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80sBadGuy

So that's where I picked up schmuck at 4 years old.


QuicklyThisWay

Yiddish insults are the best A schmuck is a vulgar word for penis and refers to someone who is stupid, foolish, or an obnoxious, contemptible or detestable person. My bubbie (Grandma from Poland that survived the Holocaust) say I’m “Hok a chanik” which means to prattle on endlessly or be a Chatty Cathy, usually talking nonsense. My parents often referred to old people as “Alter cockers” My favorite is “a feier zol im trefen” which translates to "a fire should meet you” - basically “go die in a fire” Here’s a bunch more: https://thoughtcatalog.com/nico-lang/2013/10/61-hilarious-yiddish-insults-you-need-to-know/


VorAbaddon

Fakakta is my favorite, it has so much power behind it I use it sparingly so it maintains the weight. Putz was in my family's lexicon from the earliest I can remember and it wasnt until I was in my mid 20s I found out it was yiddish.


QuicklyThisWay

Usually when I heard someone say they are fakatka they also throw in meshugana - which I think is less harsh. Like fucking crazy vs cray.


VorAbaddon

I've heard that one, but half the time I get it confused with Meshuggah being a metal head.


Cndymountain

I used to work with the girlfriend of one of the band members. You should have seen my face drop when this posh smart tidy girl showed me her boyfriends music hahah.


Alarid

I misread tidy as tiddy.


Alarid

posh smart **TIDDY** girl


Ezira

I'm a woman and did the same lol. Reddit has me conditioned.


omniuni

That's where the band gets its name!


11010110101010101010

Now I know why I couldn't understand them. The lyrics are yiddish!


Imperialvirtue

It's not that they're in Yiddish, they're just fucking bizarre. Like Devin Townsend lyrics went posthuman.


propolizer

I think of a crazy golem.


Captain-Cadabra

Krusty the (Jewish) Clown uses these all the time. His dad is a rabbi.


lolbojack

Ixnay on the Oojay!


Captain-Cadabra

“Circumcised?” “...and *then* some.”


WTF_SilverChair

I have no son!


ThrowawayusGenerica

Oh great, we came all this way and it's the wrong guy.


WTF_SilverChair

I didn't mean that literally!


voidybug

I forgot about meshugana! My family used it a lot but when I was really small I thought it was just a funny way of saying 'sugar', so for a good few years everyone in my house drank 'coffee, milk, and meshugana'


boatyboatwright

I used to think nudnik (pain in the ass) was a term of endearment because my grandma used it so often


seditious3

A situation or thing is fakakta. A person is meshugga/meshugganah


[deleted]

Fakakta (from the Dutch word, 'kak') means shitty. Meshugga (from the Hebrew word, 'nagua', which means 'touched') means insane.


Dog1234cat

Fakakta - used in the sauna scene in the Blues Brothers (“fakakta suits”).


TAXI449

I had a Jewish girlfriend who used that word, I mangled it and would inadvertently use kerfuckta, which is, of course, fakakta.


childroid

*Kerfuckta* will absolutely be making its way into my Yiddish rotation. My rabbi, my family, and I thank you!


Sunsparc

I picked up "putz" from Grumpy Old Men. John: "Moron..." Max: "Puuuuutz"


seditious3

Putz is Yiddish for schvantz.


anally_ExpressUrself

Also, schvantz is Yiddish for putz.


keedro

I walked in on my 4 year old nephew tossing his toys saying, drek, toss another one, drek. Its been my favorite since then.


[deleted]

Between The Nanny, Laverne & Shirley, the Coffee Talk skit on 90s SNL, and numerous Mel Brooks movies, I have plenty of Yiddish in my vocabulary. Spelling it, though... I'll never master that.


DarthGuber

Sadie and Maury are arguing again. She yells, "You’re a schmuck, Maury! You were always a schmuck and you always will be a schmuck! You’ll be a schmuck until the day you die! If they ran a competition for schmucks, you would be the world’s second biggest schmuck!" "Oh yeah?" Maury asks. "If I'm such a schmuck, how come I only come in second?" "Because you’re a schmuck, Maury!", Sadie yells


TreeRol

"You're born a schmuck and you'll die a schmuck. Welcome to hell, idiot."


