stooge60540

I saw this film and was pretty disappointed. No, it's not because of Curly-Joe. I saw other Stooge movies prior to this one with Curly-Joe and he seems alright, better than Besser at the least. Anyway, this film is kinda weak, and seems like something left over from the Besser-era, probably because this is only the first movie they made. But the boys have done a better sci-fi movie, in THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT. Curly-Joe also looks like he's having trouble settling into his "Stooge" character, and he has to copy off of Curly's mannerisms quite a few times. This was somewhat fixed a little later on. Anyway, not a terrible movie, but not great either. The Stooges made better.

CUCKOO ON A CHOO CHOO is a very bizarre Three Stooges short. The gags are all rather silly and dumb other than genuinely funny, and the Stooges act stranger than usual here. I think it's one of the worst ones I've ever seen, and I never was a fan of the shorts that have the boys playing different characters. That comes off too forced and drama-like.

Grade: D-

This is around the time after Curly got ill. To make things easier for him in this short, they decided to reuse excessive amounts of footage from earlier shorts just as SO LONG. MR. CHUMPS and IN THE SWEET PIE AND PIE, and build somewhat of a plot around it (they would end up doing this a lot in the later in the mid-50's). A lame and poor idea, especially since you can notice a huge difference in Curly's performance from the new footage compared to the reused. Also, the footage from SO LONG adds nothing because in it, the Stooges are looking for Convict 41144, yet there's never an explanation of why. That was very lazy and confusing.

The weakest of the Curly shorts.