Mutts to You

Larry, Curly, and Moe operate a dog washing assembly line. Mr. Manning comes to pick up his dog. Due to some misunderstandings, Mrs. Manning mistakenly believes that her husband had taken the baby to Palm Springs after leaving him on her doorstep. The Stooges pick up the baby to be brought to the police. Before that, they have to hide it from their landlord. Then, the Mannings report their missing baby as a kidnapping. It's a solid Stooges short. The story is a little too convoluted. It seems easier for the Mannings to leave the baby at the wash shop. It's also a little too easy for Mrs. Manning to realize that the boys didn't kidnap the baby. This is good if not great.

Mutts to You (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Stooges short has the boys seeing a baby on a doorstep so they take him home with them as they think he has been abandoned. Soon they learn that the parents have reported him missing so they must find a way to return him without getting busted. This isn't one of the guys better shorts but there are enough laughs here to make it worth viewing at least once. I think the highlight of the film isn't really a laugh but we get a scene where the boys are running a dog wash. There's a Dalmatian that gets put on an assembly line where he gets washed, scrubbed and done up and I'm amazed by the performance of the dog. I was really surprised any mutt would sit there and let all this stuff happen to him and he does come across as a good sport. He sticks out more than the film itself as there aren't too many good jokes that work here. There are a few funny moments as the guys try to sneak the kid pass their landlord and another decent sequence when the boys try to escape from a cop. The rest of the jokes are pretty much misses including one where Moe and Larry pretend to be from China.

He wanders, professionally washes the dogs, finds the baby on the doorstep and, thinking she is abandoned, takes her home. When they read in the newspaper that the baby is believed to have been abducted, they disguise themselves as Curly as the baby's mother and try to sneak past a local police officer. They are caught, but when the baby's parents show up and realize what happened, the result is a happy ending.

The stooges are dog washers that find a baby on the door step of a house and think the mother and father abandoned it so they take it and feed him before they turn him in to the police to find the owner then end up running from the cops because the cops think the stooges are kidnappers. In the end the mother finds the baby and the stooges are cleared. ***/5

The boys are proprietors of the "K-9 Dog Laundry." They run the operation like a car wash, putting a dog on a conveyor belt with the washing and drying methods a little primitive. The story is about the boys accidentally "kidnapping" a baby and what happens afterward.

Both the baby and the Dalmatian in here was a very-trained to go through all the shenanigans and stay put. Made today, PC groups would be condemning this for child and animal abuse.

I admit I did laugh out loud at the flea yelling "Ohh, you got me!" The last five minutes are the highlight with a slapstick chase scene and Curly as "Mrs. O'Toole talking to Irish cop (Bud Jamison, a factor actor of Three Stooges fans) is funny.

Overall, however, the short is just "fair."