This is from James H. Burns…
Stop! Look! And Laugh! also features a neat opportunity — one of the only, come to think of it — to view "Officer" Joe Bolton, who hosted the Stooges shorts for years on WPIX in New York. He's a customer at the diner with Knucklehead. (He's also featured in The Outlaws is Coming, along with a whole posse of kids' show hosts from around the country — those whose shows screened Howard, Howard and Fine — as, I always thought a bit oddly, famous desperadoes.
By the way, Joe Besser told an interesting story about why he had to leave the Stooges. When the shorts were first released to TV, and met with near instantaneous success, Moe had the bright idea to begin doing live shows again with the act. Dates were planned, with the first booked, I believe, in Pittsburgh…
Moe figured it might be the only way to cash in on their new popularity, as there were — as was, of course, standard for the time — absolutely no residuals from the old Columbia pictures. Besser's wife had been sick, requiring daily care. A film schedule, particularly one where he had only to drive the short distance to the studio for a few days' work, on a two-reeler, was no problem. But there was no way he would leave California, for any amount of time, while his wife remained ill. Contrary to rumor, it was only when Besser told Moe that he couldn't tour, that the chief Stooge decided that he'd have to be replaced…
I know that's the story as it's usually told but I always thought the illness of Mrs. Besser was an excuse. I think Joe Besser just decided that at that point, he'd have more of a career as a solo comedian. If I'd been his agent at the time, that's how I would have advised him…and I'd have been right. Even assuming he'd have received a third of what the Stooges made — perhaps a faulty assumption — I'll bet he made more on his own. He certainly had more potential as a performer on his own.
One of the times I visited Larry Fine out at the Motion Picture Country Home, I asked him if my theory was correct. He said, "Probably," and went on to tell me that Besser — for whom he had nothing but fondness — never really liked being a Stooge. Didn't like the physical demands, didn't like being part of a team, didn't like the money.
Probably because of that, when I later met Mr. Besser, I asked him nothing about his days with the Stooges. We talked about his work with Abbott and Costello and he told me that after Costello died, Abbott was after him to team up for an act. I don't know if that's true or not but I think Abbott and Besser might have worked quite well as a duo, certainly better than Abbott's unsuccessful attempts to form a new team with Candy Candido. (The reason I wonder if Besser's claim is true is that he said nothing of the sort in either version of his autobiography — Not Just a Stooge or Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge. He also made some outlandish claims in them about his salary as a cartoon voice performer.)
Regarding the Stooges having all the local TV hosts in The Outlaws is Coming: One of the folks in there is Don Lamond, who was a personality on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, not only hosting the Three Stooges shorts but also at times, an afternoon movie program. He was an odd choice to emcee Stooges films — a guy in a sport coat and tie with no "character" like Skipper Frank or Engineer Bill. (The station eventually replaced him with Billy Barty.)
Lamond was Larry's son-in-law and he turned up in most of the Stooge movies of the sixties. I never knew if he got the job at KTTV because he was related to Larry but I'm assuming that's how he occasionally snagged Larry, Moe and Curly Joe to appear on his show. Every four months or so, they'd come on and explain to the viewing and in-studio audience that they were actors and trained professionals and that we, being stupid children, should never try to do the kinds of things they did in the films like ripping handfuls of hair out of our friends' scalps. Moe would then demonstrate on Joe DeRita how, when it looked like he was poking Joe in the eyes, he was actually hitting his eyebrows. And naturally, after he showed us the secret, we all wanted to try and do it on our buddies.
Anyway, thanks for the message, James. And doesn't it feel nice to be discussing something important here instead of nonsense like our current Iraq policy? (…which, by the way, I think the Stooges were also responsible for…)