Here's a bit of Stooge History. In 1955, the Three Stooges consisted of Larry Fine, Moe Howard and Moe's brother, Shemp Howard. At the time, they were making shorts for Columbia on the lowest-possible budgets. This was usually accomplished by simple chicanery. More than half of the footage in one of these shorts would be lifted from an earlier Stooges film. They'd shoot some new scenes to splice in with the old and create the impression of a new film.
On 11/22/55, Shemp died from a sudden heart attack. After the mourning period, Columbia and the remaining Stooges had to decide how to carry on. At the time, there were four shorts yet to be filmed under the current contract. It would be awkward to bring in a new Stooge for what might be their last four films…and of course, it would be difficult to intersperse old footage that way since Shemp was in most of the old footage. They'd already mapped out the next few films using Shemp clips…so they decided to go ahead and make them anyway.
So four "Shemp" Stooge shorts were filmed after Shemp passed away. Most consisted of old footage and the new scenes were configured so that Shemp didn't do much in them and could keep his face away from the camera. A stand-in named Joe Palma did the honors…and it must have been rough on Moe to have to act with someone playing his recently-deceased brother. The bogus Shemp didn't speak much in the new material. Sometimes, Palma tried to imitate him. Sometimes, old Shemp audio was dubbed in.
The four films were completed and released. When the decision was made to make another batch of Stooges shorts on a new contract, they went ahead and cast a new Third Stooge…Joe Besser. He was later replaced by Joe DeRita.
Ah, but what of Joe Palma, the Unknown Stooge? Mr. Palma actually had a nice career in Hollywood. Soon after his brief turn at Stooging, he hooked up with Jack Lemmon, who was making films for Columbia at the time. For years after, Palma was Lemmon's personal assistant and occasional stand-in, and he usually played a bit part in whatever film Lemmon was making. In Good Neighbor, Sam, Joe Palma is the mailman…who's actually addressed in the film as Mr. Palma. In The Odd Couple, he's the butcher who Felix (Lemmon) pesters to grind him some fresh ground sirloin from which to make meat loaf. He seems to have retired shortly after The Odd Couple and passed away in 1994.
Someone assembled a three minute sampler of Palma's career as a Stooge — scenes from his four films. Since this material was intercut with footage of the real Shemp, the substitution wasn't easy to notice. Take a gander…