Editing Joe Besser (section)

== Acting career ==
Besser remained in show business and developed a comic character: an impish but whiny and bratty man who was easily excitable and upset, throwing temper tantrums with little provocation. Besser, with his frequent outbursts of "You crazy, ''youuuuu!''" and "Not so ''faaaaaast!''" or "Not so ''harrrrd!!''" became a vaudeville headliner, and movie and radio appearances soon followed.

The comedy team of [[Olsen and Johnson]], whose [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] revues were fast-paced collections of songs and blackouts, hired Joe Besser to join their Broadway show ''Sons o' Fun''. He appeared in five sketches, including one as the sissified "Cowboy Joe".<ref>Internet Broadway Database, 2024.</ref> Besser's noisy intrusions fit the Olsen & Johnson style perfectly, and Besser's work caught the attention of the [[Shubert family|Shubert]] brothers, who signed Besser to a theatrical contract. [[Columbia Pictures]] hired Besser away from the Shuberts, and Besser relocated to Hollywood in 1944, where he brought his comic character to feature-length musical comedies like ''[[Hey, Rookie]]'' and ''[[Eadie Was a Lady]]'' (1945). On May 9, 1946, Besser appeared on the pioneering NBC television program ''[[Hour Glass (TV series)|Hour Glass]]'', performing his "Army Drill" routine with stage partner Jimmy Little. According to an article in the May 27, 1946 issue of ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine, the show was seen by about 20,000 people on about 3,500 television sets, mostly in the New York City area.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZEsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84 Life Magazine May 27, 1946] via ''books.google.com'', accessed 22 February 2021</ref> During this period, he appeared on the [[Jack Benny]] radio program in the episode entitled "Jack Prepares For Carnegie Hall" in June, 1943. Besser also starred in short-subject comedies for Columbia from 1949 to 1956. By this point, his persona was sufficiently well known that he was frequently caricatured in ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' animated shorts of the era. He appeared in the action film ''[[The Desert Hawk (1950 film)|The Desert Hawk]]'' (1950).

Besser had substituted for Lou Costello on radio, opposite [[Bud Abbott]], and by the 1950s he was firmly established as one of the [[Abbott and Costello]] regulars. When the duo filmed ''[[The Abbott and Costello Show]]'' for television, they hired Joe Besser to play Oswald "Stinky" Davis, a bratty, loudmouthed child dressed in an oversized [[Little Lord Fauntleroy]] outfit, shorts, and a flat-top hat with an overhanging brim. He appeared during the first season of ''The Abbott and Costello Show''. Besser was cast for the role of Yonkel, a chariot man, in the low-budget [[Bible|biblical]] film ''[[Sins of Jezebel]]'' (1953), which starred [[Paulette Goddard]] as the titular wicked queen.

===The Three Stooges===
[[Shemp Howard]] of the Three Stooges died at the age of 60 of a [[myocardial infarction|heart attack]] while on his way home from a boxing exhibition on November 22, 1955. Columbia had promised theater owners eight Stooge comedies into the 1956 season, and only four were completed when Shemp died. To fulfill the contract, producer-director [[Jules White]] manufactured four more films with Shemp's surviving partners, [[Moe Howard]] and [[Larry Fine]], working as a two-man team (with Shemp seen entirely in older film footage). After the last four films were completed, Larry suggested that he and Moe could continue working as "The Two Stooges."<ref>Morris Feinberg, ''Larry: The Stooge in the Middle'', Last Gasp of San Francisco, 1984, p. 163.</ref> Studio chief [[Harry Cohn]] rejected the proposal. Although Moe had legal approval to allow new members into the act, Columbia executives had the final say about any actor who would appear in the studio's films and insisted on a performer already under contract to Columbia. At the time, Joe Besser was one of a few comedians still making comedy shorts at the studio. He successfully renegotiated his contract and was paid his former feature-film salary, which was more than the other Stooges earned.

Besser refrained from imitating [[Curly Howard|Curly]] or Shemp. He continued to play the same whiny character he had developed over his long career. He had a clause in his contract that prohibited being hit excessively. Besser recalled, "I usually played the kind of character who would hit others back." He claimed that Larry volunteered to take the brunt of Moe's screen abuse. In a 2002 [[E!]] channel program that used file footage of Besser, the comic stated that the left side of [[Larry Fine]]'s face was noticeably coarser than the other side, which he attributed to Moe's slaps.

As a result of his whiny persona and lack of true slapstick punishment against him (a cornerstone of Stooge humor), Joe has been less popular with contemporary Stooge aficionados,{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} so much so that "Stooge-a-Polooza" TV host [[Rich Koz]] has even apologized on the air before showing Besser shorts; during the show's tenure, he received more than a few letters from viewers expressing their outrage over his airing them. Besser does have his defenders, however. Columbia historians Edward Watz and [[Ted Okuda]] have written appreciatively of Besser for bringing new energy to what was by then a flagging theatrical series.<ref name="Okuda">{{cite book| last = Okuda| first = Ted | author-link = Ted Okuda|author2=Watz, Edward | title = The Columbia Comedy Shorts| publisher = McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers| year = 1986| pages =60–102, 237–239| isbn = 0-89950-181-8}}</ref>

The Stooges shorts with Besser were filmed from the spring of 1956 to the end of 1957. His Stooge tenure ended when Columbia shut down the two-reel comedy department on December 20, 1957. Jules White had shot enough film for 16 comedies (two years' worth of releases), which were issued a few months apart until June 1959, with ''[[Sappy Bull Fighters]]'' being the final release.

