A few nights ago I found myself in dire need of a mindless diversion. Losing your Mother and dealing with the demands of caring for your 87 year old Father and all of the decisions associated with it has the effect of casting a debilitating shadow over your life. You find yourself thinking constantly about very serious things. Do that long enough and you become serious. Which is fine, I suppose. But the other night I needed an escape. I turned on the TV and saw it "on demand"...The Three Stooges movie was finally available!! Jon was here at the time and we both were wildly enthusiastic. Pam rolled her eyes, but even she was up for a little sophomoric humor.
I grew up with the Stooges. Every Saturday morning at 7 am in glorious black and white, Larry, Curly and Moe would stumble and fumble their way through an hour's worth of rediculous situations, all the while slapping, poking, and torturing each other amid cries of "Nnnuck, Nnnuck" and "woop,woop,woop!!" Ok..granted, it wasn't Shakespeare, but to a 7 year old boy it was great fun. I was very skeptical of how the Boys would be treated by Hollywood in 2012. I was doubtful that their brand of physical humor would work in today's car-seated, helmet-wearing, peanut allergy world, where we can't even bring ourselves to keep score in T-Ball since somebody's feelings might get hurt.
The movie was AWESOME!!! The actors who played Larry, Curly, and Moe were spitting images of the originals and they had every pratfall down perfectly. The plot was ridiculous, something about an orphanage, being put out of business by high insurance claims brought on by the young stooges who had been dumped on the doorstep in a army duffel bag by a drive-by Ford Fairlane. One of the nuns looked suspiciously like a man and went by the ominous name of Sister Mary Mengele, and took an instant dislike to the three infants when she was greeted by a swift poke in the eye upon opening the duffel bag! It was all downhill from there. At first, Pam was watching the movie with that wide-eyed look that women get when watching something that they just don't get, shifting her eyes from the screen to me and back to the screen as if to say.."Who ARE you???" But before long, even she couldn't resist. In one particularly hilarious..and painful.. scene, Pam was doubled over laughing along with the rest of us. I mean, a person can resist only up to a point. How can you NOT laugh when the boys find themselves in the laundry room of a hospital trying to resuscitate a police officer who they themselves had knocked out somehow. When Moe tells Curly, "Give me the pads!!", of course, Curly gives him two hot steam irons ??
Anyway, for the first time in a month, I felt normal. I was laughing like a school boy at the antics of three of my childhood heroes. When the inevitable fart scene finally appeared near the end of the movie, I proclaimed it a complete victory, and instant classic. Then something very strange happened. Right after "The End" appeared on the screen but before the credits rolled, the two guys who co-wrote, produced, and directed the movie appeared alongside a table with many of the props from the movie. There was the sledge hammer that Moe had used to hit several people over the head. There was the huge church bell that had slid off the church roof directly into the face of Sister Mary Mengele, knocking "her" out cold. There was the needle-nose pliers used to remove Larry's
nose hairs. But there were Bobby and Peter Farrelly telling us all that , in fact, these were not REAL. Shockingly, they were all made of rubber. Nobody was actually hurt in the filming of this movie. Oh, and you kids at home shouldn't try to recreate the stunts of the movie because if you used a real chainsaw on your friend's head, it wouldn't wear out the blade like it did on Curly's head, it would actually slice his skull in two. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In 2012 we have to run a disclaimer after a Three Stooges movie reminding the audience about the laws of physics. Whoa.
I grew up with the Stooges. Every Saturday morning at 7 am in glorious black and white, Larry, Curly and Moe would stumble and fumble their way through an hour's worth of rediculous situations, all the while slapping, poking, and torturing each other amid cries of "Nnnuck, Nnnuck" and "woop,woop,woop!!" Ok..granted, it wasn't Shakespeare, but to a 7 year old boy it was great fun. I was very skeptical of how the Boys would be treated by Hollywood in 2012. I was doubtful that their brand of physical humor would work in today's car-seated, helmet-wearing, peanut allergy world, where we can't even bring ourselves to keep score in T-Ball since somebody's feelings might get hurt.
The movie was AWESOME!!! The actors who played Larry, Curly, and Moe were spitting images of the originals and they had every pratfall down perfectly. The plot was ridiculous, something about an orphanage, being put out of business by high insurance claims brought on by the young stooges who had been dumped on the doorstep in a army duffel bag by a drive-by Ford Fairlane. One of the nuns looked suspiciously like a man and went by the ominous name of Sister Mary Mengele, and took an instant dislike to the three infants when she was greeted by a swift poke in the eye upon opening the duffel bag! It was all downhill from there. At first, Pam was watching the movie with that wide-eyed look that women get when watching something that they just don't get, shifting her eyes from the screen to me and back to the screen as if to say.."Who ARE you???" But before long, even she couldn't resist. In one particularly hilarious..and painful.. scene, Pam was doubled over laughing along with the rest of us. I mean, a person can resist only up to a point. How can you NOT laugh when the boys find themselves in the laundry room of a hospital trying to resuscitate a police officer who they themselves had knocked out somehow. When Moe tells Curly, "Give me the pads!!", of course, Curly gives him two hot steam irons ??
Anyway, for the first time in a month, I felt normal. I was laughing like a school boy at the antics of three of my childhood heroes. When the inevitable fart scene finally appeared near the end of the movie, I proclaimed it a complete victory, and instant classic. Then something very strange happened. Right after "The End" appeared on the screen but before the credits rolled, the two guys who co-wrote, produced, and directed the movie appeared alongside a table with many of the props from the movie. There was the sledge hammer that Moe had used to hit several people over the head. There was the huge church bell that had slid off the church roof directly into the face of Sister Mary Mengele, knocking "her" out cold. There was the needle-nose pliers used to remove Larry's
nose hairs. But there were Bobby and Peter Farrelly telling us all that , in fact, these were not REAL. Shockingly, they were all made of rubber. Nobody was actually hurt in the filming of this movie. Oh, and you kids at home shouldn't try to recreate the stunts of the movie because if you used a real chainsaw on your friend's head, it wouldn't wear out the blade like it did on Curly's head, it would actually slice his skull in two. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In 2012 we have to run a disclaimer after a Three Stooges movie reminding the audience about the laws of physics. Whoa.
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