Three Little Pigskins

Just a funny little Three Stooges short. The slapstick is rather good , it is pretty compact and well-done, a good chance for them to do their shtick. Lucille Ball appears, very pre-Lucy . Funny concept in which Moe, Larry, and Curly get mistaken for famous football players. I saw this right after the New Years proceedings a year ago.

The big professional football game between the Cubs and the Tigers is coming up on the weekend and the Tigers' owner is just informed that his three best backs got plastered and rolled over in their car. Now he has to go out and find three players, fast. He's told about some great amateur backs - The Three Horsemen - at Boulder Dam College.

Meanwhile, in the college town our boys are on the street panhandling and getting socked in the jaws for their efforts. However, they do get a job holding signs promoting the big college football in town, and they are dressed in football gear.

You guessed it. The boys are mistaken for the Three Horsemen - by the men's girlfriends, no less - and are taken back up to their apartment. One of the girls, by the way, is Lucille Ball, but you wouldn't recognize her.

The scenes in the apartment are far better than the football game which is only shown in the last three minutes and aren't much.

Overall, okay but a little too dumb and not as good as expected out of the guys. However, it was still early (1934) in their careers and they were learning. It was interesting to find out how many people got injured filming this short.

Like the previous reviewer mentioned, this movie is not the best they ever made. Part of that is attributed to the injuries that occurred on the set. Larry lost a tooth when one of the bit players mistimed a punch. Curly broke his leg in one of the scenes. Even the stunt doubles sustained injuries. These injuries probably affected their ability to perform at their best.

Nonetheless, I still think it's entertaining and funny.

This short was filmed at the Los Angeles Gilmore Stadium with the Loyola University football team as extras. The name "Three Little Pigskins" was in reference to Walt Disneys popular cartoon short "Three Little Pigs."

What I'm now reviewing here is the fourth Three Stooges short made for Columbia Pictures in which Moe, Larry, and Curley (as it was originally spelled at the time) get mistaken for actual football players and get asked to play in a game. This is the first time the boys get involved in a "mistaken identity" plot and boy, whoever makes that blunder usually regrets it soon enough! Incidentally, additional interest for this short is provided by the fact that this is one of the earliest film appearances of one young woman named Lucille Ball. She, and a couple of other young ladies, seemed game in participating in some of the shenanigans with the boys which makes what they do to them a little fun to watch. My favorite scenes, though, involve seltzer water, a dumbwaiter (basically a hand-held elevator), and many of the dumb football plays involving the boys. Not as hilarious as the first three they did but Three Little Pigskins is funny enough to recommend to any Stooge fan that just can't get enough of Howard, Fine, and Howard.

Three Little Pigskins (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Gangster mistake the Three Stooges for professional athletes and get them involved in a football game with big cash on the line. Here's one of the better shorts from the series with non-stop gags, although most of the gags come from the first half of the film and not the second half that deals with the game. The various misadventures inside the girl's apartment are terrific and especially they escape down the shoot.

Now available on Columbia's 2-disc collection, which features over 20 shorts.