Six Degrees of ZombieStoogeration…

https://d2rights.blogspot.com/2012/04/three-stooges-vs-zombies-well-zombie.html

Welp, never let it be said that great minds don’t think alike (and weaken nations)! While perusing one of my favorite sites, I’d noticed an article I KNOW I’ve never read before, “The Three Stooges versus Zombies.” Now, whenever I hear the word “zombie,” I cannot help but think of the fab five from Hertsfordshire (also known as one of the more innovative British Invasion bands).

But how can I link my favorite comedy team to my favorite musical group? Let’s see,,,The Zombies were featured in a pretty damn good movie Bunny Lake Is Missing directed by one Otto Preminger. Their appearance consisted of a TV performance that was playing in a bar whilst Laurence Olivier (yeah, THAT guy) is trying to figure things out about the titular Bunny Lake and what the deal is between her mother and brother. (I may be a bit off on the details–I saw it on VIDEOTAPE! Why haven’t I come into the 21st century and Amazon Prime’d it?!)

So how can we connect The Zombies to The Three Stooges? (Besides the fact that The Zombies are still touring at the grand ages of 79-80! (I would’ve KILLED to have the Stooges last that long…I would’ve been around to see them on various talk shows, instead of begging my parents to recall what it was like to see them on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Steve Allen Show {one of those appearances was with none other than Lenny Bruce…the only way that could’ve made for a more mis-matched pairing would be if Richard Pryor dropped by.})

Okay…where was I? Who’s the best actor to use as a connection? We have Laurence Olivier, who was married to Vivien Leigh, who starred in Gone With the Wind, which also featured Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel, who’s brother Sam McDaniel starred in Heavenly Daze (1947) as a butler that thought Shemp had risen from the dead and was haunting Moe and Larry due to the fact that they were going to scam investors with a fountain pen that writes under whipped cream (needless to say, it doesn’t work.)

Looks like I could connect Laurence Olivier to the Three Stooges at least! That makes me wonder how many ways I can connect John and David Carradine to the Stooges…I’m thinking it’s pretty damned easy!

OTD in 1909…

Joe DeRita (born Joseph Wardell)

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned the story about the time a high school chum and I thought we were gonna take a road trip (ala whatever terrible road trip movie that was playing on/near June 2, 1993) to see the (second to last) Stooge at the Motion Picture Home…how she got that info, I will never know, but since it was the early 90s, she probably just called Information (seriously, I’ve forgotten how I used to find information…I vaguely recall going to the Central Library in St. Louis and getting a lot of info on where to find folks there…but come to think of it, how weird was that? “Hello, I’m trying to find a contact address for a Joe DeRita…how might I go about doing that?”

Then again, even though that was (probably) the tail end of strangers just popping in places to visit celebrities that allowed that sort of thing, we could STILL PROBABLY HAVE GOTTEN IN THE PLACE. Even though I could swear that it wasn’t made public–how’d she find out that he was even there? Was there some sort of secret network of uberfans that found out where their favorite former vaudeville comedians were now? (We also wanted to swing by to see Emil Sitka–we definitely knew he was alive and kicking and open to greeting fans.)

Anyhoo, to make a long, boring, probably repeated blog post shorter, both sets of parents said a very loud “HELL NO!” and that was that. (Seriously, though…what the hell did we THINK they were going to say? Two 17-year-old girls driving a damn hoopty [she owned a Pacer…] driving from St. Louis to Los Angeles…yep, NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT in a world where cell phones were still called pay phones.)

At least hers was this color–a couple of kids had light green or light blue ones!

Our grand plans thwarted, the rest of the summer was spent watching the news of the “Great Flood of ’93” and watching craptacular movies on tape and late night TV. The last time I saw my comrade in Stooge, it was at a housewarming/birthday party in 2004…wonder where she is now?

OTD in 1993…(and the Man Who Would Be Stooge…)

As I have mentioned many times before, I recall hearing the news that Joe DeRita had died during a commercial break (while watching the Stooges, ironically enough)! I still don’t get the hate folks aim his way–I imagine I wouldn’t feel that great knowing that I was going to be renamed Curly-Joe; but I don’t think he “hated” the Stooges, he just didn’t like their style of comedy–and I can agree to disagree with him about it. Remember, this was a man who had had a career waaaay before he became a Stooge, so it was not like they got Joe Blow from Kokomo to be the Third Stooge. He had a name (in burlesque, no less), and being a “replacement” just because you were short, and fat (like the most popular stooge) would kinda suck. What did not suck, however, was the fact that Larry wanted him as a FULL partner, not just an “employee,” meaning he would get the same salary, the same benefits, the same everything. Now, whoever was the person who wanted him first (the story goes Larry saw him in Vegas and called him a “combination of Curly, Lou Costello, and the fat lady in the opera.”) However, in Moe’s autobiography, he had wanted him even after Shemp died (and wanted to buy out his contract with Minsky–look that one up, kids!) but of course, Columbia wanted whomever they still had under contract (even though they DID have DeRita under contract…once upon a time.)

Things were going like gangbusters until the late 1960s, with the kids from the 1950s growing into teens who probably wanted to go on to someone hipper… (uh, Tiny Tim?) their popularity was waning, and they decided to semi-retire, but not without their infamous swan song, Kook’s Tour. Now, when Tour was first thought of, it was 1965 and it was supposed to be a world tour by a trio of kooks. In 1970, ain’t nobody got time for gallivanting around the world and whatnot. Instead, they chose to stay closer to home…and go fishing… (insert some fans’ yawning sfx here).

What I’m NOT going to do is go into all the reasons why Kook’s Tour is supposedly the worst (or best) thing since sliced bread, but I will tell you that if another film they were set to do had been their actual swan song, I don’t even know how to describe all the feelings I’d have about it. Let me put it this way: if you are a fan of “so bad it’s good” films, then you know who Al Adamson and Sam Sherman are. As the story goes, Sherman and Adamson wanted to make a western spoof with olde-timey comedians they were fans of…and of course, the first team that came to mind was the Three Stooges. But there was a problem…by late 1974, there were only two Stooges, Moe and Curly-Joe. By the time rehearsals began in March, Larry had already been dead for over a month. So, what to do for the necessary Second Stooge?

Have no fear, Emil Sitka is here! He had been in Stooge films since the Curly era, was one of only two actors that had performed with ALL the different sets of Stooges (the other was “Tiny” Brauer), so there would be no need for lengthy rehearsals. As Sitka himself remembers it, “If Moe were here right now, he’d say we could create a scene right now” (paraphrased).

Proof that the fellows COULD make a scene out of pretty much anything!

Unfortunately, The Jet Set (later called Blazing Stewardesses) was not to be. As the rehearsals progressed, Moe became weaker and weaker due to lung (or stomach) cancer and passed away on 4 May 1975. Apparently, Adamson and Sherman didn’t want the Two Stooges, so guess what they came up with?

The damn TWO Ritz Brothers! What was the difference between having two of one trio or two of another? Hell, if that’s the case, they could’ve dragged out Groucho and Zeppo if we want to have former trios that are now duos.

Okay, granted, there weren’t that many olde-timey comedy teams still around that could work with little rehearsal, hit their marks, and not cause the film to go over budget. So, if you want to see what could’ve been the Stooges’ last film, you can watch it over on the YouTubes,