Stooge-O-Rama: The Men Behind the Mayhem - and Even More Mayhem! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		3.5

Stooge-O-Rama: The Men Behind the Mayhem - and Even More Mayhem! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 3, 2023

Quick: how many Stooges were there? If you opted for three, you'll get a bit of an education via this set's first disc, a slightly updated version of an old A&E special called Stooges: The Men Behind the Mayhem. Even if your count wisely approached six you might be in for a bit of a surprise, at least with regard to the Stooges' (however many of them there may have been) early careers. Even a lot of fairly casual Stooges fans know about replacements through the many years of "Three" Stooges film offerings, which after a while some may joke might have been more accurately called Three Stooges at Any One Time, and the main documentary here offers some wonderful reminiscences by friends and family of Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe and Curly Joe, as well as the man many credit with having come up with the entire Stooges concept, Ted Healy.

If The Men Behind the Mayhem gives an interesting overview of the Howard boys and various other hangers on associated with the Stooges, it may well be the incredible glut of relatively or extremely rare video extras assembled for this release that may provide the most interest for die hard Knuckleheads (see a complete listing, below). The kind of Behind the Music ( Behind the Pies in the Face?) aspect of the main documentary does get into some of the backstage drama that the Stooges encountered over the many decades of their careers, but there's still an ebullient subtext to much of the information.

Stooge-O-Rama: The Men Behind the Mayhem - and Even More Mayhem! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots 1 through 10 are from Disc One, screenshots 11 through 14 are from Disc Two, and screenshots 15 through 17 are from Disc Three.

Stooge O-Rama is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kit Parker Films and MVD Visual with AVC encoded 1080p transfers (mostly) in 1.32:1. I was actually frankly a little surprised to see these were progressive presentations, because it seems obvious to me many of the transfers here stems from older, interlaced standard definition video sources, and in that regard there's a disclaimer on Disc Three that probably could have been included on Disc One and Disc Two as well:

The material within this presentation was located by private collectors and sourced from obsolete media formats. While all efforts have been made to mitigate age related deterioration, several items remain incomplete or in less than pristine condition as they represent the only known surviving copy. We hope that any technical limitations are outweighed by the historical interest of these previously unreleased gems.

If you get out a magnifying glass and peruse the back cover, you can find the following disclaimer in some extremely fine print:

The native resolution of the majority of the content featured on these discs was 480p standard definition. The content has been upconverted to 1080p high definition for the purpose of this Blu-ray release.

The main documentary definitely looks like an upscale, with noticeable combing artifacts despite its progressive presentation, and with other brief and frankly not very distracting anomalies like stairstepping and aliasing. The palette in the color segments is quite good. Black and white archival video tends to vary greatly in quality, something that is even more variant on Discs Two and Three. It does appear that some (though not all) of the film sources have been digitally scrubbed, giving them an appearance much closer to video than film. My score is an overall average for everything on the three discs.

Stooge-O-Rama: The Men Behind the Mayhem - and Even More Mayhem! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Much as with the video side of things, the three discs offer LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks that can encounter noticeable signs of age related wear and tear. The main documentary sounds fine in terms of all of the "contemporary" interview sequences, though some of the archival audio included is less clear. Much of the archival audio can be afflicted with pops, crackles, flutter and quite a bit of hiss, but perhaps surprisingly I had no real issues discerning any spoken material. There are no subtitles.

Stooge-O-Rama: The Men Behind the Mayhem - and Even More Mayhem! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One offers The Men Behind the Mayhem (HD; 1:03:41) along with the following bonus items:

• Introduction by Bradley Server (HD; 00:50) features Curly Howard's grandson, AKA Curly G. This is authored to play automatically when pressing Play (i.e., it's not a separately accessible supplement), and then move on to the main documentary. This is really the only thing that's in true high definition and 1.78:1 on this disc (see screenshot 4).


• Extended Interviews

  Lyla Fine Budnick (HD; 12:06)

  
  

  Nate Budnick (HD; 16:55)

  
  

  Billy West (HD; 2:56)

  
  

  Lola Jensen (HD; 1:43)

  
  

  Unaired Commercial Bumps (1992) (HD; 1:05)

• Photo Galleries

  Lyla Fine Personal Scrapbook (HD; 2:37)

  
  

  Stooge Memorabilia (HD; 5:38)

Disc Two

• Fox Movietone News Outtakes with Moe & Shemp (August 6, 1929) (HD; 6:33)


• Stooge Home Movies / Snippets of the Stooges at Work and Play (1920's - 1960's) (HD; 5:47)


• Everybody Likes Music (March 9, 1934) / Rare Shemp Howard Van Beuren Short (HD; 19:25)


• Surprise, Surprise (October 31, 1937) / Lost Theatrical Featurette (HD; 2:09)


• Ed Wynn Comedy Caravan TV Kinescope (March 11. 1950) (HD; 29:44)


• Andy Wade's California Home Movies (July 1956) (HD; 7:40)


• On the Go (April 15, 1960) TV Interview (HD; 19:17)


• Strictly for Laffs (July 1, 1962) - TV Pilot (HD; 21:32)


• Star Spangled Salesman (February 9, 1968) Government PSA (HD; 18:07)


• Kook's Tour Outtakes (December 7, 1969) (HD; 11:15)


• Joe Derita Interview (1976) (HD; 6:20)


• The Funniest Guys in the World Documentary Outtake Reel (1983) (HD; 27:37)


• Mousie Garner Live at The Three Stooges Convention (June 1994) (HD; 15:31)

Note: There's a Play All option for all of the above.

