Production Information
Title: Loco Boy Makes Good
Studio: Columbia
Short Number: 60
Release Date: January 8, 1942
Running Time: 17:24
“They hit me with a tomatah.” “A tomato?” “Yeah, a cowardly tomatah… one that hits ‘ya and runs.”
(Curly & Vernon Dent)
Short Take
After being thrown out of their apartment, the Stooges try a new scam to gain some money: find a hotel, slip on a cake of soap, and sue the owners to get a huge settlement. In their attempts, they come across an old lady hotel owner who is on the brink of losing her hotel if she doesn’t pay the interest on her note. Taking pity on her, they immediately start fixing up the place and go all out to impress important columnist Waldo Twitchell on opening night.
Loco Boy Makes Good offers an extreme contrast in the hotel lobby scene, The Stooges are competent, confident and utterly dominant over Scruggins. In the ensuing linoleum sequences, however, they are more Stooge-like than ever. Director Jules White emphasizes their ignorance and extends slapstick sequences, a trademark of his films.
Cast & Crew
| Directed by | Jules White |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Jules White |
| Written by | Felix Adler Clyde Bruckman |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Vernon Dent John Tyrrell Dorothy Appleby Symona Boniface Bud Jamison Eddie Laughton Heinie Conklin |
| Cinematography | John Stumar |
| Edited by | Jerome Thoms |
Loco Boy Makes Good Trivia
- Loco Boy Makes Good is filled with parodies and timely references. The title itself parodies the expression “Local Boy Makes Good,” a generic small-town newspaper headline about a local citizen who has achieved a major accomplishment. Loco is Spanish for “crazy.” In addition, the character name “Waldo Twitchell” is a pun on the name Walter Winchell.
- The Stooges’ act is billed as “Nill, Null & Void: Three Hams Who Lay Their Own Eggs, appearing in the Kokonuts Grove.” The “Kokonuts Grove” is a reference to the Cocoanut Grove, later the site of the deadly 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire.
- On March 7, 1946, comedian Harold Lloyd sued writers Clyde Bruckman, director Jules White and Columbia Pictures for Bruckman’s use of Lloyd’s magician’s coat sequence from Movie Crazy (1932) in Loco Boy Makes Good. Lloyd sought $500,000 in damages. Columbia lost the suit. Universal was later sued for similar violations in several Bruckman scripts, costing them several million dollars in damages. In 1955 Bruckman, penniless and an alcoholic borrowed a pistol from friend Buster Keaton and committed suicide.
Production Notes
- Filming for Loco Boy Makes Good took place from July 29 to August 1, 1941.
- However, it did not appear in theatres until January 1942, the first Stooges short to be released after the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
