Various fans of the Three Stooges have informed me — though the mainstream press has not — of the recent passing of Don Lamond, the gent who hosted the Stooges films for years in Los Angeles at KTTV, Channel 11. Actually, Mr. Lamond hosted lots of things at Channel 11 for decades and was often heard as an off-camera announcer, as well. He was one of those performers in local TV who did a little of everything, plus he also acted on TV shows and in films, including roles in many of the Stooges' later features. He was the narrator of Have Rocket, Will Travel for example, and was seen on-screen in that and in The Outlaws is Coming.
I'm afraid I don't know as much about Mr. Lamond as I would like — and I can't find a decent photo of the man, either. I met him ever-so-briefly during one of the periods when his Stooges show had a live kid audience on-camera and I was one of those kids. Alas, the day I was there was not one of the occasional times the Stooges themselves would appear on the program. Lamond had a special "in" to get them to show up once in a while. He was Larry's son-in-law.
That series ran for years at different lengths and in different time slots but it's where I first came to know the Three Stooges. The KTTV film editors were about as adept at trimming episodes for time as Larry, Moe and Curly were at performing liver transplants…but even with the first few minutes of a short hacked off and a chunk of the middle missing, they were still funny. And when they appeared with Lamond playing "straight man" to them, they were even funnier. Kids my age in L.A. have Don Lamond to thank for bringing them into our lives.