Goof on the Roof

Goof on the roof is a really funny short. It's a reworking of Laurel and Hardy's Hog Wild. I love how when the stooges attempt to set up a t.v. antenna for their pal, Bill, the destruction of the house gets worse. This was the last short that screenwriter Clyde Bruckman worked on with the stooges. He committed suicide January of 1955, which a year and a half after this film was released. Sad, because he was the best that the stooges had and has a lot of credits under his belt. 10 months after Bruckman killed himself, Shemp passed away from a massive heart attack and Columbia and moe and larry had to use stooge foil Joe Palma to fill in for Shemp in his last 4 films. Anyway, if you want to see a good short with Shemp, I recommend Goof on the roof. It is funny!

What can I say? The Stooges are house sitting for their friend and want to make everything "nice" for when he cames back home with his new bride. That's the start for anything to go totally wrong, especially when you put these three characters in charge. In the process of "cleaning up" the house, they just naturally destroy it piece by piece. But the real payoff comes when the new television arrives and they approach the unpacking and set up with their usual "all business" attitude only to end up making things worse. Shemp is basically the "title" character, "goof on the roof" when he makes every attempt to nail the aerial to the chimmney, knocking the bricks for same all to pieces. Then he tries to nail it to the roof, crashing through on down to the other two below and totally smashing the "new" T.V. and then uttering those ever immortal words, "I faw down". Don't miss one!

For those of you who don't know what "quintessential" means, it basically means, the most perfect example of something; in this case, what the Stooges is all about. And this short is definitely that. It takes a fairly simple premise (the Stooges try to do something nice for their friend, Bill, but all hell breaks loose when they get to work at it) and expands it into a non-stop series of hilarious gags, situations, and pratfalls. In particular, look for Larry looking into a hole in the wall (into which he has dropped the knob for a TV set) with a lit match in his hand. Moe berates him for "playing with fire" and, as a result, inadvertantly tosses the match into the wall's hole and the boys then must deal with both putting the TV set back together and preventing the house from burning to a cinder! When Shemp attempts to put the TV antenna on the house's roof, their efforts do not fare any better. And, of course, when Bill finally arrives home, he does not take kindly to their errors. If you're unfamiliar with the Stooges, this is one short you should view above others. It's a classic! RECOMMENDED.

This has to be one of the best of the Three Stooges shorts that aren't overplayed repeatedly. By 1953, many of their short films were remakes and contained reused footage from earlier shorts. But like a breath of fresh air, this short contains all new footage. The Stooges get maximum laughs out of simple sets and household items. Comic genius ensues when they "only" have things like buckets and dutch doors to use as props. The feather duster gag is the visual highlight of the film! They are trying to set up a new TV and install an antenna on the roof for a friend. With friends like the Stooges, you sure don't need enemies, but you might need a new house!! Enjoy this high point of the Shemp era.

This 1953 Stooges entry is the last of the great comedies they made and it was also the last film written by Clyde Bruckman. Bruckman started out as a gag writer for many of the screen's best comedians, W. C. Fields, Buster Keaton, etc. Unfortunately, in later years, Bruckman's alcoholism had worsened and had a tendency to "borrow" gags from several other movies, that sometimes resulted in lawsuits, particularly Harold Lloyd, who had successfully sued Bruckman in 1946 for borrowing a gag involving a magician's coat in the 1942 Stooges short Loco Boy Makes Good. As a result, his career was affected by it and it never bounced back, but did find work writing for The Abbott & Costello television series in the early 1950s, but again continued to borrow plot elements from other films that he was subsequently fired. In January 1955, a despondent Bruckman borrowed a pistol from his longtime friend Buster Keaton, claiming he needed it for a hunting trip, but instead he drove to a restaurant in Santa Monica, went inside a restroom stall and shot himself with the gun. A sad farewell to a once-legendary comedy writer.

All that aside, this is still an entertaining short, where the Stooges try to install a television set for their landlord and instead destroy the entire house in the process. The first half where they clean up the house is the best, thanks to a pesky bar of soap and numerous fallen buckets of water.