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Flying Saucer Daffy is the one-hundred-eighty-seventh Columbia Pictures short subject starring the Three Stooges.

Plot[]

Joe's accidental snapshot of a paper plate blown by a breeze and is mistaken for a picture of a UFO. Moe and Larry, however, take the credit for the photo and are paid a huge sum. Moe and Larry have a big party-but do not neglect Joe who ends up as a servant! Angered, Joe leaves the boys for a camping trip, only to meet two genuine and beautiful aliens from Planet Zircon who allow Joe to photograph them. Moe and Larry end up arrested when their UFO picture is revealed to be a fraud. They are put in straitjackets and incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital whilst Joe becomes a ticker tape parade hero!

The short has a Cinderella theme with Joe being persecuted by not only his cousins Moe and Larry, but also Moe and Larry's bad tempered and uncouth mother (Gail Bonney) who never appeared in any other short.

Cast[]

End of an era[]

Though Flying Saucer Daffy was not the last short subject released by the Stooges (that honor goes to Sappy Bull Fighters), it was the last one produced. Filming took place on December 19–20, 1957. Several days later, the Stooges were unceremoniously fired from Columbia Pictures after 24 years making low-budget shorts. Joan Howard Maurer, daughter of Moe Howard, wrote the following in 1982:

“The boys' careers had suddenly come to an end. They were at Columbia one day and gone the next—no 'Thank yous,' no farewell party for their 24 years of dedication and service and the dollars their comedies had reaped for the studio."

Moe Howard recalled that a few weeks after their exit from Columbia, he drove to the studio to say goodbye to several studio executives when he was stopped by a guard at the gate (obviously, not a Stooges fan) and, since he did not have the current year's studio pass, was refused entry. For the moment, it was a crushing blow.

Notes[]

  • Flying Saucer Daffy adapted the same concept of a Cinderella story.
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