The Three Stooges will make a triumphant return to the big screen as animated characters. Animation house Titmouse will produce 52 eleven minute segments featuring the classic Stooges in a new series of misadventures. The stories will focus primarily on their physical, visual slapstick sense of humor and have limited dialogue, which will be more appealing to foreign audiences and multiple platforms.
Christy Karacas, co-creator of Adult Swim’s Superjail!, created the animatic (creating and amending a storyboard to save on production costs) for the pilot and will direct.
The new animated series will use the original, iconic stooges Moe, Larry and Curly, which seem to be very popular in the animation community. The show’s goal is to attract top creators in the field to direct and bring their own take to the characters.
The Three Stooges began as an American vaudeville comedy act in the late 1920s. They went on to work for Columbia Pictures making short subject films in the 30s up until 1957 when they were unceremoniously dismissed from the studio. The popularity of television led to the syndication of most of their films where it found a new audience and the Stooges popularity became bigger than ever.
In 2012, the Farrelly brothers revived the Stooges in a live-action comedy film starring Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe,) Sean Hayes (Larry) and Will Sasso (Curly.)
Titmouse president Chris Prynoski had this to say about the new animated series.
“I grew up watching The Three Stooges with my father. When I signed on to helm this new show, I made a blood oath to my Dad that I would treat the Stooges brand like it was a newborn baby Fabergé egg. With the cartoon making team we have lined up at Titmouse, it’s sure to be the most batty, bananas, insanely giggle-inducing version of the Three Stooges your eyeballs and brainhole have ever experienced. Dad, I won’t let you down!”
Prynoski will executive produce with C3‘s Earl and Robert Benjamin, the owners of the Stooge estate and brand, as well as London-based family entertainment firm Cake‘s Tom van Waveren and Edward Galton. Pablo Velez and Stephen Christy will serve as producers on the series.
To date, over 220 films have been made featuring the Stooges. Also, this is not the first time The Three Stooges have been given the animation treatment: The New Three Stooges aired from 1965-1973, The Robonic Stooges aired from September of 1977 to March of 1978, and they appeared as animated guests in two of The New Scooby-Doo Movies in the early 70s.
Sources: thehollywoodreporter, wikipedia, IMDb