Vaudeville to Arcade: The Three Stooges

The Three Stooges were originally a vaudeville act who first appeared in the 1920’s. Larry, Moe and Curly became famous for their crazy slapstick comedy and fast paced one-liners. In the 1930’s they began to appear in films and they continued in various line-ups until the 1970’s by which time they were a US national treasure. In 1984 an arcade game was released called The Three Stooges in Brides is Brides.

If nothing else this game is proof that there is no successful license they won’t try basing a game on. The company responsible was the short lived Mylstar Electronics formed in 1983 after Gottlieb and their parent company Columbia were acquired by Coca-Cola. In 1984 they were sold off again and renamed as Premier Technology. They released 8 arcade games during 1983 and 1984 but didn’t meet with a great deal of success.

The arcade game was unusual in that it allowed three players to play simultaneously, something that you really need for a Three Stooges game to work. It was released as a stand up cabinet with three sets of controls each featuring an eight way joystick and a fire button.

Taking on the roles of Larry, Curly and Moe the players were supposed to find their three fiances named Nora, Cora and Dora, and rescue them from the Mad Scientist. The game featured a series of rooms and in each room the players had to find three keys to unlock the exit and advance to the next level. By running over hammers and pies players could pick them up and use them to defeat a parade of enemy characters including cops. The fire button allowed you to throw pies, knock people out or smash furniture with your hammer and slap people. You could also pick up loot which was hidden around each room. If you got caught by any of the enemies you would be knocked out and it was even possible to stun other stooges so you could compete or work together. There were bonus levels featuring opera singers and you had to avoid their bum notes and silence them by throwing pies. Eventually you would reach the laboratory of the Mad Scientist and you could save a fiancé before starting again with the aim of saving the next fiancé. If you ever managed to save all three fiancés the game just restarted.

Graphically speaking it was pretty basic 2D stuff as you can see from the screenshot. The sound was quite good though and it featured speech from the stooges with classic lines like “Wise Guy! Huh?” The game-play was anarchic and extremely repetitive but the fact you could play with three players at once was definitely a draw and the ability to sabotage each other made it a comical game to play.

It seems doubtful that the game was particularly successful. In fact it seems bizarre that it was ever even made but it wasn’t the last game to be based on The Three Stooges. There was another one released in 1987 for the Amiga which was ported to the NES, Game Boy Advance and even the PlayStation.