Kook's Tour
In their last project together, a failed TV pilot previously seen only by hardcore collectors, the Three Stooges don't look so good. The definition of barrel-scraping, this repackaging of Kook's Tour comes with a prefatory scrawl, underscored with cheerful music, that the 1970 film was complicated by Larry Fine's "debilitating stroke." That pretty much sets the tone for Kook's Tour. Looking mighty sleepy, Fine joins Moe Howard and the corpulent, unfortunate Curly Joe for low-key, travelogue-style adventures that find the ostensibly retired comedians enjoying each other's company, Stooge style, while touring America's national parks and fishing hot spots. Joined by their dog Moose, who has at least as much screen time as the Stooges themselves, Kook's Tour finds the death-ready troupe gamely attempting to go through the paces, falling into lakes and crashing scooters, slowly, while helpfully pointing out numerous landmarks. Occasionally, Howard's eyes will flash with comic malevolence, but that serves only as a grim reminder of the trio's past glories, and an even more grim reminder that death and decay will eventually claim us all. "It was really funny, and yet it was sad," Howard remarks at one point of Fine's inability to catch a fish. Not funny, just sad, Kook's Tour is enough to make you regret being alive.