Three Little Pigskins (1934) User Reviews (18)

You Gotta Be A Football Hero

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 31 December 2009]

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.

Not Bad. Not Great.

[revgen · 6/10 · 26 April 2005]

Like the previous reviewer mentioned, this movie is not the best they ever made. Part of that is attributed to the injuries that occurred on the set. Larry lost a tooth when one of the bit players mistimed a punch. Curly broke his leg in one of the scenes. Even the stunt doubles sustained injuries. These injuries probably affected their ability to perform at their best.

Nonetheless, I still think it's entertaining and funny.

This short was filmed at the Los Angeles Gilmore Stadium with the Loyola University football team as extras. The name "Three Little Pigskins" was in reference to Walt Disneys popular cartoon short "Three Little Pigs."

Has Its Moments (and famous guest star) But Overall Not Up To Expectations

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 7 December 2006]

The big professional football game between the Cubs and the Tigers is coming up on the weekend and the Tigers' owner is just informed that his three best backs got plastered and rolled over in their car. Now he has to go out and find three players, fast. He's told about some great amateur backs - The Three Horsemen - at Boulder Dam College.

Meanwhile, in the college town our boys are on the street panhandling and getting socked in the jaws for their efforts. However, they do get a job holding signs promoting the big college football in town, and they are dressed in football gear.

You guessed it. The boys are mistaken for the Three Horsemen - by the men's girlfriends, no less - and are taken back up to their apartment. One of the girls, by the way, is Lucille Ball, but you wouldn't recognize her.

The scenes in the apartment are far better than the football game which is only shown in the last three minutes and aren't much.

Overall, okay but a little too dumb and not as good as expected out of the guys. However, it was still early (1934) in their careers and they were learning. It was interesting to find out how many people got injured filming this short.

Some Very Funny Moments

[Snow Leopard · 19 June 2001]

This is a Three Stooges short comedy that starts and ends a little slowly, but in between there are some hilarious moments. It starts when the three are pan-handling on a college campus, and get mistaken for the school's three star football players. They are then hired by a group of gangsters to play for a professional team, with predictable results. The funniest parts are in the middle of the film, when the Stooges are in the apartment where the gangsters and their girls (which include a very young Lucille Ball) hang out. "Three Little Pigskins" may not be one of the Stooges' best, but it's still pretty good.

A Great One With A Special Guest Star

[PCC0921 · 9/10 · 23 August 2023]

This short-subject, with Moe, Larry and Curly, is the famous one, featuring the boys playing football. Three Little Pigskins (1934), also is the one, that guest-stars a young, Lucille Ball, as Daisy. Daisy mistakens the boys for professional football players, which messes things up, with the team's crooked owner and his henchmen. Three Little Pigskins (1934), is the second Stooge film, directed by Ray McCarey, who kicks this one, out-of-the-park, just like his previous, Oscar-nominated, Stooge short, Men in Black (1934). Three Little Pigskins (1934), is classic, Three Stooges fun. It is a great representation of their work, as seen in their first couple of years with Columbia Pictures. The football stuff in this film is great, vaudeville comedy. It also has some historical value, with this being, the first year of Lucille Ball's film career too.

8.9 (A- MyGrade) - 9 IMDB.

Only Lucille Ball Appearance in a Three Stooges Film

[springfieldrental · 9/10 · 23 April 2023]

The scene called for The Three Stooges, disguised as college football players, to pose with the ball in front of two photographers on the sidelines in the middle of the game. The script then had them gang tackled by several opposing players, members of the Loyola Marymount University football squad. The production of December 1934's "Three Little Pigskins," was already tough on the body for the three comedians, which Moe later described it as "a humdinger of bangs and bruises." Curly had earlier broke a leg riding down a dumbwaiter one story up, and Larry lost a tooth when an actor mistakenly punched him in the face. Now they were asked by director Raymond McCarey to be piled on by much bigger boys than they.

Larry Fine was the most vocal about being a participant of that pile-up. "Look, we can't do this scene," Larry told McCarey. "We're not stuntmen and if one of those gorillas falls on us, we'll never be able to finish the picture. We've never used stunt doubles before but we certainly need them now." The director felt the three were a durable bunch and felt the scene was safe for the three comics. "Listen, fellows, you know how to take a fall," McCarey responded. "You've done enough of them. It'll take hours to find doubles for you. Besides, we can't afford them. Don't worry, you won't get hurt." Moe backed up Larry's stand by telling the director, "You're darn right we won't get hurt. We're not doing the scene."