Disc Three

• Commercial Stooges

  Instant Simonize (March 15, 1960) (HD; 1:06)

  
  

  Don Lamond Spot - KTTV TV 11 Los Angeles (1961) (HD; 1:05)

  
  

  Mr. Poplolly - Cartoonerville Trolley Promo WJZ TV 13 Baltimore (Circa 1961) (HD; 00:23)

  
  

  Dickie's Work Clothes (March 31, 1969) 60 Second Spot (HD; 00:59)

  
  

  Dickie's Work Clothes (March 31, 1969) 30 Second Spot (HD; 00:28)

  
  

  Stroke of Luck Book (November 1, 1973) 60 Second Spot (HD; 1:04)

  
  

  Three Stooges Tee Shirt (June 1, 1974) - Partial (HD; 00:49)

• Movie Trailers and Coming Attractions

  Turn Back the Clock (August 25, 1933) (HD; 2:41)

  
  

  Dancing Lady (November 24, 1933) (HD; 1:58)

  
  

  Hollywood Party (May 24, 1934) (HD; 3:10)

  
  

  Time Out for Rhythm (June 5, 1941) (HD; 2:11)

  
  

  Gold Raiders (September 14, 1951) (HD; 1:42)

  
  

  The Three Stooges Laff-A-Rama (1950's) (HD; 00:46)

  
  

  Have Rocket, Will Travel (August 1, 1959) (HD; 2:43)

  
  

  Three Stooges Fun-O-Rama (September 1, 1959) (HD; 00:35)

  
  

  Stop! Look! and Laugh! (July 27, 1960) (HD; 1:37)

  
  

  Snow White and The Three Stooges 1 - B&W (June 12, 1961) (HD; 1:01)

  
  

  Snow White and The Three Stooges 2 - Color (June 12, 1961) (HD; 3:06)

  
  

  The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (January 26, 1962) (HD; 1:36)

  
  

  The Three Stooges in Orbit (July 4, 1962) (HD; 2:23)

  
  

  The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (August 21, 1963) (HD; 2:36)

  
  

  4 For Texas (December 25, 1963) (HD; 3:53)

  
  

  The Outlaws Is Coming (January 14, 1965) (HD; 2:47)

  
  

  The Outlaws Is Coming Radio Trailer (January 14, 1965) (HD; 1:04) plays to key art.

Archival Audio all play to archival stills and the like:

Fiddler's Three - Moe, Larry & Shemp Song Rehearsal, From Moe's Personal 78 RPM (1948) (HD; 00:42)

WBAL-AM Baltimre - Brent Gunts Interviews Moe, Larry & Shemp (April 6, 1950) (HD; 5:03)




Headshop - KBSC-TV 52, Los Angeles, Moe Howard with Elliot Mintz - Audio Excerpts (January 27, 1972) (HD; 12:40)




WOHO-AM Radio - Ken R. Deutsch with Moe Howard (November 1972) (HD; 17:28)




WVSC Radio - Moe Howard at Salem College in Salem, West Virginia (March 2, 1973) (HD; 18:45)




Larry Fine Interview - Illinois State University, Bloomington, Illinois (Circa 1973-74) (HD; 7:05)




Larry Fine Q&A with Jeff and Greg Lenburg at Loara High School, Anaheim, California (March 2, 1974) (HD; 28:05)




Moe Howard at State University of New York, Buffalo (September 24, 1974) (HD; 1:04:16)




WFAA-AM Dallas - Ed Busch with Moe Howard & Larry Fine (May 1975 Replay of September 27, 1974 Broadcast) (HD; 26:43)




Rich Gallo Calls Stooge's Director Ed Bernds (Circa 1985) (HD; 10;43)




Rich Gallo Calls Joe Besser (1987) (HD; 14:49)




Rich Gallo Visits Actor Emil Sitka (April 1987 - August 1988) (HD; 10:18)




Chris Seguin with Moe's Daughter Joan Howard Maurer (May 26, 2009) - Surviving Excerpts (HD; 34:58)

• Bonus Features

  No Census, No Feeling - Shwartzy and Pagana Meet Curly G (HD; 7:01)

  
  

  Curly G Meets Shemp's Great Granddaughter Chandler Isaac (HD; 7:48)

  
  Note: Both of the above are more recent productions and have a more "traditional" high definition appearance in 1.78:1.

• For More Fun

  Stooge-O-Rama Credits (HD; 1:11)

  
  

  Shokus Video Commercial (HD; 1:05)

  
  

  Curly G YouTube (HD; 1:17)

Note: There is a Play All option for everything on this disc.

Stooge-O-Rama: The Men Behind the Mayhem - and Even More Mayhem! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're not overly bothered by upscaled video and occasionally problematic audio, this release is an absolute treasure trove of rarities for devoted Stooges fans. With caveats about the technical limitations noted, but with an appreciation for the wonderful supplements, Stooge-O-Rama comes Recommended.