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BOOK REVIEW! THE STOOGE CHRONICLES BY JEFFREY FORRESTER (Contemporary Books Inc., 1981)

Yeah it sure is good readin' more and more about what was probably the GREATEST comedy team of the twentieth century, and if you think I'm talkin' the Marx Brothers (who I really can't care much for and wouldn't even if Dick Cavett didn't like 'em) you're wrong as usual! When I say GREATEST I mean none other'n the Three Stooges, not some innerlektual haughty humor for the psuedo-intellectuals to chatter on about in their never-ending attempts to be even more respectable in the eyes of their chi chi friends.

Gotta say that for Stooges fans this 'un should fill the bill considering that it is more detailed and dare-I-say "accurate" than Moe Howard's own Stoogeobiography reviewed a few months back. It's got loads of pix (I once wanted the one on page 26 made into a t-shirt---mebbe I still do!) not to mention a whole lotta nice li'l facts that we shoulda known about but you know how lots of history gets lost until it gets re-discovered years after the fact.

It may be a little scholarly, and there might be way too much on the "post" Stooges group that Ted Healy slapped together for most of us to care about, but the info and the illustrations are there and if you've been familiar with these faces your whole life there's no reason why you wouldn't wanna read this book and get to know more about these guys who really acted like the true role models in your suburban slob existence. And yeah, at a time when your mother wanted you to be Freddie Bartholomew and your dad Jack Armstrong the Stooges sure did come in handy! (You ultimately turned out to be more like Lumpy Rutherford but at least them Stooges gave you the right sorta ranch house kiddie guidance, eh?)

There's not a thing in THE STOOGE CHRONICLES that I care to quibble about. Even when it borders on "stodgy" the subject matter makes sure that you ain't takin' yer usual eyeball breaks peekin' out the window when yer curvaceous neighbor's walkin' the Rottweiler. It tells the story in its own concise way and should satisfy any kid who spent his formative years watching these guys and never did "outgrow" their style of real, affects you in a down home way comedy that still works all these years later.

And it also satisfies a kid like me who was DENIED the Three Stooges because I couldn't pick up the distant stations that those old shorts were airing on back when I needed these guys the most (local ones were too cheap, or more likely STOOPID to have aired 'em past the mid-sixties for one foolish reason or another). I only caught that glorious glimpse of 'em when visiting a household which was able to snatch those Cleveland and Pittsburgh stations up with relative ease usually making myself a self-invited pest in the process. Sheesh, do you think I could sue my dad for being too cheap to put up a tall enough aerial because of high wind fears on his part? Makes about as much sense as some of those frivolous lawsuits one sees these sappy days, but at least it would be a whole lot more interesting one for you gawkers to read about, eh?