Three Little Pigskins

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.

THE POPULARITY OF College Football had been a bankable subject for film makers ever since that "Golden Age of Sports" materialized during the 1920's. By that time the Nation was well aware of the Coleges; mainly because of the "Gridiron."

AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, it was the College Football game which had captured the imagination of the public at large. Mr. & Mrs. Average American were always interested in hearing of the exploits of Jim Thorpe, the Ivy League, the Forward Pass, Notre Dame, Red Grange ("the Galloping Ghost"), Knute Rockne, Pop Warner and the Bowl Games.

AS FOR THE Professional Game, the road was much bumpier and it took years for the 'Pros' to gain even a modicum of success and respect. There had been a sort of snobbish attitude that permeated society; branding the Professionals as a sort of superfluous afterthought and a waste of time and athleticism. Why should a player risk his post academic career in what was considered a minor league, bush operation? After all, he'd already starred for State U.,garnering all the accolades and honors in the "Simon Pure" ranks.

THIS SHARP DELINIATION between Collegiate and Professional Football was the basis for this 3 Stooges Short Subject, THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (Columbia, 1934).

FROM THE START, we have the Stooges' being victims of a case of mistaken identity. Depression Era unemployment leads the boys into working as commercial sign pilots; who are also costumed as football players. Falling in with three hotties (including a young Lucille Ball), they are in turn introduced to the tough guy/gangster-type owner of the Tigers Professional Football Club.

BELIEVING THAT THE Stooges are the "Famous 3 Horsemen of Boulder College". the Owner (Walter Long) promises them big cash to play for the team. To insure that their Amateur Athlete's Status isn't jeopardized, the game will be played before no spectators, in an empty Stadium.

WHJAT FOLLOWS IS the usual slapstick fracturing of the game that had been long screen comic fodder; as exhibited by such comics as: Harold Lloyd, The Four Marx Brothers, Our Gang and even Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey. he Stooges do manage to bring on the laughs in their own way; managing a balanced attack of both the sight gag and the verbal barbs.

ALL OF THE elements that go into the construction of this sports spoof are contemporary "New Deal" Era references. The title is a fracturing of the Walt Disney Cartoon Short, THE THREE LITTLE PIGS: which had proved to have a special significance to those caught in financial straits of the early '30's. The Stooges' ready acceptance of the menial job of carrying the signs for minimal compensation is another indicator.

AND TO US, the kicker is the designations of "the Three Horsemen" and "Boulder College", which is an obvious reference to the newly constructed Boulder Dam on the waters of the Arizona River.

WHEN VIEWED TODAY, after so many previous screenings, THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS remains an entry of Producer Jules White's Columbia Pictures' Short Subjects Department that belongs right up at the top, not as a "Bush League" also ran.

The scene called for The Three Stooges, disguised as college football players, to pose with the ball in front of two photographers on the sidelines in the middle of the game. The script then had them gang tackled by several opposing players, members of the Loyola Marymount University football squad. The production of December 1934's "Three Little Pigskins," was already tough on the body for the three comedians, which Moe later described it as "a humdinger of bangs and bruises." Curly had earlier broke a leg riding down a dumbwaiter one story up, and Larry lost a tooth when an actor mistakenly punched him in the face. Now they were asked by director Raymond McCarey to be piled on by much bigger boys than they.

Larry Fine was the most vocal about being a participant of that pile-up. "Look, we can't do this scene," Larry told McCarey. "We're not stuntmen and if one of those gorillas falls on us, we'll never be able to finish the picture. We've never used stunt doubles before but we certainly need them now." The director felt the three were a durable bunch and felt the scene was safe for the three comics. "Listen, fellows, you know how to take a fall," McCarey responded. "You've done enough of them. It'll take hours to find doubles for you. Besides, we can't afford them. Don't worry, you won't get hurt." Moe backed up Larry's stand by telling the director, "You're darn right we won't get hurt. We're not doing the scene."

McCarey was able to rustle up three lookalikes in an hour and dressed them up in football gear. After the hard-hitting football players steamrolled over the three extras and the two photographers, the tally of the carnage began: two of the Stooges' replacements and the two photographers all sustained broken limbs. Only the one dressed as Curly remained unscathed since he wore extra padding to duplicate the actor's girth. Moe later wrote that "McCarey was speechless and sat in his director's chair with his head in his hands." "Three Little Pigskins" was one of Lucille Ball's earliest screen credits. The 23-year-older wore a platinum blonde hairdo and was one of three gangsters' girlfriends who recruited the Stooges to play a game the criminals heavily bet on. One classic scene has the Stooges, dressed in women's night attire to get out of their wet clothes, spray seltzer water on each other. Ball, whose specialized in physical comedy, was asked years later if she gathered any tricks of the trade from the three comedians."The only thing I learned from The Three Stooges was how to duck," she remembered. "And I still got wet!" This was the only Stooges' short she appeared.

1934 was the year where a great many new viewers were introduced to the three comics. The trio's new form of comedy that harkened back to the silent movie knockabout-fare with a dose of slapstick was quickly getting scores of passionate fans. The success of their four funny shorts during the year assured Columbia Pictures the Stooges would remain with the studio as long as they wanted.

This is a Three Stooges short comedy that starts and ends a little slowly, but in between there are some hilarious moments. It starts when the three are pan-handling on a college campus, and get mistaken for the school's three star football players. They are then hired by a group of gangsters to play for a professional team, with predictable results. The funniest parts are in the middle of the film, when the Stooges are in the apartment where the gangsters and their girls (which include a very young Lucille Ball) hang out. "Three Little Pigskins" may not be one of the Stooges' best, but it's still pretty good.

Harry Cohn was known to use The Three Stooges shorts as opportunities to try out young players in supporting roles. But in his wildest imagination I'm sure he never thought that in casting this short, Lucille Ball would grow up to be a comic icon, every bit as much as the stars of this film.

Of course Lucy who is a Jean Harlow platinum blond in this film does not get to display too much comic talent except as a foil for the Stooges. She's the moll of some gangsters who want to hire some football players from college on the sly so the kids don't lose amateur status. The idea is that they'll be ringers. Instead it's the gangsters who get good and rung when they hire Moe, Larry, and Curly.

College films were so popular in the Thirties, showing upper class kids who did very little study, but always had time for music, girls and the inevitable big football game. This particular short is right in keeping with Horsefeathers, College Humor and so many more I can't count. They all were pretty much the same and Three Little Pigskins doesn't break any new ground.

Still what Moe, Larry, and especially Curly do to the game of football is not to be believed. Knute Rockne must have been turning over in his grave, doubled up with laughter of course.