely the comedic slaps and bonks from Moe he tended to shirk from, and even then there were exceptions, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc1tgVM_N08 as evidenced here]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** Shemp. At first, [[ReplacementScrappy he had a rocky start from replacing Curly]] when the latter had his stroke. But [[VindicatedByHistory as time went on]], he became accepted by all.

** Curly-Joe. He was brought in to play the third stooge during their comeback, and managed to be an effective stooge in his own right.

* SignatureSong: Two, in fact; "Listen to the Mockingbird" from the earlier shorts and "Three Blind Mice" for the later shorts.

* EarWorm: Watch "Punch Drunk", and you '''will''' get "Pop Goes The Weasel" embedded into your head!
** Three words: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Pk1UYkB3I Swinging. The. Alphabet.]] "B-A-bay, B-E-bee, B-I-bicky-bi, B-O bo, bicky-bi bo, B-U bu, bicky bi bo bu..."
** There's also [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeHe3aoS8qk the song]] Larry and Curly play in ''Idiot's Deluxe'' as The Original Two-Man Quartet (featuring Larry on clarinet and hi-hat and Curly on trombone, tin pan and bass drum), which is most unwelcome to Moe who is suffering from the after-effects of a nervous breakdown.
** The song that Curly sings in "I Can Hardly Wait"
--> "She was bread in old Kentucky, but she's only a crumb up heeeerree. She's knock-kneed, double-jointed, with a cauliflower ear."