Production Information
Title: Busy Buddies
Studio: Columbia
Short Number: 78
Release Date: March 18, 1943
Running Time: 16:42
“Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?”
(Curly)
Busy Buddies Short Take
The Stooges operate the Jive Cafe and are enduring significant debt. They reluctantly take a second job hanging posters (à la Three Little Twirps), earning a penny for each poster hung. Moe takes notice of one particular poster advertising a cow milking contest that pays $100 to the winner. Without hesitation, Moe and Larry nominate Curly for the contest, and go about looking for a cow to practice milking on. They coincidentally find a “cow” (a bull) behind the fence. Curly is no match for the wild animal, and he is quickly booted over a fence twice, then up onto a telephone pole.
When the contest day arrives, Curly (nicknamed ‘K. O. Bossy’) cannot squeeze an ounce of milk from the cow’s udder. While fresh cows are being brought in for the second round, Moe and Larry jump into a cow costume with a jug of milk. The scheme works until Curly yanks the mock udder off the jug, and the milk comes gushing out which caused Curly to be disqualified. After the contest’s champion throws all of the stooges off the stage, they are left helping each other leaving while being booed at by the audience because they were cheating.
Busy Buddies Cast & Crew
| Directed by | Del Lord |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Hugh McCollum Jules White |
| Written by | Elwood Ullman Del Lord |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Vernon Dent Fred Kelsey Eddie Laughton John Tyrrell Stanley Blystone |
| Cinematography | George Meehan |
| Edited by | Henry Batista |
Busy Buddies Trivia
- The film title is a play on the term “busybodies.”
Curly Howard fades
By late 1943, the team had been making endless public appearances in support of the war effort. The demanding schedule began to take its toll on Curly in particular, whose childlike facial features began to show the strain. Curly had just turned 40 years of age on October 22, 1943.
Production Notes
- Busy Buddies was filmed on November 1-5, 1943.
- The first half of the film’s plot device was reuse for Shivering Sherlocks.