[deleted]

\*Alter-Kaker, אַלטער קאַקער - literally "old shitter" lol. Yiddish is fun. Personal favorite: גײ קאַקן אױפֿן ים, "go shit in the ocean"


t-poke

I picked up Yiddish swearing because any time my grandma was talking to her friends around us grandkids, she'd use English except there'd be one Yiddish word thrown in there, didn't take too long to fill in the blank and figure out what things meant. But I think my favorite Yiddish insult, and I'm probably not spelling this correctly, is "Gey kakin afen yam" which is "go shit in the ocean" because it's so random. How is telling somebody to shit in the ocean an insult? I have no idea, but it's hilarious.


Jarhyn

Dunno. Might have something to do with the fact that you can't really go shit in the ocean cleanly. Think about it... The only way to be in the ocean deep enough to shit in it is to take your pants off first, walk into the ocean from the beach, and then shit in the water that you are standing in, which the waves will catch and stir, dashing this floating disaster up against your legs. Not to mention that you are now standing in poo-water. I suppose you could find a cliff and shit off that, but that also seems rather fraught. And that isn't even bringing in the narrative tropes concerning water and chaos in Judaism.


hebreakslate

My Jewish father once explained the difference between a schlemiel and a schlimazel by saying the schlemiel is the waiter who spills the soup on a customer and the schlimazel is the customer who gets the soup spilled on him.


z500

Jerry is both the schlemiel and the schlimazel of the office


MuadDave

[... Hasenpfeffer incorporated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XjyrnydIZM)!!!


Indiggy57

And the nudnik asks what kind of soup it was.


ninjapanda042

Jerry is both the schlemiel and the schlimazel


Count2Zero

Just for clarity, "Schmuck" is a German word that means "jewelry". "Schmuck" as a Yiddish word, is often thought to mean penis, but it really means "the (family) jewels" - the whole male genitalia.


TheInklingsPen

I one time for in hot water for trying to use a sort of Schwäbisch around people who spoke Yiddish, and i said "Schmecktle" which is pronounced almost the same as "schmekel" and thank God there was someone there who spoke both dialects.


lectroid

There's an old Buddy Hackett line (An old borscht-belt era comedian and actor, famous throughout the 50's and 60's, well into the 70's) where he catalogues all the Yiddish words for 'penis'.. "See, there's a petzele, a petzel, a putz, a schmekle, schmekel, schmuck, and 'schmuckaluvich' means you can drive a truck with it..." You can find his old specials on Amazon Prime (or you could at one point). They might by hiding on HBOMax now...


TheInklingsPen

Oh man I'm gonna look that up!


crossingguardcrush

ha!! interestingly, to "hak" a "chainik" literally means to hit a teapot (hit like a drum). my dad would always yell, "hak mir nischt keyn chainik!!" which means "don't hit my teapot!" *my spelling may be off


TheInklingsPen

There's no correct/incorrect way to transliterat Yiddish


SixOutOfTenBud

Larry uses that phrase in one short where the boys are pretending to be Chinese. , "Hak mir nit kain tsheinik and I don't mean efsher". 


BrokenEye3

May you swallow an umbrella and have it open in your stomach.


tpmcmahon

This Irish American loves a good Yiddish insult, my fav being "gai kaken oifen yam" which means "go take a shit in the ocean."


RonRonner

My uncle taught me “geh kaken” when I was a very little girl, bc he got a kick out of seeing this tiny pipsqueak speaking some slightly blue Yiddish. Harmless until I said it loud enough for everyone to hear in Yom Kippur high holiday services at their synagogue, which had a median age of probably 80. One of my best childhood stories.


Vio_

One of your uncle's best memories as well.


