Masters of physical comedy, the Three Stooges have been making audiences laugh with their slapstick clowning since the 1920s. The many short and feature-length films they made between 1934 and 1965 gained eternal life through televised reruns. In fact, it could be argued that these bickering halfwits are more popular now than they ever were in their prime Hollywood (see entry under 1930s—Film and Theater in volume 2) years.

The founding members of the Three Stooges were Moe Howard (born Moses Horwitz; 1897–1975) and his brother Shemp (born Samuel Horwitz; 1895–1955), who started performing their comedy act on the vaudeville (see entry under 1900s—Film and Theater in volume 1) stage in 1923. Two years later, Larry Fine (born Louis Feinberg; 1902–1975) rounded out the trio. In those early days Moe, Larry, and Shemp supported the straight man Ted Healy (1896–1937). Together they made their first feature film, Soup to Nuts, in 1930. Eventually, the...