Curly: What is it? What do we have to do?
Moe: Shoot golf.
Curly: Oh, hunting.
Moe: Shoot golf.
Curly: Oh, hunting.
— Moe and Curly on the subject of the $100 cash prize
Before Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore, the Stooges were the ones to make golf funny.
Three Little Beers is the 11th short of The Three Stooges short subjects, released in 1935. In this, Moe, Larry and Curly are delivery men who, after causing some mishaps in the Panther Pilsner Beer company, discover a golf tournament with a cash prize involved. They decide to enter the tournament. However, the trio don't know a thing about golf. Naturally, Hilarity Ensues.
How are we gonna shoot tropes without guns?
- Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game: This is what happens when you let the Stooges play a game of golf. Crazy pinball shots where balls hit various people, and so on.
- Comically Missing the Point: As per usual, Curly mistakes Moe's words to "shoot golf", as he believes they're going hunting.
- Funny Foreigner: The Italian-accented gardeners who are infuriated by the stooges' antics, yelling at the trio in stereotypical "Italian-ized" English.
- Golf Clubbing: Moe, naturally, uses a golf club to threaten the other Stooges.
- Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: The Stooges stole golfing attire and golf clubs from a few club members that were showering.
- Gretzky Has the Ball: As noted above, the Stooges know nothing about golf, and use terms from hunting and horse racing when trying to describe it.
- Magic Brakes: At one point after the Stooges were chased off the golf course, they had to retrieve a few beer barrels that fell out of the truck. They ended up stopping on a hill. While doing so, the brakes on the truck failed for some reason and the impact after rolling downhill a ways caused the other barrels in the truck to fall out, causing complete chaos at a nearby intersection.
- Press Hat: As only the members of the press were allowed on the course when the Stooges wanted to practice, they had a variant where they used "PRESS" buttons stolen from a washroom to get in. Curly, being an idiot, uses a "PULL" button instead. They got access nonetheless.
- Punny Name: "Panther Pilsner." In those days, "panther piss" was a slang term for bad-tasting beer.
- The Scapegoat:
- When the boys get hit in the head by a golf ball, Moe thinks Larry did it and slaps him away. When Curly protests Larry's innocence, it only makes Moe blame him for the incident instead.
- Also at the end, Moe blames Curly for the fact a barrel pushed him into a square of freshly planted wet cement and he's stuck. He vows to crack Curly's head open when he gets free.
- Tap on the Head: The boys get hit each on the head by a golf ball.Moe (turning to Larry, thinking he hit him on the head): Oh, a wise guy, a head clunker, eh?
Larry: No, it came from back...
Moe (slapping him away): Get outta here!
Curly: He didn't do it!
Moe: Then you did. (he slaps Curly.) - Unbuilt Trope: While this short came out decades before other wacky golf comedies, it feels almost like a deconstruction of them. The main reason the Stooges' golf game is so strange is because they know absolutely nothing about golf, often getting it mixed up with other sports like hunting and horse racing. On another note, it shows that no sane groundskeepers would tolerate their destructive antics, and when the club's management finds out what the Stooges are doing, they call the cops on them.