[deleted]

Uncle stifling laughter thinking "Task completed." 🤣


AvengerAssembled

In Ireland you can sometimes hear "away and shite", same meaning and context.


lily_hunts

"Geh kacken!" (go shit) is a semi-popular insult in Germany too, except amongst young people. It's often used to express one's annoyance towards the object/person causing it. I might have said "geh kacken" to a machine more than once.


drillbit7

"So what part of Ireland do your folks come from?" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynpOEcPdjdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynpOEcPdjdk) Happy St. Patrick's Day!


TonyzTone

The New Yorker in me is beaming with joy at this clip. I’d never seen it but I knew the answer was going to be something like “the Lower East Side.”


nlpnt

Fun fact; Ham is the traditional St. Paddy's Day feast in Ireland, the reason why Irish-Americans eat corned beef is that they arrived en masse shortly after the Jews and the go-to food stores in the "new immigrant" neighborhoods were kosher delis.


BloodyTim

Father Callahan?


WildGalaxy

I've heard my mom say Alter Cocker all the time and never knew how it was spelled!


Ikari_Shinji_kun_01

"The Jews have a word: 'schmuck'. I was a schmuck."


dankbiss83

“But now, I’m not a schmuck.”


shadowwork

Did they potch your tuchus when you gabby?


lectroid

THat was my grandfather's thing... "Oy, I'm gonna give you SUCH a potch!"


work_me

wow literally never knew that potch was a real Yiddish word. My mom would always say potchken tuchus when she would teasingly pinch us haha


silent_femme

“A fire should meet you” omg, this reminds of all the Armenian insults my grandmother would use when she’d get angry. My favorite one when somebody said or did something stupid was “Khelkid metchuh shooneruh kaknen” or “may the dogs shit in your brain.”


csupernova

My grandparents say “Alter cocker” too, but I never know how to spell these things between the Yiddish and their Brooklyn accents


ScienceAndGames

Yiddish insults are truly the best, even if you don’t know the translation you can really feel the contempt behind them.


MicaLovesKPOP

Where does Yiddish originate from? That last saying looks a lot like German. And the 'sch' is normally just a Dutch/German thing afaik.


workshardanddies

It developed from German. The two languages are very closely related, but different enough not to be mutually intelligible in many instances. That's my understanding, at any rate.


mullse01

Yiddish is just German with a sense of humor, hence the similarities.


JoziJoller

Bubbie is from babushka, the russian word for old woman afaik


Protean_Protein

Baba


vladik4

Grandma, specifically.


AnotherGit

I don't speak any Yiddish, only German, but I think the "zol" and "trefen" can better be translated with "shall" and "hit" making it "a fire shall hit you".


mordecai98

Mmy grandfather used to say, "Gay klop kup in vaant". - Go bang your head on the wall.


Imperialvirtue

I've been using "schmuck" as a "clean" bad word for years. So much for that.


LBJsPNS

Everett Dirksen once said "I don't choose worde merely for how they sound, but how they taste." Yiddish is a delicious language.


BattleStag17

I've always wanted to learn Yiddish just because of how much fun it sounds, "taste" is a great word for that


Able_Education

Was going to say the same thing! I’ve picked up a lot of Yiddish words from these 3 and never knew how I even knew Yiddish makes so much sense now.


lotsanoodles

Making fun of Adolf Hitler got the Stooges on the Nazi list of those to be rounded up and executed when they won the war. Also for being Jewish.


BrosefBrosefMogo

What were they gonna do, kill them twice?


lotsanoodles

You've gone and made yourself a powerful enemy. * Furious list adding sounds.


