Kook's Tour is the title of an American short comedy film produced in late 1969 and early 1970. It was the final film to star the Three Stooges. The name is a pun on the term "Cook's Tour", which was popularized by the Thomas Cook travel company. Kook's Tour is the last three Stooges, film ever produced.
Summary
Kook's Tour was conceived by Moe Howard's son-in-law, frequent Three Stooges collaborator Norman Maurer, as a weekly television series that would have mixed the Stooges' brand of farce comedy with a documentary travelogue format. The concept of the series was that, after 50 years of comic mayhem, the Stooges (Moe, Larry Fine, and Curly Joe DeRita) have retired and are traveling the world with their dog, Moose, motor home and motor boat (which is transported from place to place via a cargo plane). The 50-minute pilot film for the series saw the Stooges exploring the wilderness of the western United States, including areas of Wyoming and Idaho. In the meantime, Larry keeps getting subbed when he attempts to catch a fish. At the end of the pilot Larry, in frustration for not catching any fish, throws his hat into the lake and fish bite on the hooks attached to the hat. When Curly-Joe pulls the hat out of the water, Larry gets excited that he caught some fish. Curly-Joe counts the fish and says, "One for me, one for Moe, and one for....Moose!"
Notes
- On January 9, 1970, before the filming was finished, Larry Fine suffered a severe stroke, paralyzing the left side of his body. When it became clear that Fine was not expected to recover fully from the stroke, production of the series was canceled and the Kook's Tour pilot film was shelved.
- The film remained unreleased for several years until Maurer arranged for it to be released to the Super 8 home movie market in the mid-1970s. When Super 8 was replaced by VHS, Kook's Tour disappeared from sight, later to reappear on DVD.
- At the end of Kook's Tour, Moe stated that the second episode (ultimately never produced) would have taken place in Japan. That episode happended in the 2009 revival of the "New Three Stooges" cartoon show featuring Moe, Curly and Larry learning how to be samurais.
- Following Larry's stroke and the cancellation of Kook's Tour, several attempts were made to revive the Stooges (with Emil Sitka replacing Larry), but no further films were produced before Larry's and Moe's deaths in 1975.