Pop Goes the Easel is the seventh Columbia Pictures short subject starring the Three Stooges.
Plot[]
Unable to find work during the Great Depression, the Stooges are forced to look for jobs. Taking a merchant's brooms to sweep his sidewalk, they are mistaken for thieves by the merchant who thinks they stole his brooms from him. Soon the trio find themselves on the run from the police. With a cop chasing them, they flee into an art school, where they are mistaken for art students. They take their first art lessons while hiding from the cop, resulting in a climactic clay fight that takes no prisoners (the persistent cop is among the numerous victims who also gets hit.) The film ends when three art students break sculptures over the boys' heads, resulting in them being soundly beaten up.
Trivia[]
Pop Goes the Easel marks several Stooge firsts:
- Del Lord’s debut as a Stooges director.
- Moe holding out his hand to Curly and asks him to "pick out two" fingers. Curly does, and Moe pokes him in the eyes with them. This would be a recurring joke. In addition, the short contains a very rare scene in which Moe delivers a slap in the face to several people at once. At the end of the clay fight scene, Moe stops everyone and asks, "Who started this?!" Larry yells, "YOU did!", to which Moe angrily replies, "Oh, YEAH?!" and, with right hand extended, spins in a counter-clockwise motion, slapping everyone around him.
- A clay-throwing fight, a precursor to the classic pie fights which would become a staple of the Stooge films. The first genuine pie fight would appear the following year in Slippery Silks.
- Moe holding out his fist to Curly and says, "See that?" When Curly replies, "Yeah," he smacks the fist dismissively, in which it swings in a circle behind Moe's body, over his head, and bops Curly on the head with it.
- Curly dressing in drag, a gag that would be revisited in several later Stooge shorts, such as Uncivil Warriors, Movie Maniacs, Whoops, I'm an Indian!, Wee Wee Monsieur, Mutts to You, Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise, Nutty But Nice, Matri-Phony, Micro-Phonies, Uncivil War Birds and Rhythm and Weep.
- The two girls playing hopscotch on the sidewalk are Larry Fine's daughter, Phyllis (who died in 1989 at age 60) and Moe Howard's daughter, Joan.
- The two girls are playing hopscotch in front of 107 North Larchmont Blvd in Los Angeles.[1]
Cast[]
- Moe Howard as Moe
- Larry Fine as Larry
- Curley Howard as Curley