Post #437201 by 8FT Tiki on Sun, Mar 1, 2009 3:20 PM

I don't often revive really old threads...especially ones that never took off in the first place but hey there are a lot more registered tc'ers since this originally was posted.
I found this one by doing a search because I wondered if anyone else had seen the tiki in the stooges show.

Here, courtesy of a youtube video (because my vhs tape of the episode was too grainy) is the rarotongan tiki mentioned in the above post.

Now maybe this will be interesting to someone besides moi.
Or should I say moai!

The tiki I found while watching a tape of old 3 Stooges shorts isn't the one above!
It is in a different episode with Joe Besser as the third stooge. I know Curly is the favorite and then Shemp second, and Joe a very distant last place in popularity as far as the third stooge role goes. I have nearly every one of the 190 episodes on tape. But I guess I never watched this Joe episode too closely because suddenly, the last thing I expected to see was a TIKI. In a stooges episode! I have been a stooge fan since I could talk but I never noticed this before. In episode #182 "Outer Space Jitters" released on December 5, 1959, The boys land on the planet Sunev (Venus spelled backward). On a credenza behind them in a scene with the leader of the planet, is a white moai approximately 18" tall. The stooges usually filmed their shorts in a couple of days or so and often took advantage of existing sets from other movies and shows that were filmed at Columbia studios. Therefore, maybe someone will recognize these tikis from other Columbia films. Here is the Moai just before the Stooges throw their hats on the table. One hat lands on top of the moai. Any film detectives among us?