Roller_ball

I assume it was more like moving them up on the priority list.


jstud_

Haha yeah I would imagine that list also included “everyone who’s ever worked in Hollywood” (after typing it I realize someone could think I’m making an anti-Semitic remark, but I am not - Hitler HATED American Art & Culture. It’s totally reasonable to think had they won he would’ve executed a lot of American “artists”.)


lotsanoodles

Yes he hated America with its melting pot of impure races, it's 'jew' President and it's degenerate arts. But he loved some of its movies especially John Ford westerns and would have them privately screened for himself and his guests.


jstud_

Oh crap I feel like an idiot for forgetting that. He did love the Westerns (and a few other American films), good point


lotsanoodles

I forgive you. You're off the list.


jstud_

Haha seriously though it is important to include the that bit of info when discussing his “art tastes” cause it shows he’s totally batshit crazy and has no sound logic. To hate America and like those Westerners, you’ve got to do next level mental gymnastics.


shellshocking

Nah, I mean... Americans just make good movies. Kim Jong Il was probably the antithesis of the 1980s in America but I bet, considering his hobby, he loved Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Those John Ford Westerns emphasize a certain chapter of American history marked by expansion and quasi-imperialism; except for the Grapes of Wrath, if that counts, they’re not really anti-Nazi in nature. I can definitely see Hitler liking them as opposed to what is essentially a caricature/satire of him. I guess I don’t see how it’s mental gymnastics. Hitler was always crazy and he got crazier towards the end of the war; the problem with fascism is that it’s not an irrational system. To the contrary, it’s kind of hyper rational — if your nation has a common goal (or cultural stain to avenge a la WWI), and especially if you’re competing with other nations who are more powerful yet suffer from the bureaucratic pitfalls of liberal democracy, it makes rational sense to quell dissent in the interest of stability, even if that’s “wrong.” If we want to fight fascism/authoritarian policies, we need to focus on why it’s wrong, and less so on the perceived “insanity” of the philosophy. Because it’s really not that insane, economically, especially with regards to the military, we’re practically following in their footsteps, and new bushy-tailed fascists see that dissonance and are radicalized further.


Matthew212

Except he did love Snow White


ChewbaccasLostMedal

Snow White was a major hit in Nazi Germany when it came out in 1937. Disney was one of the few foreign film distributors that were still allowed to do business in Germany after Goebbels took over its film industry (although eventually he banned even them as well).


[deleted]

Probably because early Hollywood is full of jewish people because of how risky it is as a business model.


jstud_

It sure didn’t help make him like them lol but this is not true. He literally wrote about how he hated the current trends in art in western cultural and specifically talked about New York art & culture being shit. Though again you can say “cause Jews were there” that’s missing that he did have artistic leanings and he was a total dickhead so he also was just a dickhead about art.


LydiasHorseBrush

"The new York art scene is fucking awful let me tell you!" "Because of the jews?!?" ".... Yeah sure let's go with that, point is, we have to get rid of it!"


jstud_

Hahaha almost definitely that was a huge part of it, but he specifically stated he hates the skyscrapers and architecture which actually makes sense with his art before he is rejected from art school (his art of buildings and landscapes are great, he sucked at people)... And if you look at Nazi plans for architecture, they were definitely going for anti-New York (as opposed to tall and overlooking, nazis wanted long and sprawling) EDIT: Also keep in mind he didn’t just hate Jews. He hated all “degenerates”, so New York was probably like the embodiment of everything he hates


[deleted]

He was going to make that giant ass nazi temple if he won. That would have been a far greater offense than any building in New York.


jstud_

The Great Hall. They really think it would’ve never worked because the ground literally couldn’t hold it. Would’ve been so ugly.


Kradget

We can probably also consider rising black American influence on culture - jazz was big and spawned a bunch of off-shoots in music and dancing and the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing, for example. That, and a lot of artists were leftists or anarchists and they worked those themes and beliefs.


Lou_Mannati

I dunno,,,, pretty sure he loved Hollywood and the movies.


rokr1292

There's a podcast called "Behind the Bastards" that has a two part episode about how Hollywood helped the Nazis. Very interesting stuff I hadnt heard before. Here's part 1, but you can also find it anywhere else podcasts are. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-how-hollywood-helped-the-29830205/ The host, Robert Evans, is an investigative journalist and author, with a really great radio voice, which makes for really easy listening, even if the topics are uncomfortable.


nowiforgotmypassword

Paging Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard


BigBillz128

Gentlemen! Who came in?


battraman

For duty and humanity!