McCarey was able to rustle up three lookalikes in an hour and dressed them up in football gear. After the hard-hitting football players steamrolled over the three extras and the two photographers, the tally of the carnage began: two of the Stooges' replacements and the two photographers all sustained broken limbs. Only the one dressed as Curly remained unscathed since he wore extra padding to duplicate the actor's girth. Moe later wrote that "McCarey was speechless and sat in his director's chair with his head in his hands." "Three Little Pigskins" was one of Lucille Ball's earliest screen credits. The 23-year-older wore a platinum blonde hairdo and was one of three gangsters' girlfriends who recruited the Stooges to play a game the criminals heavily bet on. One classic scene has the Stooges, dressed in women's night attire to get out of their wet clothes, spray seltzer water on each other. Ball, whose specialized in physical comedy, was asked years later if she gathered any tricks of the trade from the three comedians."The only thing I learned from The Three Stooges was how to duck," she remembered. "And I still got wet!" This was the only Stooges' short she appeared.

1934 was the year where a great many new viewers were introduced to the three comics. The trio's new form of comedy that harkened back to the silent movie knockabout-fare with a dose of slapstick was quickly getting scores of passionate fans. The success of their four funny shorts during the year assured Columbia Pictures the Stooges would remain with the studio as long as they wanted.

Three Little Pigskins was another funny Three Stooges outing from their early years

[tavm · 7/10 · 31 December 2010]

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.

THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (Raymond McCarey, 1934) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 13 January 2008]

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.

"Take The Ball And Go Go That Way!"

[redryan64 · 6/10 · 13 July 2014]

THE POPULARITY OF College Football had been a bankable subject for film makers ever since that "Golden Age of Sports" materialized during the 1920's. By that time the Nation was well aware of the Coleges; mainly because of the "Gridiron."

AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, it was the College Football game which had captured the imagination of the public at large. Mr. & Mrs. Average American were always interested in hearing of the exploits of Jim Thorpe, the Ivy League, the Forward Pass, Notre Dame, Red Grange ("the Galloping Ghost"), Knute Rockne, Pop Warner and the Bowl Games.

AS FOR THE Professional Game, the road was much bumpier and it took years for the 'Pros' to gain even a modicum of success and respect. There had been a sort of snobbish attitude that permeated society; branding the Professionals as a sort of superfluous afterthought and a waste of time and athleticism. Why should a player risk his post academic career in what was considered a minor league, bush operation? After all, he'd already starred for State U.,garnering all the accolades and honors in the "Simon Pure" ranks.

THIS SHARP DELINIATION between Collegiate and Professional Football was the basis for this 3 Stooges Short Subject, THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (Columbia, 1934).

FROM THE START, we have the Stooges' being victims of a case of mistaken identity. Depression Era unemployment leads the boys into working as commercial sign pilots; who are also costumed as football players. Falling in with three hotties (including a young Lucille Ball), they are in turn introduced to the tough guy/gangster-type owner of the Tigers Professional Football Club.

BELIEVING THAT THE Stooges are the "Famous 3 Horsemen of Boulder College". the Owner (Walter Long) promises them big cash to play for the team. To insure that their Amateur Athlete's Status isn't jeopardized, the game will be played before no spectators, in an empty Stadium.

WHJAT FOLLOWS IS the usual slapstick fracturing of the game that had been long screen comic fodder; as exhibited by such comics as: Harold Lloyd, The Four Marx Brothers, Our Gang and even Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey. he Stooges do manage to bring on the laughs in their own way; managing a balanced attack of both the sight gag and the verbal barbs.

ALL OF THE elements that go into the construction of this sports spoof are contemporary "New Deal" Era references. The title is a fracturing of the Walt Disney Cartoon Short, THE THREE LITTLE PIGS: which had proved to have a special significance to those caught in financial straits of the early '30's. The Stooges' ready acceptance of the menial job of carrying the signs for minimal compensation is another indicator.

AND TO US, the kicker is the designations of "the Three Horsemen" and "Boulder College", which is an obvious reference to the newly constructed Boulder Dam on the waters of the Arizona River.

WHEN VIEWED TODAY, after so many previous screenings, THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS remains an entry of Producer Jules White's Columbia Pictures' Short Subjects Department that belongs right up at the top, not as a "Bush League" also ran.

Stooges play football

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 15 November 2019]

Larry, Curly, and Moe are panhandling outside of Boulder Dam College. They get hired to hold signs advertising Boulder Dam football. The boys get mistaken for famous football players known as The Three Horsemen. They are hired by gangsters to replace professional football players. One has to look out for Lucille Ball as one of the dames. It has plenty of the Stooges' physical humor and football is a good excuse to get hit. I'm not sure why anybody would think the Stooges are football players. That part of the story needs some better writing. This is solid Stooges material.

Perhaps it was funny in its time

[Jim-500 · 5/10 · 6 December 2009]

Here we have a classic stooge short: costumes, beautiful women, football, and... the boys ruining everything. Only problem, it's not funny! The humor in this short is comparable to its predecessor, Men in Black: we have a lot of both visual and verbal nonsense, but very little in slapstick or surprise. Remember that when this was made, moving pictures that told stories had only been around for about 20 years. So audiences of the day probably found this short enjoyable. But if you're looking for something clever, you won't find it here. The humor relies mostly on absurd moments.

