They Stooge to Conga

They Stooge to Conga (1943)

*** (out of 4)

Funny short from The Three Stooges has the men working as "fixer uppers" who can fix anything. A woman asks them to fix their doorbell and the boys accept the job not knowing that inside the house are Nazi spies.

THEY STOOGE TO CONGA is a pretty good entry in the long running series as it contains some pretty good laughs and is also a good example of comedy during WWII. Obviously being shot during the war, there are many jokes here aimed at Germany, Japan and especially Hitler. The Hitler jokes are all pretty funny as we get all sorts of gags aimed at the salute to their leader. Another very funny moment happens when Moe pretends to be a portrait of Hitler and gives a salute back to the Germans.

Fans of the Stooges are going to find quite a few jokes here that work including the rather long opening sequence where the boys destroy the house trying to "fix" the door bell. Overall this isn't the greatest episode in the series but it contains enough laughs to make it worth viewing.

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.

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

I saw this one years ago and one scene has stayed with me. Moe walks into a room, sees a portrait of Hitler, stops in his tracks, and cries, "Schickelgruber!" The body language and intonation convey a perfect combination of surprise, fear, and revulsion, but in the use of the name "Schickelgruber," he simultaneously conveys contempt. Here at the height of World War II, Moe managed in just a second or two with his facial expression, movement, and tone of voice, to perfectly capture the nation's disgust and loathing toward the Nazis and especially their leader, while figuratively sticking his tongue out or thumbing his nose or whatever on our behalf at the same time.

Moe's talent went way beyond the bullying "boss stooge;" here we see his brilliance as a social and political satirist captured in one quick moment.