Columnist John Katsilometes: Have some luck with ‘Nyuk-Nyuk’

Monday, Feb. 21, 2000 | 8:33 a.m.

John Katsilometes is the Sun assistant features editor. His column appears Mondays. Reach him at kats@vegas.com or 259-2327.

A friend made a curious announcement the other day: "I hit three Curlys and won $60."

Such a message may carry any number of meanings. In this case it was a proclamation (confession?) that he played the new Three Stooges slot machine at Arizona Charlie's and lined up three pictures of Curly for 60 bucks.

But the reason he was all a-twitter wasn't for the monetary gain; it was because he won with the Stooges!

This machine is something to behold, adorned with a huge lighted sign of Larry, Moe and Curly. In a humiliating twist of fate, the chronically underappreciated Shemp has been omitted. The machine's pay lines are affixed with little mug shots of the Three Stooges, along with logos reading "Nyuk-Nyuk!" and "Woob! Woob! Woob!"

Figuring out the jackpot chances is as much fun as actually playing:

"Three Curlys are 240 quarters, but three Moes are only 75?"

"I have no problem with that. Curly was the funniest Stooge. What I'm wondering is why three Larrys are worth only 30 and there's no Shemp."

"Let's see, if you get three 'Woob! Woob! Woobs!' it's 240, but three 'Nyuk-Nyuks!' are worth $2,500."

"Well, if I hit the 'Nyuk-Nyuks!' you're gonna hear some serious 'Nyuk-Nyuking.' "

The advent of the Three Stooges game -- surpassing the Elvis slot machine as the city's most entertaining form of gaming -- coincides with ABC's announcement that it is planning to air a movie about the Stooges in April. Certainly (or as the Stooges would say, "SOITENLY'), in opting to allot precious network air time for the Stooge movie, ABC has painstakingly determined its target demographic audience.

Men. Oh, and boys.

Historically, Stooge fans have claimed (accurately) that all women hate the Three Stooges while all men love 'em (the reverse can be said of Martha Stewart, but I digress). Lately there has been a mild backlash among women who claim to be Stooge fans. Liars. Without a doubt these women have never taken a pipe wrench to another woman's nose, or executed the patented double-finger eye poke.

Call it a genetic quality, a symptom of the X chromosome. Or as Jay Leno so insightfully noted years ago, "All women think the Three Stooges are (expletive)-holes."

They are, of course. The Stooges' enduring quality is they were so nakedly stupid. What else can be said of a grown man wagging his hand back and forth and telling another, "Walk into this!" and having the other man actually do it?

Compare the Stooges with their comedic contemporaries. The Marx Brothers were slapstick, sure, but there was true artistic talent there (chiefly Chico's piano virtuosity and Harpo's skills on the harp). Abbott and Costello were known for lowbrow humor, but produced some genuinely inspired wit, talking in circles to tell us "Who's on First."

The Stooges? No more deft than a frying pan cracked across the skull.

We're enjoying a long-overdue Stooge resurgence, rife with the TV movie, a heavy merchandising campaign, perhaps a feature film and a new book (see accompanying story).

Here, we honor the trite trio with a slot machine. In the spirit of camaraderie, fellas, contribute a few bucks to the Stooges' heritage. You might even walk away chanting "Nyuk-Nyuk!"