The Three Stooges began as a vaudeville act in 1925. Moe Howard and a good friend of his, Ted Healy, had a wild slapstick act. Moe's brother Shemp joined one evening when Moe invited him to come up from the audience, and Larry Fine joined the group when Moe and Healy saw him in his vaudeville act and enjoyed the performance. The group finally appeared in a 1930 film called Soup to Nuts, and then Larry, Moe and Shemp decided that they would like to try to make it on their own, but Moe soon realized that they would do better back with Healy. Shemp, however, realized that not only was Healy an alcoholic, but he would double cross his partners if he felt he could get ahead by doing so. Shemp left the group to play the part of Knobby Walsh in several Joe Palooka films, and also acted in many other short subjects and several feature films. Moe's younger brother Jerome stepped in to complete the act, and soon adopted the name Curly and shaved his head in the familiar hair stlye. Not long after, Larry, Moe, and Curly decided to see what they could do by themselves and broke with Ted Healy.
A short time later, the boys signed a contract with Columbia to begin recording two-reel short subjects and adopted the name The Three Stooges. Moe, Larry and Curly recorded 97 short subjects and appeared in several full length features until 1946, when Curly had a stroke and became too ill to continue his job as a stooge. His illness worsened over the next few years, and finally he died on 1952 at the age of 49. Moe felt that Shemp was the best replacement for Curly, so Shemp joined the act again. 77 more Stooge shorts were filmed until Shemp passed away in 1955. His replacement was Joe Besser, and after Besser left, Joe DeRita. Finally, Larry became ill and could not continue his role. In 1974, Moe Howard, the driving force behind the Three Stooges, died.
My favorite short subjects with Larry, Curly and Moe are: Pop Goes the Easel, Punch Drunks, Hoi Polloi, Dizzy Doctors, Violent is the Word for Curly, Disorder in the Court, and A-Plumbing We Will Go.
Obviously, Shemp is my favorite of all the stooges. I enjoy all the short subjects that I have seen with him and my absolute favorites are: Brideless Groom, Sing a Song of Six Pants, Studio Stoops, and A Crime on their hands.