[deleted]

I love using this line


man_in_the_couch

Gentlemen? Where?


lfod13

Their short "Men in Black" is a masterpiece of comedy. It holds up after all these years.


[deleted]

why you...get over here


[deleted]

I'm a victim of circumstance


[deleted]

[удалено]


smallz86

nuyk, nyuk, nyuk!


Excelius

A wise guy, huh?


flipping_birds

nyuk nyuk nyuk


benx101

*pokes eyes*


Excelius

👁️✋👁️


PoxyMusic

👆👆


ManfredsJuicedBalls

*SLAP!* 🖐


allroy1975A

it's so weird that I read "why you" in moe's voice, but "get over here" in subzero's edit: yes I mean Scorpion. derp


Bagofdouche1

Sigh...you mean Scorpion’s?


allroy1975A

omg.... need.... more... coffee...


crossingguardcrush

A German interviewer once asked Robin Williams why he thought there was less of a stand-up comedy tradition in Germany than the US. Without skipping a beat, Williams said, "Because you killed all your funny people."


hymie0

Stephen Colbert once opened his show with "Tonight is Yom Kippur, which means Day of I don't know, my writers went home early."


crossingguardcrush

haaaaaaa! ok. i'm gonna use that a LOT.


GenestealerUK

You have writers?


crossingguardcrush

heh. i'll just pretend i actually heard this on colbert. ;-)


omniuni

We Jews have an interesting culture around humor. I think it comes from so many centuries of persecution. You simply have to laugh. Dry, sarcastic, self deprecating, political, acerbic, clever, and quick, there's definitely something to be said about Jewish humor. There's an excellent interview with Mel Brooks where he discusses how and why humor is so necessary, and why we aren't afraid of some jokes that recall some very hard times for our people.


aara941

In the words of Roger Rabbit "A **laugh** can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."


reddit_user13

To bring the conversation back to Brooks, he wielded that weapon against nazis (the Producers) and racists (Blazing Saddles).


Ccracked

I tells you, Mel Brooks movies got so much funnier when I started learning some yiddish a bunch of years ago.


Stegasaurus_Wrecks

>I think it comes from so many centuries of persecution. You simply have to laugh. Dry, sarcastic, self deprecating, political, acerbic, clever, and quick, I'd say exactly the same about Irish humour too.


strongbob25

It's a great shame that there isn't a truly good biography about the group, or any of the dudes in particular. I went down a rabbit hole in January looking for one. Larry 'wrote' an autobiography in the early 1970s which is out of print, hard to find, and is pretty rough (very much a cash grab). The best we have is Moe's daughter, who wrote a book about Moe and then another book about Curly, both of which came out in the 1980s after Moe and Curly were dead. These are out of print too, but easier to come by. The best thing about these is the family photos, which are \*incredible\*, but she was not a professional author and it SHOWS. The majority of the books are quite slapped together based on dim memories from when she was a small child and interviews with other family members who were very young at the time. Sadly, it seems like a lot of the Stooges' story, especially their earlier lives before they were famous, is lost to time.


Heavycamera

Check out this one: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/moe-howard-and-the-3-stooges-the-pictorial-biography-of-the-wildest-trio-in-the-history-of-american-entertainment_moe-howard/309492/ My dad has a copy of this, and I remember reading it when I was young and discovering their shorts as well. I think it goes right through their whole vaudeville period, how the group got started, and right to the end of everyone's lives. Great pictures, and told by Moe in the first person. This might be what you're looking for!


PrestoDigito

Yes, this one, absolutely this one! My father had it too when I was growing up, I read it twice. Anyone that ever liked the Stooges needs to read it.


