Channel Frederator Blog

some info via Toon Tracker

The Three Stooges, who began their career in vaudeville and moved on to enjoy success in films, were the featured players in this series of five-minute cartoons from producer Dick Brown and his Cambria Studios. The unique aspect of this series was that the actual Stooges themselves voiced the cartoons and appeared in 2 minute live action wraparounds before and after each cartoon.

The cartoons showcased the Stooges’ trademarked slapstick style of humor, but the violence was toned down for the younger audience. There were 156 cartoons produced, but only 40 live-action segments that were rotated throughout the package.

While the Three Stooges might seem like great animation material (and they are) the cartoons weren’t as funny as the live action Stooges. Also, because the number of live scenes filmed was considerably fewer than the number of animated shorts, when viewers tuned in and saw a repeated live-action scene, they assumed the cartoon was a repeat as well, and subsequently changed the channel.

There have been some successes in animation that have ties to the Three Stooges. The Hanna Barbera cartoon series “Jabber Jaw” featured a shark which acted and sounded identical to Curly Howard.

Stimpy, from the Nickelodeon series “Ren & Stimpy”, had a voice that was very close to Larry Fine’s.

Time will tell if we’ll see animated characters of the future speaking like characters from “CSI:Miami” or people from “American Idol”.

-Floyd Bishop