The Three Stooges: The Ultimate Collection

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Everything a Stooge fan can want. Every short film they did is included in this set, and the bonus material is superb. It contains solo shorts by Shemp (before he rejoined the Stooges) and Curly Joe (billed as Joe de Rita). The biggest surprise (for me at least) are the shorts by Joe Besser. Most Stooge fans acknowledge that Joe was the worst stooge (his style didn’t mesh with Moe and Larry that well), but his detractors rarely mention that Joe had his own career before becoming a Stooge, and the solo shorts included in this set show that he was very funny by himself, and you end up appreciating his comedy style more after watching. Another wonderful thing I like about this set is that some of the later shorts were shot after widescreen photography came into play, and they are present in their original aspect ratio (1.85:1 to be exact). Columbia didn’t do this stuff half a**ed. They went all out, and they should be commended for it. The restorations look incredible.

It would have been nice if they included all the movies the Stooges did (there are only 2 included in the set), and maybe a documentary on the Stooges, but that’s OK. I can live with that. A great set for all Stooge fans.

-Grigory’s Girl

Let me first say that I have been a Three Stooges fans for decades. Since my childhood, I remember some of the funniest lines from the Three Stooges. My favorite has always been the Shemp episodes and for whatever reasons I’m unsure of, near impossible to find.

On some occasions, certain networks show the Three Stooges rather randomly but they always been Curly episodes and a whole lot of repeated episodes almost every time you watch it.

Throughout the years I came across various dvds and partials of the Three Stooges, none of which features Shemp even if the cover has a picture of him. My main way of ever hoping to watch the show was to record it on vhs and hope that I can re-watch it sometime. I sometimes see Three Stooges collections at the movie stores, but it was very unclear how to complete such collection.

So in comes this ultimate dvd collection. Let me say I was very skeptical at first. My thought were exactly, “No way this could be the complete ultimate collection that features every Curly, Shemp, and Joe films.” Sure enough it is, and I’m very glad to have purchased this. I don’t know when this DVD was released or for how easy it is to access Shemp episodes. I’m just glad to finally come across the dvds and am very glad I can watch it. I found many episodes I completely forgotten about including the one where Shemp was in a stolen box car and had a drunken vision of a bird. Other funny episodes include where Shemp had this fishbowl stuck on his head after attempting to get his inheritance money.

To my surprise a lot of Three Stooges episodes are rehashes of other episodes but in various formats. To me the Three Stooges are the funniest but also some of Hollywood most tragic actors and certainly shows the evil and corruption of Hollywood. I know some writers of the shows actually committed suicide after going bankrupt. All the Stooges had broken bones and Curly and Shemp both suffered tragic, sudden deaths. As you all know Shemp came on the show after Curly and a lot of Shemp’s episodes are remakes of earlier Curly episodes. Even more surprising after Shemp died, they simply re-used a lot of his films for future versions until Joe came into the picture. All that is within this Ultimate Collection of Three Stooges. You also get some very nice missing episodes that are very rare. You get 3d glasses, which I haven’t tried yet in fear of losing the glasses.

Overall I am very happy to own this. I am very thankful that finally the full collection has been released and I enjoy every minute of this collection. It’s one of my most prized item and I certainly hope that everyone can experience the Three Stooges.

-DA

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Black & White, Subtitled, NTSC
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 20
Rated: NR Not Rated
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: June 5, 2012
Run Time: 3867 minutes
ASIN: B006WN5W5M