They Stooge to Conga

This short contains the most violent gag in Stooge history. The spike from Curly's shoe goes into Moe's eye! How could Del Lord and Hugh McCollum allow such a gag? This was more in the style of Jules White. I would like to note that these "violent beyond any doubt to be funny" gags are really few and far between in the Three Stooges canon. They did make 190 short subjects for Columbia! The other over the top violent gags I can think of consist of the following: the wire, nose, ear gag in "Pardon My Backfire", the bellows gag in "Corny Casanovas", the Christmas lights down Moe's throat gag in "He Cooked His Goose", and "Half Shot Shooters" almost in its entirety. It must be noted that it was not the Stooges shorts alone that engaged in cruel comic violence. These kind of gags can be found in other Columbia short comedies, especially those directed by Jules White. Lest we forget, Stan Laurel had a cruel, violent streak in his comedy as well.

In this short (another the Stooges did that makes blatant fan of Hitler), the Stooges are fix-it men who are assigned to repair the wiring at a mansion which is actually the hideout of a group of Nazis. The Stooges are their usual inept selves particularly when they try to find the trouble by sending Curly to scale a telephone pole resulting in some of the most violent scenes ever filmed by the Stooges (Moe and Larry apply a pipe wrench to Curly's nose and press his nose against a revolving grindstone; Curly accidentally stabs Moe in the scalp, ear, and (gulp!) eye (shudder!); Moe burns Curly's rear with a blow torch; Curly is electrocuted by the wires to the point where they can light up a light bulb by sticking it in his ear). Eventually, though, their ineptness leads to victory on their behalf when they destroy the house, foul up the Nazi's directions over their air radio, and generally render the Nazis incapable. Very funny stuff, if you can stomach the over-the-top violence in this one (the spike in the eye bit repulses almost everyone who watches it). RECOMMENDED

"They Stooge to Conga," The Three Stooges' first release of 1943, has earned the reputation of being the most violent film in their 24-year short subject span. True, the film is violent, sometimes to the extreme; however, the violence is short-lived, the Stooges are not permanently hurt, and the end result is mayhem and mirth of the first order.

A careful comparison of "They Stooge to Conga" with their 1936 film "Half-Shot Shooters" offers proof that "Conga" is not their most violent film. In "Shooters," arms are broken and eardrums are busted. In "Conga," Moe gets his scalp, eye and ear poked with a climbing spike. While cringe-worthy in itself, this violence is not long lasting, allowing the viewer to relax and enjoy the unfolding comedy.

Give "They Stooge to Conga" another chance. Look past the critical analysis that condemn this film's violence and just enjoy it as another Stooges wartime farce. 7 out of 10.

I guess in addition to every other evil thing that Nazis were, they were also cheap. You get what you pay for and when you hire Moe, Larry, and Curly as day labor you'll pay through the nose and every other body orifice.

In They Stooge To Conga in which the boys never do manage to get to be part of a Conga line, they're hired as itinerant workers to fix a doorbell, by a mysterious looking woman who looks like Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca. Maybe she just hired them because of how stupid they look and hoping looks would not be deceiving. It turns out that this house is a nest of Nazi spies who are guiding a U-boat into a big city east coast harbor to blow it up.

Why these undercover places insist on having all kinds of Nazi paraphernalia around has always been beyond me. I guess if you can't show your true colors in the privacy of your home where can you? It is the right of privacy which is what America's all about and what they're trying to destroy.

Anyway the boys do a marvelous job on the electrical system of the house and the phone wiring as Curly gets to the top of a nearby telephone pole and essentially rewires the city. Best of all is when the boys discover where they are and gain control of the radio operating the submarine. It does all kinds of tricks out in the deep blue sea enabling our bombers to put it to the bottom of same.

Hokey wartime propaganda stuff, but Moe, Larry, and Curly reduce the Nazis to jabbering jackbooted idiots.

This is one of my favorite Stooge shorts. I especially love it when Moe disguises himself as Hitler and does a flawless imitation of the "little sign painter". The boys showed that they were doing their part for moral in the dark days of World War II.