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“Reality is
the original Rorschach.”
Principia Discordia
“I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it
looked like a spreading tree,
shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a
dead cat I once found,
the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each
other, frantically tunneling
away from the light. But even that is avoiding the real
horror. The horror is this: In the
end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We
are alone. There is
nothing else.”
Alan
Moore’s Watchmen
NES game "Three Stooges"
The "Three
Stooges" were, basically, a gang of three somewhat retarded
individuals who beat the shit out of each other on a regular
basis. That's really all you need to know about them and it is
the centerpiece to their comic legacy. The boys get a job or
responsibility, their oafishness or carelessness messes things
up, and then they take it out on each other in the only rational
and reasonable way: Eye poking and cutting each others' heads
with saws.
Moe Howard died of lung cancer in 1975. Curly Howard had a stroke
and died in 1952. Larry Fine did the same in 1975. In October of
1989 Activision released "Three Stooges," a video game
for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.
In January of 1990 the game was passed on to me. I unwrapped it
and held it in my hands. The taste of birthday taco pizza began
to fade in my mouth as my tongue lashed hopelessly to define the
empty, meaningless blackness. It was "Three Stooges."
There is nothing else.
The game was purchased with love by my Father. This, of course,
was the problem. Not so much in that my Dad didn't understand
video games; in fact, we shared many great Baseball Stars seasons
and later Mario Kart races. But history and experience states
undeniably that fathers of my generation more often than not
share common tendencies, including:
1) A love of falling asleep to television.
2) A love of Bob Seger and his "Silver Bullet" Band.
3) A love of the Three Stooges.
So with no Bob Seger game and "Everquest" still years
away, you can feel my Dad when he saw a Three Stooges game in the
Toys R Us. It probably warmed his heart to buy it for me. Sure,
he could've gotten me something good like Double Dragon II or a
Gameboy or one of those envelopes with circles cut in them so it
looks like you're giving somebody a round green picture of
Abraham Lincoln. But one of the strongest things I learned from
him is that a gift should be given from the heart, to mean more.
I also learned from my Father that you can kill a werewolf by
throwing Bob Seger's band at it.
With visions of old men harshly berating each other with hammers
dancing in my head I arrived home and slid in my new "Three
Stooges" cartridge, only having to blow in it forty times
and in my Nintendhole twice. This is what I got:
The first image of
the Three Stooges game is the Ghostbusters II logo. And a badly
drawn one at that. I got better Ghostbusters images in decal form
on the side of my Hardee's sausage and gravy box shaped like the
ECTO-1. Anybody else on Earth remember that promotion? I also had
the Slimer shaped box, which I later used to try to create a
Slimer-shaped Jello-mold. But yeah, basically what I'm trying to
say is that I thought GREAT GOOGILY MOOGILY I got a Ghostbusters
II game! I'm going to be commanded by Vigo and then cover Peter
MacNicol veeth goo!
Before you know it the Stooges show up to correct the mistake in one of the finest examples of dialogue in
video game history,
somewhere between the religious overtones of
"Xenogears" and Doc telling Little Mac to join the
Nintendo Fun Club in "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!."
Curly: (sounding
as if he was recorded alongside Billie Holliday in the 1400s) "Hey Fellas! We're in the wrong
game!"
Larry: (sounding
as if he was recorded alongside William Shakespeare in the year
4) "Heeey this looks
like a kids game."
Moe: (sounding
as if he was recorded alongside Jesus in 4 billion BC) "You imbeciles! *smack*"
Curly: "OWW"
And so begins the Stooges quest to save an orphanage from being
torn down by an evil banker. You see, if nasty banker "I.
Fleecem" doesn't receive the $5000 dollars he's owed in
thirty days he will tear down Ma's Orphanage, leaving several sad
orphans and Fuzzy the Bronchially Infected Tent Sleeper on the
streets. The Stooges have big hearts so they decide to get jobs
in the town of "Stoogeville" to raise the money.
I KNOW RIGHT
First of all, putting
guys who call themselves THE THREE STOOGES in charge of saving
your ass is probably not the best course of action. This is
obvious. If I ran an orphanage and wanted to put someone in
charge of holding an orphan's tongue with forceps and punching
him in the nose I'd call on a Stooge.
