What was playing at the Tivoli on Labor Day 1963?

On Sept. 2, 1963 it was none other than The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze playing at Lorain's Tivoli theater on Broadway. The other half of the 'big holiday program' was 13 Frightened Girls (a William Castle Production).


Here's the trailer for 13 Frightened Girls. Actually, it looks pretty good!

As for the Stooges, this was one of the features that was produced to cash in on their newfound TV popularity after their long-running Columbia short subject series had ended. Comedian Joe DeRita was pressed into service as the 'third stooge' for these movies (since Curly and Shemp were dead, and the last stooge from the series – Joe Besser – wasn't available).

In these movies, DeRita was known as 'Curly Joe,' which sounded right since he kind of looked like the original Curly. But I don't think any kids were fooled.

Although I don't remember seeing any of these 1960's Stooges efforts at the theater, I'm sure I saw some of them on one of those all-day TV extravaganzas for kids that used to take place on the day after Thanksgiving. (The cartoons started early Friday and ran until the afternoon, when movies such as this or some crappy cartoon feature like Gay Purr-ee was shown.

Anyway, here's a short sample of the 1960's Stooge chemistry in The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze.

One last note – I noticed that Moe, Curly Joe and Larry have kind of strange expressions on their faces in the Tivoli ad. Then I found this small, similar color version (below).

It sure looks like the black and white ad is the optional (and poorly retouched) 'happy expression' version of the color ad!