After Besser joined the team, for the first time in their career, the Stooges did not make any personal appearances during their layoff season, which began in 1956.<ref>{{cite book| last = Feinberg| first = Morris Moe |author2= G. P. Skratz| title = My Brother Larry: The Stooge in the Middle| publisher = Last Gasp| year = 1984| location = San Francisco| pages = 165, 168| isbn = 978-0-86719-324-4}}</ref> There was a longtime belief, based on an existing ad, that the Stooges once performed live, with Besser as the third stooge, at the Paramount Theatre, Los Angeles, some time around 1957.<ref>{{cite book| last = Maurer| first = Joan Howard| author-link = Joan Howard Maurer|author2=Jeff Lenburg |author3=Greg Lenburg | title = The Three Stooges Scrapbook| publisher = Citadel Press| orig-year = 1982| year = 2012| page = 97| isbn = 978-1-61374-074-3}}</ref> It was later found that the ad was erroneously used for the act's personal appearances in December 1959, with [[Joe DeRita]], rather than Besser, as part of the lineup. In fact, Besser never made ''any'' personal appearances as a member of the Three Stooges.<ref>{{cite journal| last  =  Lassin| first  = Gary | date  = 2014| editor1-last = Lassin| editor1-first  = Gary| title  =  Three Stooges on Tour, The: 1957 – "Say It Ain't So, Joe," The Besser Appearance That Wasn't | url = https://www.threestooges.net/journal/view/149 | journal = The Three Stooges Journal|volume= Spring 2014 | issue = 149 | pages = 8–9| access-date = March 23, 2020}}</ref>

After their contract with Columbia ended, Moe Howard and Larry Fine discussed plans for a personal appearance tour, but Besser declined. His wife had suffered a heart attack in November 1957, and he was unwilling to leave without her. In later life, Besser praised Moe and Larry in a 1985 radio interview, from which a quote was aired on [[A&E Network]]'s ''[[Biography (TV series)|Biography]]''. Besser said:

{{blockquote|text=... Moe and Larry, they were the best. I enjoyed every minute of it with them. In fact, to show you how wonderful they were, I never liked to be hit with anything. And Larry would always say to me, 'Don't worry, Joe, I'll take it.' Now that's the kind of guys that they were ...}}

===After the Stooges===
Besser returned to films and television, most notably as the superintendent Jillson for four seasons (1961–1965) of ''[[Joey Bishop|The Joey Bishop Show]]''. He also made occasional appearances on the [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] late-night series, also called ''The Joey Bishop Show,'' between 1967 and 1969. Besser also had roles on ''[[The Mothers-in-Law]]'', ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'', ''[[The Good Guys (1968 TV series)|The Good Guys]]'', ''[[That Girl]]'', and ''[[Love, American Style]]''.<ref name=besser/> He provided the voice of the dragon on ''[[The Alvin Show]]'' (1961), and he played Chubby Stone in the episode "Cry Love, Cry Murder" (S3 E25) of the [[Private investigator|private-eye]] series ''[[Peter Gunn]]'' (1961).

Besser also provided voices for several [[Saturday morning cartoon]] series in the 1970s. He voiced the character Putty Puss in ''[[The Houndcats]]'' (1972), bumbling genie Babu in ''[[Jeannie (TV series)|Jeannie]]'' (1973), (inspired by ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]'') and ''[[Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics]]'', and as Scare Bear in ''[[Yogi's Space Race]]'' (1978).<ref name=besser>{{cite book | last = Besser  | first = Joe |author2=Jeff Lenburg |author3=Greg Lenburg  | title = Not Just a Stooge | publisher = Excelsior Books| year = 1984 | location = [[Orange, California]]  | pages = 200–201, 203–205 | isbn = 978-0918283009}}</ref> Besser's career slowed somewhat after he suffered a minor [[stroke]] in 1979, resulting in considerable weight loss.<ref name=besser/> His last role was in ''The Smurfs'' in 1983.

In 1984, Besser co-wrote his autobiography with authors Jeff and Greg Lenburg, ''Not Just a Stooge''.<ref name=besser/> The title reflected Besser's dismay that people only recognized him for his brief tenure with the Stooges, and not for his long career as a solo comedian. However, he eventually softened, realizing that the Stooges continued to bring him his greatest exposure.<ref name=besser/> The book would be retitled and republished as ''Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge'' following his death in 1988.

Joe Besser recalled his friendship with the Stooges in an emotional speech, referring to "the four boys [Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp] ... up in heaven" looking down at the dedication of a star to The Three Stooges on the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame]] on August 30, 1983. Stooges co-actor [[Emil Sitka]], the only other Stooge attendee, also spoke; the only other surviving Stooge, [[Joe DeRita]], was ill at the time, though he outlived Besser by five years.<ref name=besser/>

In the spring of 2000, ABC aired a made-for-television movie ''[[The Three Stooges (2000 film)|The Three Stooges]]'', with actor Laurence Coy appearing briefly as Besser. This depiction of Besser has been criticized as being unfairly negative.{{citation needed |date= April 2020}}