Two items of note: one of the cast members is a 23-year-old Lucille Ball. Also, in this short Curly's famous "Woo-Woo-Woo" cry is nearly perfected. He still speaks in his normal voice, though, complete with Brooklyn accent.

True stooge aficionados will enjoy the film for its historical place; but if you want out-and-out stooge humor, leave this one in the bin.

Pretty funny

[James L. · 26 August 2000]

Just a funny little Three Stooges short. The slapstick is rather good , it is pretty compact and well-done, a good chance for them to do their shtick. Lucille Ball appears, very pre-Lucy . Funny concept in which Moe, Larry, and Curly get mistaken for famous football players. I saw this right after the New Years proceedings a year ago.

It should have been better.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 16 January 2015]

In the early to mid 1930s, football comedies were rather popular. The Marx Brothers' "Horse Feathers" is the best and most famous of these but others such as Wheeler and Woolsey, the Disney studio and others made some screwball football films as well. "Three Little Pigskins" is the Three Stooge's efforts in the genre. As for the title, it's a play on the title to the super-successful Disney short, "The Three Little Pigs".

The film begins with the Stooges out bumming for coins. At the same time, some gamblers (led by the scary looking Walter Long) are talking about setting up a game featuring three fantastic college ball players, the 'three horsemen'. Oddly, they think the Stooges are these three players. What happens next is, oddly, not nearly as funny as you'd expect. It has its moments but all in all, the laughs are a bit few and far between. Not bad...just not all that good. I say see "Horse Feathers" instead.

Not their best

[rbverhoef · 6/10 · 21 January 2004]

This is not the best Three Stooges short I have seen. In fact, I think it was one of the worst, although it still had some good moments. The Stooges are mistaken for the three famous horsemen, amateur football players, and they are taken to play a professional match. Unfortunately they know nothing about football.

Especially the start of this short is not very good, not very funny, and I think that is why I didn't like it very much. Once they are on the pitch there are some nice moments, one with the referee in particular. Sometimes the more predictable it gets, the more funny it gets. Another nice thing is the small part of Lucille 'I Love Lucy' Ball.

Three Little Pigskins (1934) **1/2

[JoeKarlosi · 6/10 · 26 January 2013]

Maybe it's partly because football bores me to death that this Three Stooges movie doesn't really do that much for me. There are still some laughs here though as Moe, Larry and Curley somehow get mistaken for three star football players who unwittingly become involved with the girlfriends of a gang of mobsters. They ultimately wind up on the football field where they can create havoc there as well. The real interest in this one is not so much regarding the Stooges ... it is to have the opportunity of watching a very young 20-ish Lucille Ball getting a chance to mix it up with the fellas.

**1/2 out of ****

Not one of their best

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 16 November 2015]

"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.

Classic Stooges

[Michael_Elliott · 25 February 2008]

Three Little Pigskins (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Gangster mistake the Three Stooges for professional athletes and get them involved in a football game with big cash on the line. Here's one of the better shorts from the series with non-stop gags, although most of the gags come from the first half of the film and not the second half that deals with the game. The various misadventures inside the girl's apartment are terrific and especially they escape down the shoot.

Now available on Columbia's 2-disc collection, which features over 20 shorts.

H202, 1/2, and ?

[slymusic · 23 January 2008]

"Three Little Pigskins" is a very good Three Stooges comedy that deals with football follies. Curly, Larry, and Moe are hobos mistaken for the Three Horsemen, a trio of crackerjack football players from Boulder Dam College. In terms of the plot, need I say more?

Obviously the major highlight from "Three Little Pigskins" is the much-too-brief football sequence at the end, which features several hilarious mishaps. Other highlights: Curly breaks a dumbwaiter apart, causing his two partners, as well as mob leader Joe Stacks (Walter Long), to fall down the shaft in succession. This short marks the first occurrence of Larry laughing at another Stooge for getting creamed and then receiving the same kind of punishment; in this case, it happens during the way-too-long seltzer bottle scene. AND when the Stooges' seltzer bottle antics have gone too far, they are briefly scolded for horsing around while there are ladies present, so they shift gears and squirt the ladies! (Incidentally, one of the ladies is a very young Lucille Ball, believe it or not.)

"Three Little Pigskins" is one of the earliest Three Stooges shorts at Columbia Pictures, so the boys still had the advantage of youth during the strenuous football sequence. Moe once referred to this film as "a humdinger of bangs and bruises"; specifically, this meant a broken leg for Curly, a knocked-out tooth for Larry, and a series of broken limbs for the Stooges' stunt doubles on the football field!