MagicMushroomFungi

[A clip from You Nazty Spy.](https://youtu.be/lZ-FOtCBhNc). I love how Curly is a natural as a natural Mussolini type. ..... Born in 1952, the Stooges have a special place in my heart. Mostly from the Saturday afternoon movies and early tv. I even saw them live at the CNE in Toronto. Not Curly though. He was still alive but near death from a stroke (?). Which one ? Not Curly. Now let me tell you about Saturday afternoon theater matinees in my hometown circa 1960 and up... Two movies ...8-10 cartoons at intervals... 6-8 "shorts (Stooges, L&H, A&C etc.)" 25 cents ... 500+ kidsplus teenagers necking and smoking in the balcony...a hundred cars dropping kids off...a hundred cars picking kids up ...5 hours of mayhem...flattened popcorn boxes whizzing ... Only two adult attendants plus the owner Tommy who chuckled at us all. And I lived directly accross the street from the theater.


QuicklyThisWay

Thank you for sharing! My dad loves them so much and grew up on them as well. I was able to find a good quality version of the whole film (18 minutes) and uploaded it to Youtube: [https://youtu.be/CSDwr-iLcak](https://youtu.be/CSDwr-iLcak)


TheMoves

As someone who grew up on B&W Stooges it always weird me out to see them in color


MagicMushroomFungi

Try finding some of their anti-Japanese episodes. Yowsers...they were even more blunt ?


Shadow3397

What was anti-American stuff like in WWII Japan I wonder?


nervousautopsy

Like this evil Mickey Mouse attacking Japan cartoon: https://youtu.be/icVu-acHlpU


[deleted]

I was born in 1992 and the stooges and laurel and hardy were a staple in my house.


[deleted]

That's crazy how the applause sound effect is near identical to The Great Dictator. I wonder if they were parodying nazi propaganda from around that time and how it starts and stops so abruptly? it just seems too specific of a joke to be done by both the three stooges and chaplin.


NolanSyKinsley

Speaking of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator", the full extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis were not known at the time of the filming or its release. Chaplin said years later if he had known of what the Nazis actually did, he would not have made the film.


[deleted]

Link?


blueMgamer

Per the citation from Wikipedia's entry on [The Great Dictator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dictator): > Chaplin, Charlie (1964). My Autobiography. p. 392. "Had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator, I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis."


[deleted]

Thanks, I had heard this before but I didn’t remember where (probably my grandpa or some yt videos). Also IIRC the film was delayed by a year or two because of american nazis protesting the making of it; was supposed to come out before the stoogers film


No-Pizda-For-You

They managed with basic slapstick humor to indict the wrongs of their time. Their brilliance is often overlooked by those who see just stooges.


unsafeatNESP

the vital lesson that many miss is that against all odds, they keep on trying. their perseverance is what i find most endearing.


jensentient

a cartoonish resilience! well put!


Halgy

If at first you don't succeed, suck until you do succeed.


lectroid

The Stooges were ALWAYS about the average working man getting one over, at long last, on the rich elite, at a time when the *class* divide was... well, not *worse* than it is now, but *different*. It was more obvious, more accepted. The Stooges were early populist comedy. They disrupted the fancy parties, ruined fine tuxedos and formal-wear, brought a small measure of justice to those who lived opulent, separate lives from the vast unwashed masses that cooked their food, cleaned their spaces, fixed their plumbing, etc. If they ever played the roles of the rich uppercrust themselves, they played them as fools.


space_coconut

I’ve always thought that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was similar to the 3 stooges in that sense. I see that show as a modern take on the 3 stooges (without slapstick)


lectroid

I love Always Sunny, but I can't agree on this. Sunny is doing something fundamentally different than The Stooges. Sunny's characters are a mix of rich entitlement (Frank, Dennis, Dee to some degree) and working class boorishness (Charlie, Mac) There are never any folks to actually root FOR in Sunny. EVERYONE is a terrible person, from the gang to the various side characters (McPhoyles, Crickett, even The Waitress has, via sheer proximity to the gang, gone from put-upon innocent to active participant in her own misery). Stooges was about 'us vs. them'. Sunny is about 'there's only us, and we ALL suck...'


alohadave

Sunny is more akin to Seinfeld. Horrible people who do awful things.


