Joan Howard Maurer

The Three Stooges Scrapbook is both a biography of the Three Stooges and a summary of the Three Stooges phenomenon. It is provided in three parts, the first provides a history of each of the stooges, Healy, their manager, and a summary. The second part talks about the marketing, all the gadgets, comics, cartoons, and spin off/copycat acts. The last part is a summary of the films, both short and feature length. Each of the three sections is roughly 100 pages.

Having been a fan since I can remember, I really wanted to enjoy the book more, and I expected more out of it. I can summarize my issues into two areas.

First, the writing was poor. I felt at times I was reading a bulleted list of events through the lives of the various individuals than a biography. The writing had very little emotional content, and felt like a lecture given by someone just working to get through it.

Second was the repeated information. The biography section of the book follows each individual in his own chapter. These chapters, eight in all (Healy, six stooges, and a summary) had a lot of overlap. Each time, the same information was provided again.

Because of the duplicated information, each of the biographies does stand well on its own. The biographies are very complete (at least beyond my own knowledge) and provide a wealth of information on the individuals.

I found the second section very interesting, as I have always been interested in gadgets and collectables. I was disappointed that almost half of this section was devoted to comic books, and felt that there must be more variety in the toys and knick-knacks.

The last section provides a complete list of their videos, including release dates and synopses. This section includes films including non-stooge roles and cameos. I did enjoy the poster and film shots included.

Overall, I found the book difficult to read, but containing good information. It will be a good reference book for my library.
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