Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. To Philadelphians, there probably are no greater comedic icons than the Three Stooges. Larry Fine was a son of the city, of course, but Moe and Curly might as well have been too for all the belly laughs they provided in their 190 shorts and six full-length films. Was it because these lovable knuckleheads somehow remind us of ourselves? Why, soitenly!
If you think love of The Three Stooges is "a guy thing," you haven't been to a Stooges convention lately.
Frank Reighter says more and more women - his wife, Phyllis, included - are out-of-the-closet "stoogers." The Reighters - co-sponsors of this weekend's Stooge affair in Trevose - say they expect between 1,000 and 2,000 people to attend. "And there are more women each year," said Frank Reighter.
"I don't think it's because they are just learning about the Stooges," he said. "It's that they've learned they no longer have to hide the attraction."
Whatever the reason for the fascination, something about the faux-violent funnymen has kept their popularity alive among young and old men and women since the trio debuted in 1930.
Over the years, the makeup of the Stooges changed, drawn from a field made up of Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, Curly (Jerome) Howard, Joe Besser and (Curly) Joe DeRita. In all, the zany guys made 190 short films and a handful of features.
Reighter, 56, of Northeast Philadelphia, said he has copies of every one of those shorts on videotape "and about 70 of them on original 16mm film." He collects them at film conventions and through movie-collector magazines.
Unfortunately for fans, none of the Stooges is living. The last was Joe DeRita, who died in 1993. But the eye-poking and face-slapping continues, at least in a legal sense. The families of the slapstick kings are constantly embroiled in one battle or another over which branch has the right to use the Three Stooges name in the lucrative merchandise-licensing business.
In the most recent suit, a Los Angeles jury decided last December in favor of the survivors of Fine and DeRita, ruling that the children of Moe Howard owe them more than $2 million. Citing breach of contract, the jury awarded DeRita's widow, Jean, $1.6 million and Fine's grandkids just over $500,000.
Family members from both camps will be on hand at the convention to greet fans and sign autographs, but Reighter said he doesn't expect any on-site dissension.
