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It's Saturday morning again, a special day for my 10-year-old son. First, a leisurely breakfast with actual fried meat (bacon or sausage) and grilled carbohydrate (pancakes or waffles). Then -- best of all -- an hour or two (depending upon parental tolerance) of The Three Stooges on an obscure cable channel that broadcasts the episodes one after another all morning.
Like much of pop culture, the stooges now have a learned following that takes them far more seriously than they did themselves. (Here's an example.)
But there is something interesting there. The constant subverting of authority figures, the triumph of well-meaning buffoons, the punning wisdom of fools -- it's wonderful stuff for a 10-year-old who spends his week at school learning long division.
I'm old enough to recall when the stooges shorts were on the movie screen at the Saturday afternoon matinee before the main feature came on (and when you carried the quarter that the movie cost in your mitten, plus a dime for candy, so you wouldn't lose your money on the way there.) Maybe it's a boy thing, but I found them exhilarating. No superheroes, just ordinary schmucks doing their best to get by, and ultimately prevailing.
Like much of pop culture, the stooges now have a learned following that takes them far more seriously than they did themselves. (Here's an example.)
But there is something interesting there. The constant subverting of authority figures, the triumph of well-meaning buffoons, the punning wisdom of fools -- it's wonderful stuff for a 10-year-old who spends his week at school learning long division.
I'm old enough to recall when the stooges shorts were on the movie screen at the Saturday afternoon matinee before the main feature came on (and when you carried the quarter that the movie cost in your mitten, plus a dime for candy, so you wouldn't lose your money on the way there.) Maybe it's a boy thing, but I found them exhilarating. No superheroes, just ordinary schmucks doing their best to get by, and ultimately prevailing.