Have Rocket -- Will Travel

It seems by this point that the Stooges seemed apologetic about their work. There was once a time when the Three Stooges could hit each other all they wanted without fear, but by 1959, when they were re-discovered by kiddies on TV, they had to tone down the violence a little. `Have Rocket, Will Travel', their first feature, has less slaps and eye pokes than their average two-reeler, thus resulting in less laughs. The Three Stooges play…The Three Stooges, and this time they're janitors at NASA. A pretty scientist (Anna Lisa) is about to be fired because her attempts to send a spaceship to Jupiter have been unsuccessful. To help her, the Stooges figure out what was wrong, but accidentally send the rocket while they're still in it. They land on Jupiter find a talking Unicorn, and get into some trouble with an evil computer that makes evil mechanic clones of them. Will they survive? The problem with `Have Rocket, Will Travel' is that it's talking down to a juvenile audience and trying to please the kiddies instead of being funny. What we're left with is Three nice Stooges and a talking Unicorn, which is so silly that it's virtually indescribable. And what about the Jupiter scenes? They appear to have been hastily filmed in a national park hoping the audience wouldn't notice the obvious flaws. `Have Rocket, Will Travel' is certainly likable, and it has one or two enjoyable musical numbers, but it just doesn't have the primitive humour and the laughs of their shorts from the 30s and 40s. However, it did spawn a Three Stooges feature film series that included `Snow White and the Three Stooges', `The Three Stooges in Orbit', and `The Outlaws is Coming!'

Even non-Stooge fans will be mildly amused by this modest little sci-fi comedy -- which, along with the TV reruns of their feature shorts, resurrected the careers of the famous trio just when it seemed they would be put out to pasture. Big budget science fiction films were out of fashion by 1959, so Columbia Pictures didn't invest much in this one about three knuckleheads who accidentally rocket themselves to Venus.

Abbott & Costello had already done it in 1953, even though the title of their film claims they go to Mars.

The Stoogemania version of Venus may lack the gorgeous women which Abbott & Costello's trip gave us, but it does have a talking unicorn, a futuristic car, a giant fire-breathing tarantula, and three evil Venusian Stooge look-a-likes who follow the boys back to Earth.

Comedy science fiction was an active sub-genre during the late 1950's/early 1960s. In addition to `Have Rocket, Will Travel', there was `The 30-Foot Bride of Candy Rock', `The Absent Minded Professor', `Visit to a Small Planet', `Son of Flubber', `Invasion of the Star Creatures', `The Three Stooges in Orbit', and several others.

This movie is the equivalent of a satisfying trip to your favorite fast food restaurant. Let's face it, if you're in the mood for a quarter pounder with cheese than the most delicious sirloin steak isn't going to satisfy you --- only that greaseburger will do. By the same token if you're looking for some low-brow Stooge fun then Ernst Lubitsch at his peak ain't gonna do it for you but this film will. Sure, it's not even the Stooges at their best, their glory days were almost twenty years in the past, but they still had some of the old zip and all the old shtick is trotted out like it was brand new and mixed with enough fifties sci-fi clichés to provide a satisfying junk meal. In fact a straight sci-fi movie like QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE could have used some of this movie's imagination and energy. I particularly liked the giant fire spewing tarantula, an effect pulled off quite well I might add, at least as well as Universal's "classic" TARANTULA. And I have to admit I find the title song kind of catchy. So sue me.

How well I remember the long lines at the box office for Have Rocket, Will Travel. Harry Cohn may have died a year before, but his successors at Columbia Pictures realized they had a gold mine on their hands when those old Three Stooges shorts were gaining a new generation of fans of which your's truly was one of them at the age of 11. The lines were comparable to those for a new Harry Potter film, I kid you not.

The Three Stooges had their half hour comedy show with Officer Joe Bolton on WPIX Channel 11 in New York and other similar venues throughout the country. So with only two Stooges still on this mortal coil (Joe Besser was never really a Stooge), the search was on to find a third one to fit in with Moe Howard and Larry Fine.

Character actor Curly Joe DeRita was hired to pinch hit for the late Curly Howard. Movie audiences if they had noticed would have also seen him in 1959 as a treacherous hangman in the Gregory Peck western, The Bravados, but here he simply steps in as a kinder, gentler, and somewhat less zany version of Curly.

Looking back, Have Rocket, Will Travel borrows quite liberally from the Abbott&Costello film, Abbott&Costello Go To Mars. The same premise happens, three nincompoops instead of two accidentally get launched into space and head for Venus where they establish interplanetary relations.

The film does not have the Stooge zaniness, there could only be on Curly. But Joe DeRita is not the only problem. Moe and Larry had aged and the physical comedy they did in their younger days, just isn't present any more.

For the kids back then it was satisfying enough, but Have Rocket, Will Travel just doesn't measure up to the Three Stooges in their prime.

The Stooges were Blessed with "New Life" after Their Catalog of Columbia Shorts (20 min) were Shown on TV in the 1950's and Baby Boomer Kids became Three Stooges Fanatics, to the Dismay of Worried Mothers and Nannies across the Nation, Fearing the "Monkey See - Monkey Do" Nature of Children.

There was No Shortage of Outcries and Protests from Parents and Other "Censorship" Types. Eye Poking and other Outrageously Violent Slapstick, like a Saw Across the Skull, was Typical and Routine for a Stooges Short and the Grown-Ups were Appalled.

But that's exactly why Moe, Larry, Curly, and later Shemp, were so Loved by the Youngins. They were like a Real-Life Version of the also Immensely Popular Cartoons, also finding "New Life" on TV. This brings Us to the Late Life Feature Films of "The Three Stooges".

Well Past Their Prime, and with Curly and Shemp Gone, the Stooges were asked to Cash In on Their Popularity and the Boys Needed the Money. So this Enterprising Series of Entertaining, but far from Their Best Work, Feature Films Resulted.

Financially Successful, the Films were Mild, Toned-Down Fluff and Fans went more to Pay Homage to Their TV Friends, and didn't Expect Greatness. It was a Mutual Admiration Event by both "The Three Stooges" and Their Adoring Public.

Overall, this was the First in the Movie Series and has its Moments. Ironically, but maybe not, the Best Stuff in the Film seem to be the Recycled Gags from the Two-Reelers. The other Stuff here is Forced, sometimes Amusing, but it's the Classic Routines that Highlight. Every once and while there is a New Surprisingly Funny Thing, like when Moe says to Larry and Curly Joe..."You're knuckleheads...All three of ya.".