Watching The Three Stooges films today can help gain an insight on America's history of the past. In the case of October 1940's "No Census, No Feeling," there are several instances where the modern viewer can get a perspective of the timeline of events in the 1940s, some trivial, some breathtaking, but all enlightening.
The Stooges find themselves as census takers, getting paid four cents a person to write down each citizens' particulars. Their job takes them inside a sprawling mansion where the owner is hosting a bridge game. While preparing the party's punch Curly pours in Alum, a pickling preservative he thinks is sugar. Once the guests drink the stuff they pucker up when conversing, creating a hilarious situation where words are barely intelligible. Still on the job, the Stooges end up at a college football game attempting to get census information on the players. Just before entering the football arena filled with a hundred thousand fans, the Stooges hear the roar of the spectators, prompting Curly to say, "Maybe it's the Fourth of July!" Moe retorts, "The Fourth of July in October?" "You never can tell," Curly says. "Look what they did to Thanksgiving." Today's viewers scratch their heads asking what happened back then to our Pilgrim-inspired holiday. Since Abraham Lincoln's time, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the last Thursday in November. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 pushed back Turkey Day to the third week of the month to allow an extra week for Christmas shopping, pleasing business owners who loved shoppers to have one more week to spend their money, but angering many state governors and the public. FDR's mandate lasted three years until Congress passed a law permanently resetting Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of the month.
Hollywood films shown in general public movie theaters were required to be stamped with an approval from the Hays Office, named after the first president of the Motion Picture Association of America, William Harrison Hays, the chief censor for Hollywood movies before Joseph Breen took charge. Moe says the Stooges just got a job working for the Census. A confused Curly asks, "Will Hays?" thinking they've become censors for the movies. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.
The Stooges also loved to throw several inside jokes into their movies. Curly and Larry play a joke on Moe, who unknowingly thinks he's canvassing others when its really his partners, asking them where they were born. "Lake Winnipesaukee (a lake in New Hampshire)," Curly answers. Moe says, "How do you spell that?" "W-O ... woof! Make it Lake Erie I got an Uncle there!" Curly responds. Moe, still unaware it's Curly he's talking to, replies, "What was your family decomposed of?" "Well, I'll tell ya! There was a litter of three, and I was the one they kept!" Curly says, reminding viewers his last name was Howard, the real brother to Moe Howard, with Shemp, a later addition to the Stooges, the third. A scene later, Moe approaches a man with a newspaper over his head sleeping on a couch. Moe asks, "Pardon me sir, but I'm taking census, where were you born?" Larry, who's reclining on a nearby couch not in Moe's sites, answers, "Lake Winnipesaukee." Moe: Lake Winnip-how many in the family?" Larry: "I was one of a litter of three." Moe: "Now don't tell me you're the one they kept!" Larry: "Nah, I was the one they threw away!" Larry Fine was not a member of the Howard family even though he was the original member of the Stooges.
