Outer Space Jitters

OUTER SPACE JITTERS (1957) is the worst Joe Besser short I have seen so far. It's a totally weird plot. What should a caveman be brought to life on Sunev (Venus spelled backwards) anyway? Besides, the Stooges don't even wear their hair their usual funny way. The "Sunev" gag was already used in SPACE SHIP SAPPY (1957). I don't recommend this short. At least the ending was good.

Rating: D

For a long time I'd heard about how bad all the Joe Besser-era Stooge shorts were. So when I finally got around to seeing some of them, I approached them with low expectations. And for the most part I found that they were better than I expected. I didn't find Joe all that annoying, though I could see why others would.

Now I've seen "Outer Space Jitters", and I have to say... when I heard that the Besser-era shorts were bad, this is EXACTLY what I expected them to be like.

I found this short dumb and almost totally laugh-free (although a couple of the cheap jokes did hit their mark -- barely). In my opinion it's not Joe that ruins this (although his repeated "let's get outta here" lines are unnatural and annoying). This script would not have been helped by the presence of any other third stooge.

I'm happy to report that all Besser-era shorts are not like this one -- not by any means. And I'm glad this was not the first one I saw.

This film made me laugh, more then once too! Plus its an early Dan Blocker film before Bonanza! Emil Sitka has a role on the Stooge's side instead of being against them like he seems to usually be. The film Pal Joey is plugged here and since its from the same studio, Columbia, and released the same year, this probably played as a short before it in the theaters. Joe Besser is really hated in Stooge land but hey, I'm a fan of his work on other shows like playing Stinky on the Abbott and Costello Show. A role that has been revived in the 1990s with TV's Frank character on Mystery Science Theater 3000. "I'll harm you!" So I get that Joe Besser didn't like getting slapped around when he joined the Stooges and to me that's a positive because the boys have to find other jokes and they do here. Besides Larry now took the brunt of the slaps and here gets hammered with Moe, among other playfulness. These Besser shorts are better then most of the Stooge feature length films, in my opinion. And unlike later Shemp films, the stories don't seem to be remakes of earlier Stooge films, I don't remember them going to a planet before this one! Also, they were still orientated to a general movie audience, not the kiddie show scripts with Curly Joe DeRita. I recommend it. Don't be a Stooge snob, or 'I'll harm you!

While not totally awful, it's certainly a very far cry from being a good Stooge comedy. And that's really too bad because despite the fact that Joe Besser refused to take any of the traditional pokes and slaps that Moe used to hand out to Curly and Shemp, he was otherwise a fine comedian. Check him out in Abbott & Costello's "Africa Screams" where Joe actually has some screen time with Shemp. At this time Colombia Pictures was obviously trying to "wind up" the Stooges contract so the writing and direction are just not there for them. A sad commentary on the state of affairs for the comics at this time in the late 1950's. If you have absolutely nothing else to do, then do watch this short and you'll see automatically how things had declined for this type of comedy during the "cold war" rock and roll era of the late 50's.

In the start Larry have a quick endorsement for the movie "Pal Joey" .