The Case of The Missing Stooge Stoge (1 Viewer)

[Paul Penna]

Anywhere the short is shown - on TV or DVD, that is where censored. Unless it's the entire short, then it's censored from everywhere, because it's not shown. (I know, seems beyond remote, yet to me that's more likely than it being a non-Columbia short. Also then, all shorts present would be 'complete & uncensored', right?).
Appreciate your feedback. (You were one more poster than I was actually expecting here). My opening post was too much of a rough draft - you helped me realize it's out of sequence, very dis-jointed. It was a mish-mash of old notes, new ideas, a comical would-be post (shared only privately) written over a year ago - from which I pasted much, stripping out most of the humor - your first post shows how well that all would fly. Just can't do that with controversial topic.
Anyhow, I've learned some things here, that above more editing and a more cohesive layout, about how it could better have been presented.

OK, not debating here, but now I think I get what I didn't, or maybe should have, before. Do I have this right? You yourself saw Stooges shorts in midnight movie shows that had parts in them you hadn't seen before, or later, when you saw the same shorts on TV or home video. Right?

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

"It was a Columbia 3 Stooges short. That was much of the novelty of it and the crowd sensation it caused. And was it quite possible the crowd was also excited and delighted by an eyeful of unseen footage they'd been deprived of then (and [edited - jp] now)?"

I can dig it. I can also sympathize with the frustration of not being able to pinpoint a title, or find something you're sure you've seen. Anyone here remember the scene in Poltergeist about Pizza Hut? The infamous pool scene from Ferris Bueller? The triple slap (supposedly) from the end of The Stooges' "Three Loan Wolves"?!!

However, if you could provide the basic plot of the short (ie, more details than a spliff) then I guarantee that I, or other collectors, could track down a fully unedited print from the 70's or earlier (the late 80's were when Sony/Columbia/RCA themselves were getting scissor-happy for the PC crowd) to prove or disprove the existence of the footage in question.

EDIT: Even the feature film, Dancing Lady, has Stooge material cut that exists in prints struck prior to 1972-ish-- the bit where Larry discovers that the jigsaw puzzle he assembled is a portrait of Hitler!

 

[Paul Penna]

EDIT: Even the feature film, Dancing Lady, has Stooge material cut that exists in prints struck prior to 1972-ish-- the bit where Larry discovers that the jigsaw puzzle he assembled is a portrait of Hitler!

I suppose it's conceivable that Stooge scenes that depicted cigarettes, cigars and smoking were considered ripe for cutting not because of any supposed drug associations but simply because it was smoking, period, and combined with a presumption that the TV and video audiences were primarily pre-adults. Think Pecos Bill getting his cigarette digitally removed.

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

"Think Pecos Bill getting his cigarette digitally removed."

That caused quite a stir back in the day, as I recall.

Just to clarify any confusion that discussion in this post may have created, there are only two, currently, known edits to the Stooge shorts on dvd:

1) Ants In The Pantry: A bit dialogue is excised ("Calm yourself!") where, presumably, negative damage occurred when Moe and Curly are sabotaging the bedroom, and was smoothed over by rearranging the surrounding footage. The original assemblage can be seen on the vhs releases and most older television prints.

2) The Hot Scots: The sped-up climactic scuffle between The Stooges and the crooks at the end has the audio pitch-corrected so that, while the action is still at a rapid pace, all the voices are at near-proper pitch; however, the sound effects are nearly two full steps down in pitch. When recycled later for Scotched In Scotland, the section of footage plays out on the dvd as it originally appeared in both shorts, with audio and picture at hi-speed, though the image is cropped for widescreen.

EDIT: Half-Wits' Holiday also has a bit of extraneous audio muted. After Vernon Dent's character says, "All you have to do is let me make Gentlemen of you," as the shot cuts back to The Boys' reactions, the original film (as well as previous dvd and vhs releases) has someone off-camera feeding them the line, and you hear a different, faint voice repeating, "..of you." This was removed for the dvd master, so, it counts as an edit, too.