Pop Goes the Easel

This episode marked a huge turning point for the Stooges. Producer Jules White hired on Del Lord to direct, a former stuntman and Keystone Cop from the early days of silent comedy. An ideal match with writer Felix Adler. These two artists would unite to develop the most insane (yet) material for Moe, Larry and Curly.

It's safe to say Adler borrowed the "guys on the street" Depression scene from Laurel and Hardy, usually being chased by the cops for vagrancy. Same deal with the Stooges, managing to give the coppers the slip and dash into an artsy art school. Here we see lots of new gags, no doubt suggested by Del Lord, foremost Moe's famous "two fingers" poke in Curly's eyeballs. YOUCH! Curly also gets to walk around in drag! -- which would become a laugh out loud bit for years to come, opening the door to even more bizarro story ideas and routines.

And why not put to good use some of that modeling clay in the studio, right? New-found artists Moe, Larry and Curly get into a whopper of a clay fight, again thanks to Lord's creativity. As expected, this would inspire the famous (gooooey, crunchy, wall-splattering) Stooge pie fights over the next two decades.

Fun fact; Moe and Larry's young daughters are seen playing hopscotch in a bit part. Silent film comedian Bobby Burns plays Professor Fuller, also a dirctor of many early films like Del Lord. Interestingly, Lord would direct one comedy for the BOWERY BOYS in the 40s.

Always on remastered Columbia dvd, box sets generally ranging from each decade; 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Many thanks to METV for running these gems Saturday nights.

Pop Goes the Easel (1935)

*** (out of 4)

The Three stooges are chased by a cop into an art school where they try their hand at painting. This is a pretty good short that features some nice dialogue as well as plenty of laughs through the fighting. The film ends with a big clay fight but for some reason these type of fights have never made me laugh. The Keystone brand of pie fights never worked for me either.

Now available on Columbia's 2-disc set, which includes over 20 shorts. The picture quality is outstanding.

The guys are up to their usual tricks as they escape a cop and hide in an art school. The short starts off a little slow but picks up once they entire the main gallery. Whatever you think of the Three Stooges, this is a funny one, especially the last few minutes.

This review is of the seventh of The Three Stooges' shorts they made for Columbia Pictures. In this one, they're three men looking for work with each individually having signs on them on certain corners saying something similar on them. After a while, they team up to take brooms from a nearby store and pretend to clean up hoping to impress the proprietor standing in front. Unfortunately, he thinks they're stealing his items and calls a cop. That cop gives chase after the boys and guess where they wind up? I'll stop there and just say there are plenty of funny gags and lines that mostly kept one laughing almost non-stop especially when Moe, Larry, and Curley (as his name was spelled at the time) dressed up in drag for the first time (with the latter doing a hilarious impersonation of Mae West) or when they did a clay fight that would later evolve into the pie fights of later years. I should also note that the little girls playing hopscotch as the boys are being chased are Moe's daughter Joan and Larry's daughter Phyllis. So on that note, Pop Goes the Easel comes highly recommended.

Many times the theme of the Great Depression begins one of the Three Stooges films, and that's certainly the case here as the boys are all out on the streets wearing big signs proclaiming their plight. Their signs are corny but the message is the same on all three: need a job and money. As usual, though, they don't have much luck getting either.

A rich man stops in front of Curly and inquires about him. "I haven't had a bite of food in three days, mister," says Curly. "Well," the man answers, "I wouldn't worry about it. It still tastes the same." Wow - it's a cold world out there!

The boys, through circumstances, wind up being chased by a cop, a familiar storyline, filled with gags as the latter is never able to catch our three heroes. The guys wind up in an art studio posing as artists....and the cornball jokes and sight gags really begin in earnest. Most of them, to be honest, aren't the greatest.

However, the story is redeemed in the last three minutes when a mud- fight (at least it looks like big gobs of mud) ensues in the studio and all mayhem breaks loose, leading to some funny slapstick.