The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Six: 1949-1951

The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Six: 1949-1951

The twenty-four episodes span two discs and nearly 400 minutes of content. There are no extra features, which isn’t too surprising given the age of the material. Before getting ahead of myself, let me go ahead and breakdown the episodes included in this set, starting with the first disc.

Disc 1:

The Ghost Talks – The bumbling trio is tasked with moving out furniture from an old house, only to find it’s haunted and an old spirit talks to them, scaring each of them individually and then collectively.

Who Done It? – It’s up the to Stooges, which is never a good thing, to track down a millionaire who was captured by a trio of kidnappers. The Stooges search the millionaire’s home for clues and bump into the criminals many times.

Hokus Pokus – The Stooges are fooled by a lady who pretends to be handicapped so that she can commit insurance fraud. Meanwhile, a hypnotist is in town and rather than getting him to hypnotize the lady so that she can walk, the Stooges get hypnotized.

Fuelin’ Around – While installing carpet in a scientist’s house, the Stooges are kidnapped by mistake as they are thought to be the ones capable of producing a high tech rocket fuel. They’re forced to come up with something to escape their captors.

Malice In the Palace – The Stooges take to the desert in hopes of retrieving a large diamond.

Vagabond Loafers – If I’m not mistaken this is a remake of a classic episode where the Stooges act as plumbers, trying to fix a water leak in a very nice house that is simultaneously host to a ritzy party. One of my favorite episodes.

Dunked In the Deep – The Stooges are stranded on a freighter after their friend, a spy, tricks them.

Punchy Cowpunchers – A western tale with the Stooges acting as undercover spies to furl the plans of an group of outlaws that has the Arizon Kid held captive.

Hugs And Mugs – Three girls visit a furniture store run by the Stooges, claiming that an expensive necklace the Stooges find is theirs. The Stooges manage to fight off the real bad guys and the girls decide to give up their pursuit of the stolen necklace.

Dopey Dicks – A mad scientist developing mechanical men is holding a young girl hostage, and the Stooges decide to put on their detective hats and go after her. Meanwhile, the scientist and his ads chase the Stooges around the house, trying to harvest their brains for the mechanical man project.

Love At First Bite – The Stooges eagerly await the return of all three of their sweethearts; while waiting, they swap stories on how each of them met their particularly girl, and manage to get drunk in the process, nearly costing them their day’s worth of preparation for the return.

Self Made Maids – Posing as artists this time, the Stooges are preparing portraits for three women. In the process, each Stooge gets immediately engaged with one of the women, all of whom are sisters. Their father disproves of marriages, but the Stooges manage to convince him otherwise.

Three Hams On Rye – The Stooges are actors in a play this time around, with the producer already facing lots of flak from the press. Initially, the Stooges manage to screw up, but ultimately their screw ups are seen as satire by the critics and all is well.

Studio Stoops – Hired as publicity men for an actress, the Stooges, decide to stage a kidnapping of their client. When she is actually kidnapped, the Stooges have to come to the rescue.

Slap Happy Sleuths – The Onion Oil Company is seeing a lot of trouble with robbery at its gas stations. The Stooges are hired to go undercover to discover who is behind the thefts.

A Snitch In Time – The Stooges are furniture makers/dealers in this particular episode. After being two weeks late, they’re finally set to deliver furniture to a boarding school, only to discover some criminals there that they subdue with their slapstick ways.

Three Arabian Nuts – While delivering miscellaneous antiques, the Stooges stumble upon a lamp that has a genie in it. With the help of the genie, the Stooges are able to out wit a gang of criminals.

Baby Sitters Jitters – The boys take up baby-sitting to earn some money. A woman enters her baby into their care, only to have him stolen by the father. The Stooges come to the rescue as only they can.

Don’t Throw That Knife – Posing as census takers, the Stooges manage to get themselves into an awkward situation that has a husband and wife dealing with a marital problem involving jealousy over a knife-thrower.

Scrambled Brains – Shemp is in a mental hospital, where he falls for his nurse, Nora. The two are set to get married, but all doesn’t go as planned when Larry and Moe fight with Nora’s father.

Merry Mavericks – Set in the west, the Stooges are tasked with watching money inside of an old house that is apparently haunted. When criminals attempt to steal the money, their plans are foiled by the Stooges who use this legend to their advantage.

The Tooth Will Out – The Stooges manage to get through dental school and open up a practice. When Shemp uses terrible methods to “fix” a patient’s tooth, the Stooges must escape.

Hula-la-la – This time the Stooges are sent to a tropical island as dance instructors so that they can teach the locals some moves so that they could partake in a movie. Unfortunately, one of the locals, a witch doctor isn’t interesting in dancing but in the Stooges’ heads instead.

Pest Man Wins – Posing as exterminators, the Stooges decide to plant pests in a mansion during a party. The Stooges are then hired to rid the mansion of the pests but must do so while acting as party guests.

That’s the list of episodes for this volume. I believe my favorite of the bunch would probably have to be Vagabond Loafers, but overall I didn’t find these episodes to be as laugh-out-loud funny as the previous volumes that had Curly instead of Shemp. That isn’t to say I didn’t like Shemp, but I thought Curly was better at being goofy and with physical comedy. That said, there is still a lot of laughs to be had with this sixth volume.

As far as presentation, all episodes are presented in 1:33:1 full screen and in black and white. The image quality is actually fine to very good considering the source material, and the audio was good too, although I had to turn up the volume more so than anything else I normally watch (which isn’t a big deal).

All in all, this is another fine set for Stooges fans; let’s get to the summary…