Secondly, I personally think that I. Fleecem runs a tight ship,
taking the time to personally type out a threatening letter to
anyone who may suggest helping out someone who owes the bank
money.
Look, he even typed out "HEH-HEH-HEH" like he's taunting them in text. It's like I. Fleecem was using some primitive Pony Express-ass version of Instant Messenger. He even types in all caps and has no evident understanding of punctuation.
Thirdly, one of the shittier things that Ma asks of the Stooges is that they not only earn enough cash to SAVE her orphanage, but that they earn more. The game gives you a progressively better ending depending on your final earnings. If you earn $5,000 you can keep the orphanage from being torn down. Earning $10,000 dollars pays the orphanage rent and pays for the orphanage repairs, so the chamberpot contents that weren't thrown into the furnace can have plasma screen or whatever. Earning $20,000 dollars pays for the rent and repairs, but also means you have enough money to marry Ma's daughters. Yes, earning enough money lets the Stooges BUY SEX.
Fourthly, what kind
of funny name is "I. Fleecem," anyway? With all the old
shows and movies being updated and reimagined we may as well redo
all the Stooges jokes and make them funny to today's comedy
audiences. We can call the Banker "I. Rick James
Bitch."
Fifthly, the Stooges live in "Stoogeville?" That's like
Missy Elliot living in "Timberland." You'd think they
could find money in Stoogeville without getting jobs, or at the
very least that they'd be able to find lucrative, high paying
jobs like TV/VCR repair, computer programming, or child daycare.
They could also major in business management or in accounting.
Instead of going into a place, asking for an application, filling
out said application, and returning it to a manager, the Stooges
make money the old fashioned way. Moe holds out a map and moves
his hand around from place to place until another Stooge slaps
the hand.
Wherever the slap
occurs is where the Stooges work for an entire day. In the game
you have 30 random chances to earn money, hopefully, for
decency's sake, before Ma overdoses on ether and is buried next
to Fuzzy. Jobs for the Stooges are as follows.
1) Waiters
Logically it is to assume that the Stooges answer a "Help
Wanted, Waiters" ad and spend the day trying to explain to a
black customer that when they order "Gin and Juice"
they actually have to pick a juice, and that they can't just say
"the regular kind" because they just liked the song and
have no fucking idea what they're talking about ever. At least
this is what MY day as a waiter was like.
The Stooges however
are COMEDY DYNAMITE, and requests to "give the customers
pie" are misinterpreted as "throw pies at the
customers." Two teams (Team Stooge, made up of Larry, Curly,
and Moe, and Team Customer, made up of Barbara Bush, Fred Ward,
and John Lithgow) stand on opposite sides of the room, hold a pie
above their head with arm extended and elbow locked, then send it
flying. Then, at the end of the contest, the Stooges are awarded
money.
I'd like to make a formal request to change family chain
restaurant business to something similar to "Three
Stooges." Not so much to help me avoid having the explain
the physics of sweet tea to "THIS TEA AIN'T SWEET"
rednecks as to give me the opportunity to be hit with a pie meant
for a coworker, only to have that coworker turn, laugh at me, and
get hit by a pie from another direction.
2) Collecting
medical supplies dropped by careless doctors
According to the
instruction manual, the Stooges "ride in midget cars"
down hospital hallways collecting medical supplies that have been
dropped by doctors pushing empty stretchers. The orderlies are SO
BUSY PUSHING that they don't notice how many red crosses they are
dropping, and it's a financial and ethical necessity to have all
medical personnel trailed by retards in miniature go-carts.
If "Three Stooges'" mini-game mishmash format is the
ancestor of Mario Party, then the hospital mini-game is the
ancestor of F-Zero. I swear to God the entire idea is to push up
on the D-Pad to make the Stooges go as fast as possible for about
seven or eight seconds and then have them crash into a guy on
crutches with a satisfying BASH sound effect. Then repeat. Then
you are paid money.
