Super Bowl 52 is set for February 4th. Huddle up with some Three Little Pigskins and other football-themed shorts for the poifect halftime. The Three Stooges football skills may not be NFL quality but their on-field antics are definitely All-Pro!
Three Little Pigskins
Just watch the short Three Little Pigskins from 1934 and you’ll readily see just how much fun football can be! Larry, Moe & Curly on the gridiron turn blocking and tackling into a slapstick art form.
The Four Horsemen
Larry, Moe & Curly were mistaken for ‘The Three Horsemen’, a take-off from Notre Dame’s fabled backfield from the 1920’s known as The Four Horsemen; a moniker that stuck when sportswriter Grantland Rice, a sportswriter for the New York Herald Tribune, penned this newspaper story lead, which became the most famous passage in sports journalism, after Notre Dame’s 13-7 victory over Army on October 24, 1924: “Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.
In dramatic lore, they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction, and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.”
First Downs – Stooge Style
Three Little Pigskins saw the first use of Curly’s finger wave and the first time The Boys appeared in drag. It was also the first short that we see the appearance of a cast member who would go on to stardom in their own right. In this case, a young Lucille Ball was a credited cast member who said later in her career,” Working with The Three Stooges was my first training in slapstick and real physical comedy. I very much appreciated training with some real greats.”
Gilmore Stadium
Three Little Pigskins was shot at Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles and the football players used in the short were from Loyola University where the short’s director Raymond Carey played college football.
Gilmore Stadium, which was the home of the Hollywood Stars Triple-A Baseball team, one of two Triple-A teams in L.A. prior to the Dodgers moving to town in 1958. Later, the site became the home of the CBS Television Studios. The other AAA team in Los Angles was The Los Angeles Angels.
More Three Stooges Football-themed Film Shorts
No Census No Feeling filmed at USC home of the Trojans.
A Ducking They Did Go where The Boys huddle, hike and skillfully pass a watermelon instead of a football.
Useless Three Stooges Football Trivia
- Did You Know: Jean Willes, who appeared in five Stooge shorts including as Nurse Shapley in Monkey Businessmen and Lucy in Don’t Throw That Knife, was married to pro football player Gerard Cowhig who played with the Los Angeles Rams, Chicago Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles. Yes, the Cardinals started out in Chicago, then went to St. Louis (before the Rams) and then to Arizona.
- “Football!” “And basketball!” “I can do very nicely with a highball.” – Violent is The Word For Curly
- The Three Stooges are famous for their fantastic use of three pattern dialogue. Here’s a real good one from 1940’s No Census, No Feeling. The set up: The Boys, as census takers, approach a pretty girl:
Moe: What’s your name
Larry: And your address
Curly: And what’s more important, what’s your phone number!
