Production Information
Title: The Yoke’s on Me
Studio: Columbia
Short Number: 79
Release Date: May 26, 1944
Running Time: 16:08
“Kill that gander so we can have some roast goose for dinner.” “Oh boy, we’re gonna have propagander for dinner!
Short Take
In The Yoke’s On Me, The Stooges try to join the army but are labeled 4-F by the draft board due to Curly having water on the knee. After they decide to go on vacation until a job comes along, their father (Robert McKenzie) insists they aid the war effort instead by becoming farmers. Inspired, the trio sells their dilapidated car and buy an equally dilapidated farm. The farm contains no livestock except for one ostrich, which eats gunpowder. The boys then spot some pumpkins and decide to carve and sell them.
In the interim, several Japanese-Americans escape a prison camp (known during World War II as relocation centers) and work their way onto the Stooges’ farm. Curly is the first to notice some suspicious activity (one of the escapees places a carved pumpkin on his head, spooking Curly). Eventually, Moe and Larry believe him and realize that the farm is surrounded by the Japanese-Americans (whom they mistake for Japanese invaders). Moe then throws an ostrich egg (laden with digested gunpowder) at the escapees, killing them.
The Yoke’s on Me Cast & Crew
| Directed by | Jules White |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Jules White |
| Written by | Clyde Bruckman |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Robert McKenzie Eva McKenzie Emmett Lynn Al Thompson Victor Travers |
| Cinematography | Glen Gano |
| Edited by | Charles Hochberg |
The Yoke’s on Me Trivia
- The working title was Fouled by a Fowl
- Bob McKenzie (Pa) and Eva McKenzie (Ma) were married in real life. Their daughter, Ella, played the desk nurse in Dizzy Doctors
- In the late 1970s, some television stations stopped airing this film, due to its depiction of American citizens of Japanese descent as war enemies
- The Boys sing “The Farmer In The Dell”
- Bob & Eva McKenzie, The actor & actress who played the parents in The Yoke’s On Me were married and their daughter Ella played the desk nurse in Dizzy Doctors
Production Notes
- The Yoke’s on Me was filmed on November 8–12, 1943
- The film’s title is a pun on the expression, “the joke’s on me”