Termites of 1938

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

This is one of My favorite Three Stooges shorts with Curly! All Appearing in this short are Beatrice Blinn, Symona Boniface, Bess Flowers, Dorothy Granger, John Ince, and Bud Jamison! This one is so hilarious! Curly has a great performance here and in My opinion its one of his best. There are two others similar like this one called Ants in the Pantry and Pest Man Wins! I strongly recommend all three of these Three Stooges shorts!

First, love the title.

Second, another high society caper.

Third, a chance to see legendary Bess Flowers, dubbed Queen of the Hollywood Extras. That she was.

Flowers plays fabulously wealthy Muriel Van Twitchell who needs an escort? Her maid (Etta McDaniel) is supposed to call the Acme Escort Service, but instead dials the Acme Exterminating Company? Where the Stooges come in, and its insane. Any time the guys mixed with the elite, you know disaster follows. The exterminators bit was lifted from ANTS IN THE PANTRY, writer Elwood Ullman tweeking it.

Extermintors Moe, Larry and Curly are mistaken for escorts and hob nob with the rich and famous. One of the best scenes is with Bud Jamison, playing Lord Wafflebottom, who immitates the "distinguished" Stooges eating habits. A scene that may have been made up as they went along, thanks to director Del Lord. Bess Flowers is fun to watch as the astonished lady of the house, also Symona Boniface (as a guest), who would appear in similar roles opposite the Stooges. She was often compared to Margaret Dumont, who took on the Marx Brothers.

Two other mini classics; Moe, Larry and Curly perform their famous Cossack dance, again exceptionally handled by Del Lord, and don't miss the Gopher Bomb!

Dorothy Granger, best known as Leon Errol's wife in his comedy films, plays Mabel. Etta McDaniel was the sister of Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel (GONE WITH THE WIND) and Sam McDaniel. A salute to Bess Flowers, who appeared in over 800 films, several Oscar winning productions.

Always on Columbia dvd, generally released by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Many thanks to METV for running these golden oldies Saturdays.

The boys are exterminators. Through a series of events too long to go into here, they wind up at a posh party - the perfect place for the Three Stooges to create mayhem. They are supposed to be an "escort service," and a date of one of the swanky snobs.

If you seen The Three Stooges, chances are you've seen this short or at least a couple like it, where the uncouth slobs (in this one, they are also considered by the uniformed as "those college chaps") wreak havoc at an exclusive party. Yes, that happens here but, sadly, only to a small degree, not like I've seen it in all the other Three Stooges comedies. I kept excepting the wild scenes at the dinner or with the rodents afterward but the humor was bland....not up the boys usual high standards.

The best gags were at the beginning before they ever arrived at this party. Moe, Larry and Curly's efforts to get a mouse are pretty funny. Moe's is not practical, but the most elaborate (involving a cannon!).

Termites Of 1938 has Moe, Larry, and Curly as the Acme Exterminating company who when we first meet them are trying several new experimental methods of dealing with mice. One particular mouse gets the best of all of them.

But they could be moving up in the world as maid Etta McDaniel calls a wrong number as she is trying for the Acme Escort Bureau. These three as escorts is a concept you have to wrap your head around. But they go to an exclusive society party and start new trends in table manners and then go to work exterminating the party essentially.

Another really funny one from the Stooges.

References to Disney's "Wynken, Blynken and Nod". Three babies sail away in a Dutch wooden shoe and fish for starfish (yellow Juden stars). The French Maginot Line - ends in Holland and Switzerland - imagine that. "The Pied Piper of Hamlen" Robert Browning:

"Come in! - the Mayor cried, looking bigger: And in did come the strangest figure!

His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red; And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and in - There was no guessing his kith and kin!

And nobody could enough admire The tall man and his quaint attire: Quoth one: It's as my great-grandsire, Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"

Curly proposes this as a descriptor of Chancellor Adolf Hitler. A huge strategic faux pas on the European chessboard.