The Three Stooges - Music

Music

• Several instrumental tunes were played over the opening credits at different times in the production of the short features. The most commonly used themes were:
  • The verse portion of the Civil War era song "Listen to the Mockingbird", played in a comical way, complete with sounds of birds and such. This was first used in Pardon My Scotch, their ninth short film, in 1935. (Prior to that comedic short, the opening theme varied and was typically connected to the storyline in some fashion.)
  • "Three Blind Mice", beginning in 1939 as a slow but straightforward presentation (dubbed the "sliding strings" version), often breaking into a "jazzy" style before ending. In mid-1942, another more driving version, complete with accordion was played fast all the way through.
• The Columbia short subject Woman Haters was done completely in rhyme, mostly recited (not sung), in rhythm with a Jazz-Age underscore running throughout the film, but with some key lines sung. It was sixth in a Musical Novelties short subject series, and appropriated its musical score from the first five films. The memorable "My Life, My Love, My All," was originally "At Last!" from the film Um-Pa.
• "Swinging the Alphabet" (a.k.a. B-A-bay, B-E-be, B-I-bicky-bi…) from Violent Is the Word for Curly is perhaps the best-known song performed by the Stooges on film.
• The Stooges broke into a three-part harmonized version of "Tears" ("You'll Never Know Just What Tears Are") in Horses' Collars, A Ducking They Did Go (in which the melody was sung by Bud Jamison) and Half Shot Shooters. The song, which was written by Moe, Larry, Shemp, and one-time Ted Healy Stooge Fred Sanborn, first appeared in the 1930 feature film Soup to Nuts.
• The "Lucia Sextet" (Chi mi frena in tal memento?), from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti (announced by Larry as "the Sextet from Lucy"), is played on a record player and lip-synched by the Stooges in Micro-Phonies. The same melody re-appears in Squareheads of the Round Table as the tune of "Oh, Elaine, can you come out tonight?". Micro-Phonies also includes the Johann Strauss II waltz "Voices of Spring" ("Frühlingsstimmen") Op. 410. Another Strauss waltz, "The Blue Danube", is featured in Ants in the Pantry and Punch Drunks.
• The song "Fredric March" (named after the actor) was a favorite of director Jules White; it appeared in at least seven different Columbia shorts:
  • Termites of 1938 – The Stooges "play" this song on a violin, flute, and string bass at a dinner party in an attempt to attract mice.
  • Dutiful But Dumb – Curly is hidden inside a floor-standing radio, and plays the song on a modified harmonica.
  • Three Little Twirps – Heard as background music at the circus while Moe and Curly sell tickets.
  • Idle Roomers – Curly plays the song on a trombone to calm a wolf man.
  • Gents Without Cents – Three girls perform acrobatics on stage while this song is playing.
  • Gents in a Jam – Shemp and Moe have a problem with a radio that will not stop playing this song.
  • Pardon My Backfire – The song plays on a car radio.
• The Moe–Larry–Curly Joe lineup of the Stooges recorded several musical record albums in the early 1960s. Most of their songs were adaptations of nursery rhymes. Among their more popular recordings were "Making a Record" (a surreal trip to a recording studio built around the song "Go Tell Aunt Mary"), "Three Little Fishes", "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth", "Wreck the Halls with Boughs of Holly", "Mairzy Doats" and "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".
• In 1983, a group called the Jump 'N the Saddle Band recorded a track called "The Curly Shuffle", which featured the narrator singing about his love of the Stooges mixed with a chorus of many of Curly's catchphrases and sound effects. In the mid-1980s, the song became a popular mid-game hit for New York Mets fans in the Shea Stadium bleachers, who would dance in small groups to the tune whenever the song was played between innings. The music video, which featured clips of the classic Stooges shorts, was also included as a bonus feature on one of the 1984 VHS releases.