Among Three Stooges fanatics, \u201cThey Stooge to Conga\u201d is notorious for a few seconds of roughhouse involving a climbing spike and Moe\u2019s head. But that\u2019s just a one of too many brilliantly surreal moments that occur in this deliriously insane short film.
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\u201cThey Stooge to Conga\u201d can be divided into four movements. The first finds the zany trio as itinerant repairmen trying to hawk their services. After a hoary old gag involving a lady mind reader, the threesome are summoned by a fierce-looking woman to fix the broken doorbell at her house. As the Stooges pile into the house, the viewer discovers the house is a nest of Axis spies.<\/p>\n
The second movement involves the Stooges trying to locate the problems with the doorbell. This involves Curly ripping the wiring from the walls and then pulling Moe head-first through a wall. Dudley Dickerson is on hand as a cook \u2013 we assume is unaware of his employers\u2019 treachery \u2013 and he gets a huge laugh with his popped eye shock at having Moe in his kitchen. Poor Dudley gets caught up in the mayhem with a bowl of cake batter dumped on his head, a telephone exploding in his face and a waffle iron clamped on his backside.<\/p>\n
The third movement seems to belong to another film \u2013 the Stooges inexplicably believe the answer to the broken doorbell is due to problems with the telephone wiring. Curly goes up the telephone pole and his ascent involves the impalement of a telephone spike on his shoe into Moe\u2019s scalp, ear and eye. Curly electrocutes himself while screwing up the town\u2019s phone lines. (A young Lloyd Bridges can be briefly seen in the montage of irate callers trying to get an explanation from the telephone company\u2019s operators.)<\/p>\n
The fourth movement has the Stooges discovering the truth about the house\u2019s occupants \u2013 or as Curly calls them, \u201csabatoogies.\u201d The Stooges use a shortwave radio to take remote control of a Nazi submarine, bringing it to the surface to enable its bombing by American fliers. Moe dresses as Hitler and Larry dresses as Tojo to fool the Axis baddies while Curly pushes XL-sized Nazi leader Vernon Dent into a box of dynamite, which blows up the premises and allow the Stooges to subvert the enemy.<\/p>\n
The genius of \u201cThey Stooge to Conga\u201d is the film\u2019s complete lack of logic and coherence. Monte Collins and Ellwood Ullman\u2019s screenplay seemed to have been constructed under the premise of \u201clet\u2019s do as many wacky gags as possible and then tie them together.\u201d Del Lord\u2019s vigorous direction has the cast working larger than life double-takes and tomfoolery, and no second it wasted \u2013 even Hitler\u2019s portrait isn\u2019t spared as Moe pokes his fingers into the picture\u2019s eyes. Kudos also go to the film’s sound effects team for giving a rich aural dimension to the on-screen chaos.<\/p>\n
And while the climbing spike segment is gasp-inducing, the entire short is full of over-the-top physical humor. Curly bears the brunt of the knockabout, most notably with his nose twisted in a monkey wrench and then straightened on a grindstone (complete with sparks flying around his head), along with a blowtorch to the rear, a live electric wire in his mouth and a fall from the telephone pole direct on to his comrades. Earlier in the film, Moe gets a radio to his face and then clunks it over Curly\u2019s noggin, and then Curly and Moe hit each other in the head with telephones. <\/p>\n
Larry is mostly a bystander through much of the action, although he gets sucked into the maelstrom thanks to his stupidity \u2013 after Curly drops a metal tool from the top of the telephone pole on to Moe\u2019s head, Larry catches the tool as it bounces from Moe and asks him, \u201cGee, did it hurt?\u201d Moe responds to the absurd inquiry with \u201cNo, does this?\u201d \u2013 which he punctuates by bonking Larry on the head with a monkey wrench, then twisting his nose with the tool. Well, like they say, ask a silly question… <\/p>\n