"Woob, woob, woob!"

Today is Curly Howard's Birthday, "N'yuk, N'yuk, N'yuk!" I don't know how many others grew up watching the Three Stooges like I did. I loved their slapstick humor. The whole pie in the face schtick always makes me laugh. So, does Curly every time he flops on the ground, running in circles with his shoulder as the pivot point saying, "Woob, woob woob woob!" or "Moe. Larry. The cheese!" My Dad thought they were hilarious and remembered seeing their shorts in the theater on Saturday mornings, so, often times he was laying on the couch laughing with us as we watched Captain 11's Showboat featuring the Three Stooges.

I do remember when we got banned from watching the Stooges, though. I was probably 8 or 9, which would have made my brother about 4 or 5. It was before he was in school. One day a friend of ours was over and we were all watching the Stooges and laughing how Curly's head had bent the axe or hammer or something like that after Moe whacked him with it. My brother was laughing, too. But the next thing we knew, he had gone and gotten a little wooden hammer out of the toy box and (You Guessed It) whacked our friend.

Unfortunately, we knew nothing about special effects or sound effects because there wasn't that bouncey "Boink" of Stooges fame. Instead it was more the sound of a "thunk" with loud crying and lots of tears.

To me, the Stooges weren't the Stooges without Curly. Sure, Shemp was funny, Joe Besser was irritating (though funny, too) and Curly Joe was better than the other two, though in my opinion, seemed too intelligent to be a true Curly. But no one could truly replace Curly. If Moe was the brains and Larry the heart then Curly was the soul and funny bone.

I don't know what you think of the Stooges but to me they are a serio-tragic American Icon. They had no idea the joy and the laughter they were bringing to both the adults and youth of the day because of the studio contract system. And because of that system, they never really reaped any of the benefits of their popularity until long after.

Now excuse me, I have to go dig out my DVD collection of Stooges (8 volumes so far) and watch "You Natzy Spy," "Punch Drunks," and then laugh as Curly tries to outsmart an oyster in his Oyster Soup.

"B-A, bay. B-E, bee. B-I, bicky bye, B-O, boe. Bicky by boe, B-U, bue, bicky bye boe bue."