In the short Three Dumb Clucks, Curly plays the boys' father.
In the Shemp remake, Up In Daisy's Penthouse, Shemp plays the boys' father.
In Heavenly Daze and Bedlam In Paradise, Moe plays the boys' uncle Mortimer.
In Self Made Maids, the boys play their fiancées and later their babies. Moe also plays the fiancées' father. note The opening credits claim that "All parts in this picture are played by The Three Stooges", which is true if you don't count the man reading the newspaper in the lobby (at about 8:15, played by Charles Cross), nor the stand-ins that appear whenever the Stooges must interact with their fiancées (or Moe and the fiancées' father) within the same shot.
In Spooks, Shemp plays a close-up of a bat.
In Creeps, the boys play their children.
In A Merry Mix-Up, the boys play their triplet brothers.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: While Curly could psych himself up when dealing with the bad guys and occasionally needed to be restrained, he never said, "Lemme at 'em! Lemme at 'em!" (That would be Scrappy-Doo.)
Corpsing: Christine is visibly fighting not to laugh during the first part of Shemp's reaction in Who Done It?.
Although it came later in their careers, they thought it was a mistake to do Snow White and the Three Stooges (since the film gave them little screen time, and barely any slapstick). As well as having scenes involving genuine pathos, which was not in their repertoire.
Moe Howard is also stated to have despised his tenure with Joe Besser, finding him to be a nuisance due to refusing to take part in their trademark slapstick, even going so far as to label him a "prissy little snot with a star ego". Averted with Larry, who spoke fondly of him and was mentioned as being a good sport to the requests of Besser, who himself enjoyed his work on the series.
Curly Joe DeRita openly admitted in an interview that he never liked the Stooge style of humor.
Curly Joe: I don't think the Stooges were funny. I'm not putting you on, I'm telling the truth—they were physical, but they just didn't have any humor about them. Take, for instance, Laurel and Hardy. I can watch their films and I still laugh at them and maybe I've seen them four or five times before. But when I see that pie or seltzer bottle, I know that it's not just lying around for no reason. It's going to be used for something. I was with the Stooges for 12 years and it was a very pleasant association but I just don't think they were funny.
Supporting actor Christine McIntyre openly admitted later in her life that as much as she loved her time with the Stooges, she was upset her Stooge roles were remembered far more by fans than her roles in other Columbia shorts and her leading lady roles in B-Westerns.
Moe and Larry both cited You Nazty Spy! as their favorite.
Another favorite of Larry’s was Cuckoo on a Choo-Choo; an opinion shared by almost no one else, but it was because he got to play a different character than he usually did.
Shemp's favorites were "Fright Night" (his first after replacing ailing Curly) and "Who Done It".
The Danza: Moe and Larry usually just went by their real names in every short. "Curly" was of course a nickname, and "Shemp" was how the boys' mother pronounced "Sam," his real name.
Died During Production: The last few shorts featuring Shemp were made after his sudden death of a heart attack in 1955. The Stooges, at the time, were still expected to deliver four new shorts according to the terms of their annual contract. In addition to this, budget cuts at Columbia had forced them to make heavy use of stock footage. As such, instead of replacing Shemp immediately, they decided to reuse a ton of old footage from Shemp's previous films. Whenever new footage was required to maintain continuity, a stand-in named Joe Palma would appear, making sure to obscure his face at all times and not say any dialogue.
Dyeing for Your Art: Curly usually had a thick head of curly brown hair — which he would shave off whenever he was doing a shoot.
Curly's goofy walk is the result of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound to the left ankle when he was 12.
When filming the pie fights featured in several shorts, directors such as Jules White would avoid anticipation or flinching with misleading timing; e.g., telling an actor they would be hit with a pie on the count of three, while secretly instructing the person hurling the pastry (often Moe himself, known for his deadly accuracy) to throw it on two.
Also, the physical comedy was real. Curly had actually gone deaf in one ear from being slapped so much. And some medical professionals even suspect that the reason for Curly's declining health in the latter part of his life could easily be explained by the fact that he was hit a lot on the head. And Larry had a permanent callous on his left cheek, also from being slapped a lot.
Moe actually broke some of his ribs during the filming of Pardon My Scotch in which Curly accidentally saws through the table Moe is standing on, causing it to collapse. Amazingly, Moe managed to stand for a few seconds to deliver a double-slap to Curly and Larry (you can tell by Moe's silence and body language that the fall was incredibly painful). In the short Who Done It? Moe sprained his ankle falling through a door and spent the rest of the short with a considerable limp that slowed down much of his physical timing.
