Outer Space Jitters

OUTER SPACE JITTERS (1957) is the worst Joe Besser short I have seen so far. It's a totally weird plot. What should a caveman be brought to life on Sunev (Venus spelled backwards) anyway? Besides, the Stooges don't even wear their hair their usual funny way. The "Sunev" gag was already used in SPACE SHIP SAPPY (1957). I don't recommend this short. At least the ending was good.

Rating: D

For a long time I'd heard about how bad all the Joe Besser-era Stooge shorts were. So when I finally got around to seeing some of them, I approached them with low expectations. And for the most part I found that they were better than I expected. I didn't find Joe all that annoying, though I could see why others would.

Now I've seen "Outer Space Jitters", and I have to say... when I heard that the Besser-era shorts were bad, this is EXACTLY what I expected them to be like.

I found this short dumb and almost totally laugh-free (although a couple of the cheap jokes did hit their mark -- barely). In my opinion it's not Joe that ruins this (although his repeated "let's get outta here" lines are unnatural and annoying). This script would not have been helped by the presence of any other third stooge.

I'm happy to report that all Besser-era shorts are not like this one -- not by any means. And I'm glad this was not the first one I saw.

For the longest time, this was my least favorite stooge short. The stooges with Joe Besser and an outer-space plot was always a warning sign that you were to be witness to cinematic poop. Though, fishing for something positive to say, I have had the "pleasure" of watching HORSING AROUND, which reaches to an even lower depth than this prize of a stooge short.

0.5/10

While not totally awful, it's certainly a very far cry from being a good Stooge comedy. And that's really too bad because despite the fact that Joe Besser refused to take any of the traditional pokes and slaps that Moe used to hand out to Curly and Shemp, he was otherwise a fine comedian. Check him out in Abbott & Costello's "Africa Screams" where Joe actually has some screen time with Shemp. At this time Colombia Pictures was obviously trying to "wind up" the Stooges contract so the writing and direction are just not there for them. A sad commentary on the state of affairs for the comics at this time in the late 1950's. If you have absolutely nothing else to do, then do watch this short and you'll see automatically how things had declined for this type of comedy during the "cold war" rock and roll era of the late 50's.

In the start Larry have a quick endorsement for the movie "Pal Joey" .