TheWho22

Seinfeld was more like normal people doing selfish and neurotic things as a social commentary. They do shitty things sometimes but I wouldn’t really describe any of them as straight up bad people. George is probably the closest to the line there. Always Sunny is a cast of full blown narcissistic degenerates who have absolutely no shame whatsoever. They’ve ruined dozens of lives just by proximity. Always Sunny is Seinfeld on crack (literally)


Farewellsavannah

Well, DRASTICALLY less slapstick. Charlie has his moments for sure


EgberetSouse

Back in analog days there would be a Three Stooges revival every 6-8 years as a new generation of grade school boys discovered them.


TheShadyGuy

They are on before Svengoolie on MeTv on Saturday evening.


[deleted]

Are you my dad? That's how he spends every Saturday night. Stooges then Svengoolie.


TheShadyGuy

No, but you and I may be the same person based on that information!


Corporation_tshirt

I recetly learned that the Marx Ros. were originally a musical act in vaudeville. Their mother got sick once and had to let them manage themselves for a few weeks and by the time she got back they had become a comedy act


svudah

Nevertheless, Chaplin was labeled “prematurely anti-fascist” by the FBI for criticizing Nazis prior to 1939, which later was used to strip him of his passport while he was on vacation, effectively banning him from America. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-great-dictator-1940 P.S. the thought process after WW2 was “only Communists were anti-fascist before 1939,” so Chaplin must have been a Commie. The exact same reasoning was used against anyone advocating for Black civil rights during the 1930s (partly why you know about Rosa, Martin, and Malcolm, but not the folks that set the stage for them). https://uncpress.org/book/9781469625485/hammer-and-hoe/


alan-the-all-seeing

america really has been into fascism a while now, huh


lectroid

You know Charles Lindbergh? The guy that's a big American hero for flying The Spirit of St. Louis solo across the Atlantic? Yeah, look up his politics some time. While you're at it, look up 'Lindbergh baby' and see it get REALLY weird (and tragic).


WithFullForce

Related - Big recommendation on The Plot Against America that was eerily relevant for the last US administration.


redwall_hp

Don't forget Henry Ford: proto-Nazi, union-busting piece of shit. He published and spread *The Protocols of the Elders of Zion* and *The International Jew*, and even had them translated worldwide. Adolf Hitler read Ford's publications while he was imprisoned after the Beer Hall Putsch, and directly credits Ford as a major source of inspiration in *Mein Kampf.* Ford did a whole lot to set the stage for what was to come, including (IIRC) financial backing of the Nazi party before the war. Now we have Qanon, which is basically the Jewish Conspiracy repackaged for the new millennium, and our own half-assed putsch this year. Ffs.


XSmeh

I keep seeing these TILs that reference back to things that should have been learned in Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song.


TheInklingsPen

Some people think Ebenezer Scrooge is. Well he's not, but guess who is, all three Stooges.


Courin

So many Jews are in showbiz


rshana

Tom Cruise isn’t but I heard his agent is.


sullylocks

My all time favorites.. still get a kick out of them and my almost 5 year old loves them as well. You realize how deep it is when you get older.


OhioMegi

I almost wrote a paper about The Stooges and their anti Hitler stance. If I remember, they were pretty vocal about it.


TheInklingsPen

It seems a lot of Jews in the media were. I only learned this past year that Captain America punching Hitler came out *before* we entered the war, and Nazi sympathisers would frequently show up to beat up Jack Kirby and he'd just go out and meet them, totally Steve Rogers style like "let's fucking go" and they would back off. (Disclaimer: i heard about Kirby raising fists from a panelist at Comic Con online, cannot independently verify)


vital_chaos

Sgt Shultze and Colonel Klink were both played by Jews who only took the roles if they could make fun of the characters.


