Well, it just hadda happen. And I'm glad it did. Now that is, instead of XXX years from now when they'll be laying me in my grave and right at that moment this collection would be released and all of my afterbearers would remark "if Chris had only held out for a few more weeks he woulda been able to see this---what a saphead!"
I get the feelin' something like that is gonna happen, like right after I croak all of those Rocket From The Tombs live shows and rehearsals not to mention tons of obscure sixties/seventies tapes I've wanted to hear for eons are suddenly in circulation which certainly won't do me any good. Of course some of these items might make it into the collectors realm while I'm still barely alive, only I got the sneakin' suspicion that I'm gonna be DEAF which of course ain't gonna do me justice either! But thaz just my luck, like when right after I lost interest in superheroes in the seventies all of a sudden the entire genre gets reinvigorated via tee-vee and moom pitchers and by then I couldn't care less!
This 'un's got almost alla the Shemp Howard Vitaphone shorts (the first few that ain't here pop up on Vitaphone's first volume of comedy classics which features the likes of Fatty Arbuckle and the infamous Gus Shy working with or without the greasy-haired one) and it's a real wowwowWOW-zer of a collection too! Considering how rare some of these subject are not having been shown on tee-vee as far as I can tell these are guaranteed to knock out the average Three Stooges and short subject fan more'n a slap inna face from Moe ever could!
Of course the mere presence of Shemp either as a supporting player, a co-star or headliner for that matter is what puts the pack into this package! I mean, even when up against old comedy hands like George Givot, Roscoe Ames and Charles Kemper Shemp really spices up even their own well-developed humor, and not only that but Our Hero delivers on the action-packed hoo-hahs just like he did when he manned the third Stooge chair.
Heck, as manager Knobby Walsh Shemp even saved the rather plain JOE PALOOKA series from being yet another cheap comic strip cash-in, and if you ask me (and why not since I know infinitesimally more than you) the guy could probably take any role in a moom or what have ya and liven up the proceedings manyfold. I'll bet he woulda even been a smash had he appeared in CALIGULA or SALO, but thankfully he'd never take roles in films like that (I hope!).
Twenny-one shorts here and all, no matter how big or little Shemp's input is, are worth the time and temperature to see. Personal fave; "Dizzy and Daffy" where baseball's Dean Brothers (no actors they) are pitched up against Shemp's wit and humor with Shemp doin' a whole buncha fuh-knee pitcher gags that had me rollin' on the ground...and I hate sports (as my lazyass suburban slob self is wont to do)!
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