Flat Foot Stooges is the 35th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.
Plot
The trio once again play firemen (see False Alarms) at an engine company that still employs horse-powered engines. After sleazy salesman Mr. Reardon (Dick Curtis) fails to convince Fire Chief Kelly (Chester Conklin) that horse-powered engines are on the way out, he tries to sabotage the firehouse by committing arson. He drops a can of gunpowder into the old-fashioned pump boiler and the chief's daughter sees him. Reardon does not know that the can has a leak, and a duck has been eating the spilled gunpowder. The duck alights on a window ledge in the station and lays an egg, which falls to the floor and explodes like a hand grenade, starting a fire. Realizing too late that the blaze is coming from their own fire station, the Stooges manage to arrive just in time to save the chief's daughter (Lola Jensen) from the flames.
"Wrong Way" Corrigan
Upon realizing they are heading in the wrong direction, Curly quips "Hey, we're doing the Corrigan!", a reference to aviator Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
Corrigan had recently returned from a transcontinental flight from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York to Long Beach, California. Instead of returning to New York, he bypassed it, and headed to Ireland.
Flubs
A rarity among Stooge shorts, the boys are shown flubbing their lines a few times here:
- While explaining his invention, Curly says, "The horses fall on the harness", looks confused, then says "Ah – the harness falls on the horses."
- In a more obvious error, Moe asks Curly, "Whaddya expect a fire mouse – I mean, uh - firehouse mouse to smell like? A petunia?" Curly tries to respond, only to be silenced by Moe and merely mutters, "It's, you know...", as though he is confused from Moe's line, possibly even waiting for the director to cut.
- While Moe and Larry are giving Annie the horse a massage, Moe tells Larry to put "a little more pressure on his left vertebrae", though Annie is actually a female.
- Moe also has an odd exchange with Larry where he appears to forget the name of the firehouse dog, though the exchange may have been intentional:
- Moe: "Go get 'what's his name'.
- Larry: "Who?"
- Moe: "What IS his name??"
- Larry: "Butch?"
- Moe: "Yeah, Butch..."
Notes
- The title is a pun on the jazz song "Flat Foot Floogie", which had been released earlier in 1938.
- Moe accidentally alternates between calling Fannie the horse "him" and "her" during the horse's massage at the turkish bath.
- This is the first short to use "Three Blind Mice" as the Stooges' theme music, this first composition/arrangement version is by Leigh Harline and Ben Oakland