WTF. If television has taught me anything it's that hospitals are
full of SPONGE BATHS and OLD PEOPLE, and in this age of advanced
comedy I think it's pretty clear what direction the programmers
of "Three Stooges" should've taken.
3) Trivia about
themselves
I'm twenty-four years old right now. When I got this game I was ten. What do I know about dead men who stuck their fingers in each others eyes eighty years before I was born?
The trivia question are IMPOSSIBLE for anybody but those assholes in Three Stooges shirts where they're all dressed to play golf. What year was Curly born? What was the name of Larry's second cousin in "ALOOF ON THE ROOF?" How hard was Moe's cock in "ERECTION IN THE CONFECTION?"
90% of the questions
end up being incorrect, but the most pleasing moment in the game
has to be getting a trivia question correct. Correct answers are
accompanied by an ancient clip of Stooge Larry yelling CONGRATULATION. In the singular form. Only Moe smacking
Curly upside the head for not launching all zig for great justice
would be funnier.
4) Boxing
Okay, I'm going to try to piece together the plot of the episode
"Boxing" was based on by what I've been given in the
game.
Curly has agreed to participate in a boxing match for money because the sound of a violin makes him open up a can of stooge-ass. Larry can play the violin, so this works out well for them. Unfortunately Curly ends up in a boxing match with a GIANT BOXING GLOVE and can't get the upper hand because Larry has misplaced his violin at the end of a very long alleyway. Larry must race to the end of the alleyway, retrieve the violin, and make it back to the boxing match before brain damage sets in and Curly ends up running in a circle on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Along the way Larry trips over fire hydrants and dogs and boxes, and smashes his face into poles like four hundred fucking thousand God damn times before the ordeal is done.
5) Being
snapped by a mousetrap
For some reason Moe has placed mousetraps at strategic locations
on his own map, so that if he lands on it and snaps his finger he
must keep that finger down. If he ends up with all of his fingers
down he and his Fight Club have to go home and sleep, despite the
fact that they promised some bitch that they'd save her
orphanage. But this is all obvious.
6) Receiving an
empty threat
Land on I. Fleecem and get another one of his typed out AIM WARN
messages. "dear stooges u have just been reported so
sorry!!!!!!!!"
7) Beating the shit
out of each other
Someone has agreed to
pay the Stooges to hurt each other for money. Someone has also
agreed to give the Stooges a bonus if they can hurt each other as
quickly as possible. That person is God.
8) Finding a large
sack with a dollar sign on it in the street.
...which was
obviously dropped by a burly guy wearing a zorro mask and black
and white striped pajamas.
9) And finally, the crown jewel of "Three Stooges" for
the NES:
The cracker eating
job.
In this game Curly is participating in a contest to see who can eat the most crackers. I bet Chris Rock would be good at this game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! !!!! !! 1
The problem that
arises are oysters that live in the soup who also want to eat
crackers. Curly begins to find it increasingly difficult to eat
the crackers from his bowl before the oysters peak up from
beneath the surface like in Tremors and steal away his Body of
Christ. Every time, and yes, I mean every single time an oyster
steals a cracker the game cuts to a badly digitized picture of
Curly looking pissed, accompanied by a WOO WOO WOO sound effect.
AND THE GAME GOES ON FOREVER.
(Curly moves spoon around)
(Curly goes for a cracker)
CHOMP
WOO WOO WOO
(Curly moves spoon around)
(Curly goes for a cracker)
CHOMP
WOO WOO WOO
(Curly begins to contemplate that God might not exist)
(Curly goes for a cracker)
CHOMP
WOO WOO WOO
I hate it. I hate the cracker game so much. I haven't been able
to get WOO WOO WOO out of my head for fourteen years. I try to
think of my first love and I hear WOO WOO WOO. I try to remember
my name and I hear WOO WOO WOO. I try to listen to a Luther
Vandross song and I hear WOO WOO WOO. I try to watch a horrible
Jada Pinkett movie and I just hear one WOO, which is an
improvement, but still, the general gist of this is that I
generally want to stab my face with a general spoon until gist
comes out of my head and the selfish oysters choke on it.
So what else can be said about "Three Stooges" for the
NES?
Nothing.