In filming the Brideless Groom scene in which Christine McIntyre beats the snot out of poor Shemp (whom she had mistaken for "Cousin Basil"), McIntyre's assault was looking rather tepid, prompting Shemp to tell her she had to really "cut loose" and make the next take look real. It became a little too realistic when her final haymaker actually connected by mistake and broke Shemp's nose! McIntyre was upset almost to the point of tears, but Shemp laughed it off, saying, "It's alright, honey. I said you should cut loose, and you did...you sure as hell did!"
Funny Character, Boring Actor: As manically childish as Curly was in the shorts, he was very shy and introverted when out-of-character, and insecure about his bald head, which he (quite wrongly) believed tarnished his appeal to women. Unless he was on-camera or in the presence of family, such as his brother Shemp, only alcohol could bring him out of his shell; his health declined severely over the years as a result and led to his untimely death.
Last of His Kind: Curly Joe DeRita called himself The Last Stooge for a reason: not only was he the last to join the Stooges, he was the last one alive, dying in 1993.
Life Imitates Art: In the short False Alarms Moe, Larry, and Curly are firemen. Curly lays the hoses out in the street while cleaning them, causing them to be run over by a streetcar. In Maine, some firefighters ran a hose over a railway, with predictable results, which wasn't helped by the department calling the wrong railroad company.
Marathon Running: In 2011, cable channel Antenna TV began running mini-marathons of the shorts over the weekend.
On-Set Injury: Being the cornucopia of slapstick the series is, the Stooges were bound to have suffered injuries while making their films.
In Pardon My Scotch, Curly accidentally saws a wooden table that Moe happens to be standing on in half, causing Moe to fall when he tries to walk across it. In the take you see on screen, Moe Howard broke three ribs in that fall, and he managed to complete the take before passing out.
In Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise and The Three Troubledoers, Moe got hit in the face with a dirty substance (black goo in the former, soot in the latter), and he had to receive medical attention because it got under his eyelids.
In Gem of a Jam, one gag has Curly lying on an operating table that gets titled downward towards a window, resulting in him almost falling out. While filming the scene, the table tilted too fast and Curly hit his head on the windowsill, giving him a gash in the back of his head that required nine stitches.
In Heavenly Daze, Larry Fine really got hurt when he got a fountain pen lodged in his forehead. Moe took this very poorly, and chased Jules White around the set.
In Self-Made Maids, the Stooges play female versions of themselves in drag. While filming a scene where the girls skip out the door, Moe slipped and sprained his ankle. In an act of quick thinking, Moe saved the take by hopping into the bed in the next room to get himself out of the shot, which resulted in him hitting his head on the bedpost and falling unconscious.
In Brideless Groom, Shemp is to be beat up by a woman who originally confused him for her cousin Basil (Christine McIntyre). She just couldn't convincingly pull her punches and was ruining takes, so Shemp told her just to punch him for real. She did. Shemp ended up with a broken nose.
Usually crosses over with Not Quite Starring, often after the actual Stooges died.
This actually caused a bit of trouble with The Movie, which was stuck in Development Hell for 11 years because they couldn't find good comic actors to replace the originals. The roles ended up with Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso as Moe, Larry and Curly, respectively.
The Pete Best: Shemp avoided becoming this thanks to him returning to the group to initially fill in for Curly until the latter recovered from his stroke (though he unfortunately never did).
Pie in the Face: Shortly before he died, Moe demonstrated that he still had deadly aim with a pie on The Mike Douglas Show by nailing a mannequin at a range of 10 to 15 feet...without his glasses. In another appearance on the show, Moe, Mike, and Soupy Sales reenact the "Maha-aha" routine, which degenerates into a pie fight involving the trio, the bikini-clad blonde handing out the pies, and Moe's wife Helen (seated in the audience).
Reality Subtext: During The Three Stooges Go Around The World In A Daze, Moe tells one of his Stooge clones in Communist China that they do not do eye pokes anymore. He was telling the truth; during the post-1959 era, the Stooges agreed not to do any more eye poking as children could imitate this and end up hurting each other.
Recycled Script: Several shorts had this, usually with Stock Footage incorporated in. Once Shemp replaced Curly, several remakes of Curly's old shorts were done with the new stooge, and this was repeated with Joe Besser.
Curly suffered a stroke during the filming of the short Half-Wits Holiday. He is notably absent from the final scene of the short because he had to be written out of it in order to complete it. His health had been declining for a long time, as evidenced by his frail condition in the shorts leading up to his final one.
Speaking of which, the pie fight in Half-Wits Holiday was originally written to feature Curly. It also had to be reworked following Curly's stroke. In the finished film, Curly disappears just before the climax begins, and Moe and Larry carry on as a two-man team. This ultimately proved a blessing in disguise, as without Curly, the pie fight was reused via stock footage in several shorts with Shemp and Joe Besser.