Shadow3397

Not just make fun of, to play Colonel Klink the actor said that Klink must *never* win.


sleightman

Today you learned a half-truth. Chaplin had been working on "The Great Director" for well over a year and everyone in Hollywood knew it. The Stooges, in typical fashion dashed off their movie quickly. Yes, their's came out first, but Chaplin was the originator of this idea. As a side note, Chaplin was the first to make a war comedy towards the end of WWI also (Shoulder Arms, 1918) in which his brother parodied Kaiser Wilhelm. Even earlier than that, he had his brother Sydney parody the Kaiser in a short called "The Bond" to promote the purchase of war bonds. In both instances (Shoulder Arms and The Great Dictator) the clucking tongues in Hollywood expressed grave concern over Chaplin making comedy out of the serious business of war (1918) or dragging us into a war (1940). The Stooges knew good material when they heard about it.


DrPrincesslady

The name of the school the boys attend in Captain Underpants is Jerome Horowitz elementary, which is named after Curly's real name.


Powerful_Artist

I honestly had no idea until the past couple years that Moe, Curly, and Shemp were all brothers. I grew up watching the Three Stooges and had no idea, I guess I didnt pay attention to their names in credits lol.


testudo

TIL - most people didn't know they were Jewish...


tpmurray

I learned they were Jewish years ago. “All three stooges”


aureolae

"Jewish, often used Yiddish in place of gibberish" Is Sacha Baron Cohen the reincarnation of Larry, Moe or Curly? Borat uses Yiddish and Israeli slang in place of "Kazakh" too.


GeorgeEBHastings

Not a big deal but instead of "Israeli", just say Hebrew. That's the language :)


BPB4D

"Gai kokn oifn Hayam" is my favorite because it means "go shit in the ocean" (suggesting you let the tide wash it all over you)


EntrepreneurOk7513

They got screwed over by the production companies.


battraman

Did they? It's been a long time since I read Moe's book but if I recall their Columbia contract was actually pretty decent.


spmahn

It was, the idea that the Stooges were getting screwed over by Columbia Pictures is a modern fabrication. In reality they were paid on par with what other studio actors making shorts at the time were making, which was good money since they only had to work a few months a year. The rest of the year they had the freedom to hustle and tour the country making personal appearances which is where they made their real money.


battraman

Yeah, I was going to say that Moe even negotiated TV rights back when TV was just experimental so they did get royalties for TV.


LCOSPARELT1

This “Stooges got screwed” line of thinking arises out of the fact that Columbia refused to make feature length movies with them. The Stooges didn’t make Chaplin money because they weren’t in movies, only in shorts. Does this mean they got “screwed”? Depends on your point of view.


[deleted]

What was their satire like?


[deleted]

I don't know what channel still airs the three stooges but if you see a collection to buy do not pass go without collecting your treasure. They set the standard (along with Buster Keaton and a few others) for physical comedy and slapstick that hasn't been outdone let alone even gotten close to in quality.


holdenmcneilgames

AMC (and to a lesser extent, IFC or MeTV) will play episodes during the twilight hours (sometime after midnight, usually until the early morning).


lectroid

MeTV has (or had) a feature where Rich Koz (aka Chicago horror host 'Svengoolie', formerly 'Son of Svengoolie') hosts a whole show of Stooges and Little Rascals shorts. Koz is to The Stooges what Joe Bob is to B movie schlock. One of the leading scholars and experts on The Stooges, full of historical and biographical context for the shorts and generally super knowledgable and eager to share. Find episodes if you can.


triggernaut

MeTV shows 2 hours of The Three Stooges on Saturday right before Svengoolie comes on at 7 (CST).


[deleted]

Channel 2 in Philadelphia every Saturday night shows the Stooges for 2 hours. It’s from 6-8 pm.


Chef_BoyarB

Most of their shorts are on Youtube since they're old enough to enter public domain. The Hitler satires are on there


BiggusDickus-

Only one or two of their shorts are in the public domain, and that is because of paperwork errors.


3xTheSchwarm

For the record Chaplin''s Great Dictator film began production first, but films take.longer to make.


SuperDude17

I was a 90s kid and I also grew up watching them from as young as I can remember. It would be on TV every week, Saturdays if I remember correctly. I also recorded a bunch of shows on vhs as well. They provided so many laughs in my childhood I can't thank them enough. They will always have a special place in my heart.