In about 1981, long before I knew anything about the Stooges or their history, I happened to see a couple Stooge shorts on a friend's TV. I guess I wasn't paying much attention because I only retained a few things, including "Montgomery's wards" and the cigar-eating bit. (I remembered even less about the other short, which turned out to be "Sing A Song Of Six Pants.")
Fast-forward to 2006, when I start really checking out Stooge films for the first time. Before too long I try to see if I can find the titles & other info about the shorts I'd seen way back, particularly the "Montgomery's wards" one. I assume, without giving it a second thought, that both shorts were Curly ones. So I was kind of surprised that the "M.W." short turned out to be "Quiz Whizz", one of the few Besser ones. Well, now I've seen it again, and I can give it a proper review.
There is some funny stuff towards the beginning: Moe describing the "missing" Joe to police while looking at him ("Hair color? Skin!"); Moe unsuccessfully grabbing Joe by his (nonexistent) hair; Emil Sitka wearing the too-big hat. But the humor starts to peter out before long. Well, at least the writers had the sense to establish Joe's love of cigars in the first scene. Speaking of Joe, he's just as annoying here as he's (unjustly) reputed to be most of the time; it's like the writers knew audiences didn't like him and were trying to incorporate that into the humor.
P.S.: Does anyone else think it's ironic that childish Joe is the one whose "adult" vices seemingly threaten to blow the Stooges' cover?
Fast-forward to 2006, when I start really checking out Stooge films for the first time. Before too long I try to see if I can find the titles & other info about the shorts I'd seen way back, particularly the "Montgomery's wards" one. I assume, without giving it a second thought, that both shorts were Curly ones. So I was kind of surprised that the "M.W." short turned out to be "Quiz Whizz", one of the few Besser ones. Well, now I've seen it again, and I can give it a proper review.
There is some funny stuff towards the beginning: Moe describing the "missing" Joe to police while looking at him ("Hair color? Skin!"); Moe unsuccessfully grabbing Joe by his (nonexistent) hair; Emil Sitka wearing the too-big hat. But the humor starts to peter out before long. Well, at least the writers had the sense to establish Joe's love of cigars in the first scene. Speaking of Joe, he's just as annoying here as he's (unjustly) reputed to be most of the time; it's like the writers knew audiences didn't like him and were trying to incorporate that into the humor.
P.S.: Does anyone else think it's ironic that childish Joe is the one whose "adult" vices seemingly threaten to blow the Stooges' cover?