Jerks of All Trades

This is a TV pilot from 1949 with Shemp in the 3rd role that ABC filmed and was considering for broadcast, until the Columbia Shorts Division took legal action. In the end, they settled by allowing ABC to air their old shorts instead. Today this pilot is in public domain and available on YouTube as well as DVD.

Oddities noticed would include the audience laughter, something missing in their shorts. While not normal for the Stooges, when looked at through the lens of television, its a normal thing to hear. It seems many of the lower rated reviews don't appreciate the audience and would prefer the pilot without it. I would agree that after nearly 200 shorts without it, the show might have been more appreciated without an audience. Another oddity was the sets, and lack of detail. This reminded me of old Honeymooners episodes with the plain sets. I'm sure this was cost cutting, as they boys dealt with that in their movies often as well, just not to this extreme. These "oddities" brought to mind the trios days in Vaudeville, as this lineup would of been more likely to have the live stage work experience. As such, Larry stands out a bit more as his reactions seem a little bolder than in the shorts. Moe is seen as trying to say too much, al.ost as if he was worried about dead air. In the shorts the trio would use more sight gags, and a lol in dialog often allowed for a scene to build visually. Here that doesn't happen in the same manner. Using Emil Sitka as the main foil was brilliant. The familiarity of working with the boys likely helped in the pilot, as well as having Symona Boniface in one of her last filmed roles, another Stooges regular. Most of the jokes have been seen in many other shorts, such as the painting of the table. A highlight (dare I say scene stealer) was the salesman who stopped by. While not at the top of the game in this pilot, it clearly set up a premise that likely would run well as a TV show in the 50s. Not the place to be introduced to the Three Stooges, but a nice peek into how they were back in their Vaudeville days. Real fans of the boys will find it interesting.

I first read of this Three Stooges-Moe, Larry, and Shemp-rarity in a book from the late '80s called "The Stooges' Lost Episodes". The authors of that book didn't like this TV pilot they made though they did like Larry's performance since he rarely rehearsed meaning his spontaneous take appealed to them more than Shemp's "tired robot-like manner" or Moe being "stiff, overbearing, and screechy, more so than usual". But having gotten used to seeing them being that way during their shorts, I laughed heartily most of the time when just watching this again on YouTube. Also appearing were Stooges patsies Emil Sitka and Symona Boniface who'd pass away not long after this. It's true their film performances, where they have more space either on location or in backlots as opposed to being on a limited stage, are better than this early TV one. Still, much of the material was funny enough to me. So on that note, I recommend Jerks of All Trades for anyone interested in all things Stooges.

The biggest drawback of putting The Three Stooges in a sitcom, as I can see, is the use of a laugh track. I always found their comedy the funniest when we, in the audience, were the only ones laughing-to hear laughing at their antics on the film itself is detrimental to the humor, in my opinion. So would a Stooges sitcom have worked, or was it just a poor idea in the first place?

The second biggest drawback in this pilot is the direction. Comedy films require more than just gags and funny jokes, they require timing and proper direction and pacing. This film has great gags and jokes, some of the best the team ever did-but it suffers because the direction is bad. At times (especially during the painting-and-papering scenes, which should ZING but don't), it almost seems like the camera is focused on the wrong Stooge. It even sometimes appears hard to follow, though this could also be due to the poor quality print I watched, to be totally fair.

Though the laugh track distances us from the "pure" humor of The Three Stooges, a Stooge series might still have been fun in its own right, and indeed, this pilot *is* sometimes fun, especially in the first act. There seem to be more gags and jokes per minute in this film than in their standard Columbia Pictures shorts, and this is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because even with poor quality direction the Stooges on a bad day are better than no Stooges at all. Bad, because it throws off the all-important pacing.

You'll note that despite this seemingly negative review, I did give this film six stars out of ten, which may seem incongruous. This is because The Three Stooges are among my favorite comedians of all time, and even at their worst they're still better than most "comics" today, though this particular film strikes me as a miscalculation and a missed opportunity. This pilot is probably best left for serious Stooge buffs alone, certainly not for people discovering them for the first time.

Pretty stilted attempt from Stooges in the infant days of T.V. Worth a look from die hard fans....that's about it

Well, I believe Moe, Larry and Shemp had aspirations of being television stars with the filming of this pilot episode, but Columbia Pictures--for whatever strange reasons--stopped production of the potential new series with legal action; their so called "logic" being that a TV series would interfere with the production of stooge short films.

All that aside, the pilot still exists and I would say it's a great show. At first, one might miss the stooge sound effects that greatly enhanced the short films by Columbia--but even with that lack of sound, the stooges show that they were truly adept comedians who could generate big laughs in any setting.

Adding to the proceedings are stooge film veterans, Emil Sitka and Symona Boniface. And one great moment that comes at the end of the "pressure cooker" scene is Moe remarking how the stooges attract the oddest sort of people.

I know there are some mixed reviews for "Jerks", but in my eyes it rates as some of the stooges' finest work.

9 stars