BILLINGSGATE POST: In the Pantheon of fools, the Three Stooges were without peer. But that was nearly 80 years ago. Since then, they have been outshone and nearly forgotten as the years passed by. They were active from 1922 until 1970. Best remembered for their amazing 190 short subject films, they used physical farce and slapstick to make their audience laugh.
Over the years, the team changed: Former members included Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Joe Besser and Curly Joe DeRita.
Let’s call the newest cast, “Two Jerks and a Squirt.”
It may not be fair to compare this threesome with those from another era, but the other night, while Joe (let’s call him Moe) carefully read his hilarious script from the Teleprompter - his Robinhood dream of bilking the American public out of trillions of dollars by robbing the rich and giving it to the poor - was met with the same slapstick responses of outrageous nose pulls, elbow nudging and cries of “Woo-woo-woo!” by Kamala Harris ( just call her Larry) and Nancy Poozleosi (Curly).
In 1938, the Three Stooges filmed “Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb.” Today, these adjectives might apply to Kamala, Poozleosi and Biden, respectively.
In the original film, Curly wins $50,000 from writing a catchy jingle for a radio contest. The boys quickly spend their loot, and check in at the Hotel Costa Plente. Their suite is furnished with many expensive items which they systematically destroy. In the process, three gold diggers connive their way into the boys' room, under the guise that they are three rich widows looking to remarry. This works perfectly, as Curly quickly discovers that all the tax deductions reduce his winnings to a minuscule $4.85. The gentlemen hastily agree to marry the ladies, who soon find out the Stooges are broke and knock them unconscious with champagne bottles.
In this present edition, only the names have changed.
Dr. Slim: “You wanna cheat, cheat fair. Anything I hate is a crooked crook.”
Dirty: “Yo, Doctor. I think you stole that line from Curly.”