"Three Little Pigskins" is the Stooges approach to Disney's successful "3 Little Pigs", an Academy Award winning cartoon from the 1930s. This one here runs for 18.5 minutes and is among the longer Stooges short movie. It is in black-and-white and was made over 80 years ago, which was still fairly early, even for the Stooges and, thus, has Curly still on board. Also in terms of cast and the people who made this, it's mostly people who worked on/in several Stooges movies, especially director Ray McCarey, One exception is Lucille Ball, who co-starred in here during the very early stages of her super-successful career. The two other actresses did not become famous. The Stooges run into a trio of young attractive women, but sadly they come with a trio of dangerous gangsters. Many complications and comical situations ensue and in the end we get to witness the Stooges playing ball. Also pretty chaotic. But never really too funny. Even if this one is among the Stooges' most known films, I don't think it is among their best. Not recommended.

What I'm now reviewing here is the fourth Three Stooges short made for Columbia Pictures in which Moe, Larry, and Curley (as it was originally spelled at the time) get mistaken for actual football players and get asked to play in a game. This is the first time the boys get involved in a "mistaken identity" plot and boy, whoever makes that blunder usually regrets it soon enough! Incidentally, additional interest for this short is provided by the fact that this is one of the earliest film appearances of one young woman named Lucille Ball. She, and a couple of other young ladies, seemed game in participating in some of the shenanigans with the boys which makes what they do to them a little fun to watch. My favorite scenes, though, involve seltzer water, a dumbwaiter (basically a hand-held elevator), and many of the dumb football plays involving the boys. Not as hilarious as the first three they did but Three Little Pigskins is funny enough to recommend to any Stooge fan that just can't get enough of Howard, Fine, and Howard.

Harry Cohn was known to use The Three Stooges shorts as opportunities to try out young players in supporting roles. But in his wildest imagination I'm sure he never thought that in casting this short, Lucille Ball would grow up to be a comic icon, every bit as much as the stars of this film.Of course Lucy who is a Jean Harlow platinum blond in this film does not get to display too much comic talent except as a foil for the Stooges. She's the moll of some gangsters who want to hire some football players from college on the sly so the kids don't lose amateur status. The idea is that they'll be ringers. Instead it's the gangsters who get good and rung when they hire Moe, Larry, and Curly.College films were so popular in the Thirties, showing upper class kids who did very little study, but always had time for music, girls and the inevitable big football game. This particular short is right in keeping with Horsefeathers, College Humor and so many more I can't count. They all were pretty much the same and Three Little Pigskins doesn't break any new ground.Still what Moe, Larry, and especially Curly do to the game of football is not to be believed. Knute Rockne must have been turning over in his grave, doubled up with laughter of course.

With this fourth Three Stooges short, I feel like they’re growing on me as I liked it quite a bit! Racketeer Walter Long (a great Laurel & Hardy foil) needs players who can be bought for a fixed game he’s organizing. His moll (a young Lucille Ball) and her companions meet The Stooges dressed in football gear – the boys are down on their luck, so they accept a job advertising for a football team – and, mistaking them for star players, bring them home. After the initial misconception about the men’s presence in Long’s apartment – leading to a delightful chase involving a base-less dumb waiter – The Stooges find themselves in a football stadium trying to make head or tails of the game, to the chagrin of the sinister-looking gangster! The short’s football craziness and the hijinks in the apartment are clearly inspired by HORSE FEATHERS (1932), one of The Marx Bros.’ greatest vehicles.