Goof on the Roof

For those of you who don't know what "quintessential" means, it basically means, the most perfect example of something; in this case, what the Stooges is all about. And this short is definitely that. It takes a fairly simple premise (the Stooges try to do something nice for their friend, Bill, but all hell breaks loose when they get to work at it) and expands it into a non-stop series of hilarious gags, situations, and pratfalls. In particular, look for Larry looking into a hole in the wall (into which he has dropped the knob for a TV set) with a lit match in his hand. Moe berates him for "playing with fire" and, as a result, inadvertantly tosses the match into the wall's hole and the boys then must deal with both putting the TV set back together and preventing the house from burning to a cinder! When Shemp attempts to put the TV antenna on the house's roof, their efforts do not fare any better. And, of course, when Bill finally arrives home, he does not take kindly to their errors. If you're unfamiliar with the Stooges, this is one short you should view above others. It's a classic! RECOMMENDED.

What can I say? The Stooges are house sitting for their friend and want to make everything "nice" for when he cames back home with his new bride. That's the start for anything to go totally wrong, especially when you put these three characters in charge. In the process of "cleaning up" the house, they just naturally destroy it piece by piece. But the real payoff comes when the new television arrives and they approach the unpacking and set up with their usual "all business" attitude only to end up making things worse. Shemp is basically the "title" character, "goof on the roof" when he makes every attempt to nail the aerial to the chimmney, knocking the bricks for same all to pieces. Then he tries to nail it to the roof, crashing through on down to the other two below and totally smashing the "new" T.V. and then uttering those ever immortal words, "I faw down". Don't miss one!

Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard are caring for a friend's house. The friend is coming home after getting married and he's installing a TV antenna on the roof. The boys decide to install it themselves and use the money to get him a wedding present.

It's a lot of random Three Stooges hijinx. Shemp is just not as funny as Curly. There are some fine Stooges work going on although nothing special. I kept waiting for the roof. When Shemp actually gets up there, it's a little disappointing. I was expecting a slanted roof where the Three Stooges can each slide off. I guess it's too much to build that set, but the comedic potential is infinitely greater. Forget the house. A slanted roof could have been a Stooges classic.

This 1953 Stooges entry is the last of the great comedies they made and it was also the last film written by Clyde Bruckman. Bruckman started out as a gag writer for many of the screen's best comedians, W. C. Fields, Buster Keaton, etc. Unfortunately, in later years, Bruckman's alcoholism had worsened and had a tendency to "borrow" gags from several other movies, that sometimes resulted in lawsuits, particularly Harold Lloyd, who had successfully sued Bruckman in 1946 for borrowing a gag involving a magician's coat in the 1942 Stooges short Loco Boy Makes Good. As a result, his career was affected by it and it never bounced back, but did find work writing for The Abbott & Costello television series in the early 1950s, but again continued to borrow plot elements from other films that he was subsequently fired. In January 1955, a despondent Bruckman borrowed a pistol from his longtime friend Buster Keaton, claiming he needed it for a hunting trip, but instead he drove to a restaurant in Santa Monica, went inside a restroom stall and shot himself with the gun. A sad farewell to a once-legendary comedy writer.

All that aside, this is still an entertaining short, where the Stooges try to install a television set for their landlord and instead destroy the entire house in the process. The first half where they clean up the house is the best, thanks to a pesky bar of soap and numerous fallen buckets of water.

This is truly one of my favorite stooge shorts. The premise is one of my favorites: the boys take on tools and other inanimate objects. You know when this happens that nothing will ever go right! The short is one stooge delight after another. The only problem with it is the ending. It's one of the dumbest endings in stooge history and has nothing to do with the rest of the film. It's a shame that such a great short is marred in this way, and that you can't leave it on a note of hilarity. You'd think they could have come up with something much better.

But, all things considered, it's an excellent stooge short and the laughs don't stop.