Editing Joe Besser (section)

===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 ...}}