Before this, Curly had a few minor strokes that caused some of the Stooges shorts to be rewritten. Beer Barrel Polecats started out as a remake of the Laurel and Hardy film Pardon Us. Much of the planned material was ultimately replaced by Stock Footage from earlier Stooges shorts, and only part of the short was borrowed from the similar L&H film. Other shorts, notably Three Loan Wolves, merely switched Curly's and Larry's roles.
Kook's Tour was intended to be the pilot episode for a TV series. When Larry Fine suffered a debilitating stroke partway through production, the idea was called off.
The Stooges' unnamed TV sitcom pilot, which would have seen them attempting a new (inevitably doomed) business each episode - sort of like Wallace & Gromit, with Stooges!
The Three Stooges Scrapbook, a sitcom which would have been partially live action and partially animated. Much of the color footage from the unsold pilot was reprinted in black-and-white and integrated into the feature film The Three Stooges in Orbit. (Moe's son-in-law, Norman Maurer, produced both projects.)
Stooge Time, another proposed series that would have featured both live action and animated segments, utilizing rotoscoping for the cartoon portions. One of the animated segments (Li'l Stooges) would have focused on the team's adolescent sons.
A television series (with Joe Besser as the third Stooge) that would have parodied TV news shows.
The Stooges had wanted to do a full-length feature film for years, but weren't able to do one until the late 1950s, by which time Curly was long dead and replaced with Curly Joe.
Regular Stooge writer Elwood Ullman scripted a final draft for a Moe, Larry and Shemp feature titled Where There's a Will in 1948. The story would have found the team as city laborers who inherit a family fortune in the southern hills. Ultimately, the trio would have found themselves against another family in a premise much like the Hatfields/McCoy feud.
A 1946 Columbia two-reeler titled Pardon My Terror was originally written for the Stooges. They were forced to back out at the last minute after Curly Howard's stroke. The trio was ultimately replaced by Gus Schilling and Richard Lane. There was so little time for rewrites that Schilling and Lane worked directly from the Stooges' script. Schilling was given most of Curly's lines while Lane took on Moe's lines. Larry's lines were split between the two actors. The Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Shemp) eventually remade the short as Who Done It? (1948).
Speaking of which, the pie fight in Half-Wits Holiday was originally written to feature Curly. It also had to be reworked after Curly's stroke. In the finished film, Curly disappears just before the climax begins, and Moe and Larry carry on as a two-man team.
Prior to this, Curly had a few minor strokes that caused some of the Stooges shorts to be rewritten. Beer Barrel Polecats started out as a remake of the Laurel and Hardy film Pardon Us. Much of the planned material was ultimately replaced by Stock Footage from earlier Stooges shorts, and only part of the short was borrowed from the similar L&H film. Other shorts, notably Three Loan Wolves, merely switched Curly's and Larry's roles.
Curly was supposed to have a part in Malice in the Palace as the cook who the Stooges mistakenly think is chopping up a dog and a cat and cooking them, but unfortunately Curly was too sick to play the part so it was given to Larry. Had Curly been able to do it, it would have been the only time Curly would appear in a Shemp short as more than just a brief cameo.
Supporting actor Emil Sitka was planned to be ascended to replacement Stooge after Larry's death. However, aside from odd bits of promotional material, the act never took off, due to Moe's death shortly after it was planned. (Sitka's stooge character was to have been named "Harry" and his comic hook, according to Sitka, was "being fastidious to the point of absurdity.")
In the early 1970s, Grade Z producer Sam Sherman wanted the Stooges as the comic relief for his film R-rated film Blazing Stewardesses (originally titled The Jet Set). The original premise found Moe and Curly Joe taking a sick Larry to a health resort (this would have been an excuse for Larry Fine, who had recently had a stroke, to remain in a wheelchair). Fine's health problems led to the team's scenes being reworked with Emil Sitka as the 'middle Stooge'. Moe's death in 1975 led to the Stooges being dropped from the film (though producer Sherman briefly considered bring Joe Besser back to the team). They were ultimately replaced by the two surviving Ritz Brothers (Harry and Jimmy).
Originally, after Shemp's death, Moe apparently suggested bringing on African-American character actor Mantan Moreland (who had been a close friend of Shemp's and worked with him during Shemp's solo career) as the third Stooge (Moreland may be most well-known as the chauffeur Baltimore in the Charlie Chan series). Depending on the story, this was vetoed by Harry Cohn, Columbia's head, because a) Moreland wasn't under contract to Columbia at the time (a similar reason was used to veto Joe DiRita), or b) because Cohn didn't want a black Stooge for some reason. Cue Joe Besser.
In the 1970s, Mel Brooks was approached to write and direct a Three Stooges movie starring himself, Marty Feldman, and Dom De Luise as Moe, Larry, and Curly, but it never materialized, and the three would make Silent Movie instead.
, which wasn't helped by the department calling the wrong railroad company.