"Hail-hail Hailstone! Wahoo!"
"A Dictator? Why, he makes love to beautiful women, drinks champagne, enjoys life and never works. He makes speeches to the people promising them plenty, gives them nothing, then takes everything! That's a Dictator."
— Mr. Amscray
This 1940 short starring The Three Stooges was, literally, the first movie ever to mock the Nazis.
Set in the country of Moronika, three men plot to overthrow their king and appoint a dictator. Their choice is a paperhanger named Moe Hailstone. With Curly as his Field Marshal and Larry as his Minister of Propaganda, the boys take control of the country. The citizens are unhappy and drive Hailstone out of power.
This was followed by I'll Never Heil Again. Other Hollywood artists started attacking the Nazis in 1940: Charlie Chaplin did it with The Great Dictator and MGM did it with The Mortal Storm. But the Stooges did it first.
This film provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: The three Stooges take the place of Nazi stand ins and are slowly embracing the roles.
- Adolf Hitlarious: Total nobody who rises to a position of power? Check. Tiny mustache? Check. Yelling in totally-not-German? Check. The only difference is that Moe Hailstone is a paperhanger instead of a failed art student. This was the Trope Codifier.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: A quite memorable (and hilarious) example of faux-German, as part of Moe's insane rant during his Balcony Speech. He does this again when ranting about catching Mattie Herring, and during the meeting with his ministers.
- Balcony Speech: Moe gives an absurd speech to the people from a balcony after he becomes dictator.Moe: We must make the country safe for hypocrisy!
- Bilingual Bonus: Moe's Rousing Speech is full of Yiddish phrases and colorful insults that only fellow Yiddish speakers — the Jews — would get.
- Burp of Finality: The three lions emerge from the alcove, having eaten the Stooges, and wearing pieces of their uniforms. One burps, and the film ends.
- Chest of Medals: Curly's impression of Hermann Goering and Benito Mussolini, wearing a uniform covered with an absurd number of medals (even having a similar build to the latter). Curly takes it up to eleven, however, by having medals on his back, and his butt.
- Comic Trio: The Three Stooges, up to their usual ridiculous slapstick antics.
- The Casanova: Curly has a personal book filled with women's information. Including things like situations these women get stuck in that he can use to his advantage.
- Downer Ending: The short ends with the Stooges being eaten by lions (although they come back for the sequel... and they die in that film, too!)
- Evil Chancellor: Moe Hailstone, fascist dictator (and moron).
- Evil Is Hammy: The famous balcony scene, in which dictator Moe gives a ridiculously hammy speech to the people (Hitler, of course, being just as hammy).
- Femme Fatale Spy: Mattie Herring, the beautiful spy who has wormed her way into dictator Moe's court with the idea of poisoning him.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: The movie mentions the "Giva Dam", which itself breaks Section V of the Hays Code
, and furthermore has a whole lot of cursing in Yiddish. - Pun: Moe takes Curly's "little red book". "Oh a bookkeeper!"
- Punny Name: The map and Mattie Herring, an expy of Mata Hari.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Several lines make references to current events, particularly the "Blitzkrieg" line.
- Reality Subtext: With the little moustache, Moe Howard looks eerily like Hitler. Moe's comedic persona in most Stooges shorts felt a lot like Hitler minus moustache plus pratfalls anyway, and the resemblance is used here (and in the sequel short) to great effect.
- Sexy Secretary: Mattie Herring, who Hailstone and Gallstone are immediately smitten with, Hailstone apparently being in so deep he was considering marrying her. After Mattie Herring is exposed, Hailstone gets a new secretary, Ms. Pfeffernüsse; she's a very good dancer, but it's about the only thing she does. Although she's so delightful nobody in the cabinet seems to mind.
- Stock Footage: During the balcony speech there is stock footage of a cheering crowd. It is clearly stock footage of a Mussolini rally, with a sign saying the date was in "Octubre" and dating the rally to XV EF (that is, the 15th year of Italian fascism).
- This Is a Work of Fiction: Parodied; the film begins with the notice: "Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle".
- Those Wacky Nazis: Made at a time when mocking the Nazis was, at best, a risky business, this is the Ur-Example. Yes, the Three Stooges were the first people to mock Hitler on film. The best part is that all three are Jews, the dictator's self-proclaimed enemies.
- Villain Protagonist: Given that they're playing Nazis, the Stooges count in this short.
- Visual Pun: The Moronika symbol is a set of criss-crossing, swastika-like snakes.
- War for Fun and Profit: Mr. Ixnay, Mr. Amscray, and Mr. Onay all run a munitions factory that's going down the tubes due to peace times in Moronika. Their solution? They decide to start a war, the first step being to overthrow the king and appoint Moe as a dictator in his place.
