Production Information
Title: Merry Mavericks
Studio: Columbia
Short Number: 133
Release Date: September 6, 1951
Running Time: 15:46
“Why don’t ya get yerself a book and read it? Improve your mind… aahh, skip it.”
Short Take
To keep Red Morgan and his gang from stealing the mine payroll, the bank president and local newspaper editor fake a story that three famous lawmen are coming to clean up the town, using a “wanted for vagrancy” leaflet featuring Moe, Larry and Shemp. The three arrive in town looking for a job cleaning the saloon, and bumbling circumstances turn against Red and his henchmen, who are soon subdued by the “three famous lawmen.”
A crooked Sheriff frees the Morgan gang from jail, and they follow the newly deputized Stooges to the old Horton place, supposedly haunted by a headless Indian, and now the new hiding place for the payroll. Posing as ghosts, the crooks begin stalking our heroes.
Merry Mavericks Cast & Crew
| Directed by | Edward Bernds |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Hugh McCollum |
| Written by | Edward Bernds |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Don C. Harvey Marion Martin Emil Sitka Paul Campbell |
| Cinematography | Allen G. Siegler |
| Edited by | Edwin H. Bryant |
Merry Mavericks Trivia
- The short originally had a dentistry sequence that Bernds and McCollum had always wanted to put into a Western farce. It was filmed but ran so long they took it out
- The dentistry scene became the foundation for the very next short: The Tooth Will Out that came out just a month later with Dick Curtis as the unlucky patient for The Boys dentistry skills
Production Notes
- Merry Mavericks was filmed June 13–16, 1950, but not released until September 1951
- It is a partial remake of Phony Express, using minimal stock footage from the original
