Nutty But Nice

In the Three Stooges 47th short Columbia picture, June 1940's "Nutty But Nice," they have an elongated sequence in their search for a missing father who has been kidnapped transporting $300,000 worth of bonds for his bank. In order to cheer up his depressed daughter, the Stooges, as singing waiters, volunteer to search for her father, Mr. Williams. In a series of mistaken identities because they're only given a verbal description of the father, the Three Stooges accost several men on the street, including lighting matches they stick inside the souls of one pedestrian's shoes so they could determine, as the kidnapped banker's profile reads, how tall the man's height is "in his stocking feet."

Today's viewers may recognize the kidnapped banker, actor Ned Glass. Even though he was a neighbor of Moe Howard's, Glass didn't benefit from knowing the comic personally when he got the part of the father of Betty Williams, the little girl who is sobbing to have him free. Not only was Glass, with his distinctive bald head and New York City accent, in several high profile movies such as 1961's "West Side Story" and 1963's "Charade," his claim to fame was his familiar face in nearly every TV series sit-coms up until his last appearance in 1982's 'Cagney & Lacey.'