Three Little Pigskins is the fourth short subject by Columbia Pictures starring the Three Stooges.
Plot[]
The Stooges are "recruited" by a college to drum up publicity for the college's football team by being dressed up as football players. Meanwhile, the owner of a professional football team, Joe Stacks, has to find three new players for the next game. One of Joe's girlfriends soon meets the Stooges and confuses them for genuine college football players known as "The Three Horsemen" (a parody of the "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame fame). The Stooges go back to her house and meet the girl's two friends. After squirting each other with seltzer bottles, everyone decides to play the game Blind man's buff. The Stooges are blindfolded and walk around trying to find the girls. Just at that moment, Joe and his two henchmen walk in. They punch out the trio and then chase them around the house. One of the women finally explains that the three strangers are actually "The Three Famous Horsemen," and Joe offers them money to play for him. Naturally, the trio have not a clue how to play football. Their first game (staged at Hollywood's Gilmore Stadium) turns into a fiasco and eventually causing their team to lose. Believing that they had thrown the game on purpose instead, Stacks and his fellow managers turn their revolvers on the Stooges, hitting them on the buttocks as they attempt to flee.
Cast[]
- Moe Howard - Moe
- Larry Fine - Larry
- Curley Howard - Curley
- Lucille Ball - Daisy Simms
- Gertie Green - Lulu Banks
- Phyllis Crane - Molly Gray
Notes[]
- This is the first Stooge Short to make use of stunt doubles for the boys.
- Lucille Ball would describe her experience with the Stooges years later. “The main thing I learned from the Stooges was how to duck. I was bouncing around from studio to studio, doing anything that would not only pay but to also learn. They were masters of slapstick comedy. I wasn’t a fan of the slapping, but it obviously worked for them. However, I learned how to work hard from them. They were incredibly hard workers, and earned every penny they received.”
- The part of football team owner Joe Stacks was played by an uncredited Walter Long, a stage and screen actor who frequently played tough guys, notably in the films of D.W. Griffith (including roles in "Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance") and in comedies featuring Laurel and Hardy.