Oh, a Pies Guy, eh?

Our next Stooge short is called Pies and Guys, a reworking of the plot elements and actual footage from Half-Wits Holiday.  And once again, a couple of Ivory Tower professors have a spirited debate about the major factor that leads to success in high society: environment or heredity.  Of course, these days these sorts of debates don't seem as public anymore.  Now the upper one percent just seems concerned about tax breaks, both privately and publicly.  Actually, not just tax breaks, but completely dismantling the government so that there's no taxes to get a break from to begin with.  And to them I say: guys, just think of it all as Angry Mob Insurance.  One of your handmaidens appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time once and said that that's the nightmare: you're sitting there in your nice, safe gated community one night, when here comes an angry mob with torches and pitchforks and, worst of all, grievances.  Where's that 401K that vanished?  Where's the dental plans that seem to be separate from the rest of my health care coverage?  What about weekends?  And this is past the point of shaming.  It's time to draw some blue blood.  I guess you can only do so much until people get mad.  The veterans understand this.  "Oh, I guess you need a functioning, Legionnaires Disease-free Walter Reed Hospital... if you're a pussy!!!" or "Oh, I guess you need prosthetic arms and legs... if you're a pussy!!!!!"
It's all about walking that fine line of when pussies turn into straw dogs, but I think I got off topic a little bit.  The point was that Joe Besser tries to ruin another Curly classic.  Under Joe's thumb, every punchline gets drained of its potency, and becoming gentlemen is now a good thing.  In Half-Wits Holiday, the Stooges hang their heads in shame when they accept the wager, and when the thousand dollar wager is first offered, Moe asks "Who do we have to murder?"  Too dangerous a line for the tepid Besser, apparently.  But there's at least one improvement on the original: the "oof" sound when Gene Roth gets hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer.

length of Pies and Guys: 16m28s
without old footage: 14m4s

percentage of new footage: 85.4%

**1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan