I find The Three Stooges not only hysterically funny but totally fascinating. So I’m the perfect consumer for the three-disc Blu-Ray set from Kit Parker Films, Stooge-O-Rama. It’s a video grab bag of glorious Stooges “unseen rarities.”
Stooge-O-Rama offers up hours and hours of fun. First, there’s the documentary The Men Behind The Mayhem, which has some nice interview stuff with family members, Adam West and others.
From there, it’s two more discs loaded with Stooge-errific stuff, from home movies to trailers for their features to Dickies work clothes commercials to savings bond films — and on and on. My favorites were color home movies of a quite dapper-looking Curly (inset) and the promo film for the Moving Picture Machine giveaway (up top). I want one of those machines really bad!
This thing isn’t going to convince you of The Three Stooges’ brilliance or anything like that. (If you haven’t figured that out already, I feel sorry for you.) But if you’re a fan, it’s a real hoot. Of course, as you’d expect, picture quality is all over the place, but for the most part it all looks good. A tip of the hat to Kit Parker for the hard work and obvious care that went into this. Highly, highly, Stooge-ily recommended.
Oh, and next time you’re in Roanoke, Virginia, stop by The Texas Tavern for a hot dog or hamburger. They say The Stooges once ate there. You can’t get a much better recommendation than that.
The Hannibal 8 