A Plumbing We Will Go

This is a classic of Stooges comedy. Completely silly and funny as hell. This is a good one to introduce the Stooges to anyone who may not be familiar with their particular and unique form of slapstick comedy.

Pure hilarity, as the trio poses as plumbers ("Three of the best plumbers that ever plumbed a plumb!") in a mansion to avoid the police. Chaos follows, as Moe bashes pipes in the basement, Larry digs up two thirds of the yard, and Curly basically encases himself in a cage made of pipes in the upstairs shower, which he also quickly turns into a wading pool. The owners of the house decide they've had enough and call the police, or try to, anyway, as their telephone turns into a faucet spraying water at them. The cook has the funniest of many lines, after a light bulb explodes with water, the burners on the stove top turn into a sprinkler system, and the entire kitchen ends up underwater: "This house has sho' gone crazy!"

I like most of the 'Three Stooges'-short films, this one is no exception. Here they Moe, Larry and Curly are running from a police officer and to escape him for good they pretend to be plumbers. In a rich woman's house they mess up every possible thing they can while only trying to fix a leak in the basement. Total mayhem is what follows, quite hilarious at times.

Although 'A Plumbing We Will Go' is your typical classic short film with the usual jokes you can come up with when things involve water, it has some very good laughs. Especially scenes with a magician, the Niagara Falls and a cook in the kitchen are, even though they are very predictable, terrifically executed. The opening sequence where the stooges are in a courtroom in the witness chair, all three at the same time, is a great start for this pretty funny comedy short.

This is one of the best Stooge comedies. This features the Stooges in one of their favorite situations, posing as repairmen that don't know a thing about what they are supposed to be repairing. Probably the best scene in this short is when Curly traps himself in a cage of pipes and uses a hand drill to try to escape and in the process falls through the floor and lands right on top of Moe. This is the Stooges at their moronic best.

It was indeed this very short that made me the Stooges fan I am today (which is a considerably large one, by the way). I had just started taking an interest in the Stooges "unique" films when I chanced to view this one. After it was over, I was laughing so hard I wanted to see as many Stooges shorts as possible... if they were all as great as this. Anyway, here's the premise... to escape the police, the Stooges masquerade as plumbers. The residents of a mansion call their bluff and enlist them to repair a decidedly nasty leak in their house. Their plumbing skills are put to the test... and they fail with flying colors. Larry digs a trench in the backyard (to find the shut-off valve) and Moe & Curly connect a plumbing pipe with an electricity pipe causing water to shoot from every electrical outlet in the house. When the Stooges leave, the house is in worse shape than when they arrived. Dudley Dickerson gives a memorable performance as the bedazzled cook ("This house has sure gone crazy"). A must for any Stooge fan. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED