Production Information
Title: They Stooge To Conga
Studio: Columbia
Short Number: 67
Release Date: January 01, 1943
Running Time: 15:6
“Okay, why can’t a chicken lay a loaf of bread?” “She ain’t got the crust!”
(Moe and Curly)
They Stooge To Conga Short Take
The Stooges are fix-it men who are employed to fix the doorbell in a house that belongs to a nest of German and Japanese spies. Moe, Larry and Curly proceed to destroy the walls of the house looking for the problem before moving outside. Curly is then sent up to fix the wires atop a telephone pole. While “fixing” the lines, Curly slides his chair towards the window of the spies’ main control room and crash through the window inside, where the boys discover the villains’ sabotage plans and the game is on!
Cast & Crew
| Directed by | Del Lord |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Del Lord Hugh McCollum |
| Written by | Monte Collins Elwood Ullman |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Vernon Dent Dudley Dickerson Stanley Brown Lloyd Bridges John Tyrrell |
| Cinematography | George Meehan |
| Edited by | Paul Borofsky |
They Stooge To Conga Trivia
Due to its violent content, TV stations do not air this short.
Source: The Official Three Stooges Encylopedia
Added by ProfessorStooge on 2010-01-15 07:14:37
Status: False
Team Stooge Comments: A story that has been told enough times that it has passed into accepted Stooge-mythology, and unfortunately reported as fact in at least one book. While a few local stations may have withheld it for violence issues from time-to-time over the past 50+ years, that has never been an established practice. Local market syndication packages have access to it, and continue to air it, e.g., Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, others.
Production Notes
They Stooge to Conga was filmed May 6–9, 1942. The film title is a parody of the 18th-century play She Stoops to Conquer.
The doorbell repair segment was reworked with Shemp Howard in 1952’s Listen, Judge. The footage of the submarine jumping out of the water was recycled from Three Little Sew and Sews. A similar gag was used in the 2012 film The Three Stooges where Larry (Sean Hayes) is wearing a sandwich board.
A young Lloyd Bridges appears as “Telephone Customer #2” in one of his last uncredited roles.
This is the third Stooges short where Moe plays a parody of Adolf Hitler; the first two, with Moe portraying “Moe Hailstone” as the Hitler parody role in both, were You Nazty Spy! and its sequel I’ll Never Heil Again, neither of which had any connection to this short.
This entry also marked the second time Curly says the word, “sabatoogie”, a mispronouncing of “sabotage“; the first time was in 1942’s Loco Boy Makes Good.
Violence
They Stooge to Conga is often cited as the most violent Stooge film produced during the Curly Howard era (1934–1947) DVD Talk critic Stuart Galbraith IV writes that, in its brief 15½ minutes, the film “offers several startling moments, none more gleefully sadistic as when Curly, scaling an electrical pole, within a few seconds manages to puncture the top of Moe’s head, an eye, and an ear with a climbing spike, all with cringe-inducing ‘ker-CHUNK’ sound effects.” Moe also endures physical harm, including being pulled through lath and plaster, with a wooden pillar inadvertently landing on his neck. Additionally, Curly suffers various forms of abuse, including electrocution, falling from a telephone pole, severe nose twisting, and singeing via an acetylene torch.
Although Columbia short subject head/director Jules White was known for utilizing extreme violence in his films, They Stooge to Conga was in fact directed by Del Lord. White recalled the challenges of filming scenes involving physical harm to Moe. “We had trouble pulling Moe all the way through the wall. Since Moe was a full grown man, we weakened the wall and the wood inside and then replastered the wall.”
Notable violent gags
- Moe and Larry attempt to enter a house simultaneously, resulting in both being thrust out by Curly wielding an anvil point.
- Curly accidentally pulls a ringing phone out of a wall, hits Moe with it, and is retaliated against when Moe throws it back.
- Moe is struck by a solid wooden plank crashing onto his neck while being pulled through a wall.
- Moe twists Curly’s nose with a tool and uses a grinding wheel to file it back into shape.
- Curly accidentally impales Moe with a climbing spike on his shoe while climbing a telephone pole.
- Moe burns Curly’s rear end with a flame torch to motivate him to climb higher.
- Curly shocks himself while straightening a wire and again while testing the connection.
- Curly falls from a telephone pole after being zapped by wires, landing on Moe and Larry below.
- Moe places a light bulb in one of Curly’s ears, which lights up, and then bursts it with a screwdriver in the other ear.
- Curly gets shocked while sliding on electrical wires, pushing him through an open window.
- The Nazi spies’ cook experiences an explosion when Curly manipulates the electrical wires, leading to further mishaps with a phone and a waffle iron.
- Moe uses a hammer to hit Larry from behind, then thrusts it into Curly’s mouth, resulting in Curly striking Moe 20 times with the hammer in rapid succession.
