All The World's A Stooge

And all the men and women merely chuckleheads.
They have pie-in-the-face exits and pratfall entrances;
And one birdbrain in his time writes many well-meaning, yet unintelligible, blog posts.

OK, do most of you think that I went off of my nut? Is that the reason for the dearth of comments on yesterday's post?

Here's the deal (which I thought was obvious, but I guess not):

All of the quotes from the coach and the players were lifted verbatim from Three Stooges films.

Coach Howard = Moe Howard

Lawrence Fine = Larry Fine

Sam Horowitz = Shemp Howard

(His real name was Samuel Horowitz. The same was true for all of the Howard brothers; their real last name was Horowitz.)

Besser and DeRita = Joe Besser and Curly-Joe DeRita, the folks who filled the "Third Stooge" role following the deaths of Curly and Shemp.

Finally, Curly Q. Link = Jerome "Curly" Howard.

(It was the name of his character in one of the films; If A Body Meets A Body, if you really need to know.)

OK, maybe I did go off my nut.

I thought it was a cute idea. I guess it was just an insane idea.

(The lovely Michal, of Relishing Motherhood, got it. Bless you, my dear!)

The thing is, I keep forgetting that not everybody is a Three Stooges fanatic. So, I didn't think I'd have to make it any couchier than I did.

(Couchier. That was a term used by Milton Berle. In the early days of television, when Uncle Miltie ruled the roost, the screens were small and the reception generally lousy. As a result, Berle felt that every gag should be as broad as possible, so that anybody, no matter how fuzzy their picture or tiny their picture tube, would get it. He wanted no doubt about it playing to the people at home sitting on their couches. So, if he was in a writers meeting, and he felt that the gag was too subtle, he'd say, "It's not couchy enough! Make it couchier!"

I might be insane, but at least you learned something today. Not that anybody who hasn't read this will have any idea what in the hell you're talking about if you go around yelling, "Make it couchier!")

The funny thing is that I didn't just do this on the spur of the moment. I had this in a notebook at home for about a month. Every couple of days, I'd pull out the notebook, look at that bit, and try to remember more Stooge lines that would fit. Never once did it enter my mind that anybody wouldn't get it. Oh, well.

In any case, if you think it might help, feel free to call me a knucklehead, then put a wrench on my nose and give it a twist.


Soon, with more better (maybe even rational) stuff.