The Yoke's on Me

Infobox Film
name = The Yoke's on Me


caption =
director = Jules White
writer = Clyde Bruckman
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Robert McKenzie
Eva McKenzie
Emmett Lynn
Al Thompson
Victor Travers
cinematography = Glen Gano |
editing = Charles Hochberg
producer = Jules White
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = May 26, 1944
runtime = 16' 08"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:138082
imdb_id = 0037474
preceded_by = "Busy Buddies"
followed_by = "Idle Roomers"

"The Yoke's on Me" is the 79th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.

Plot

The Stooges try to join the army but are labeled 4-F by the draft board due to Curly having water on the knee. When they decide to vacation until a job comes along, their father (Robert McKenzie) insists they aid the war effort instead by becoming farmers. Inspired, the trio sell their dilapidated car and buy an equally dilapidated farm. The farm contains no livestock except for one ostrich, which Curly feeds some gunpowder to. The boys then spot some pumpkins and decide to carve and sell them.

In the interim, several Japanese refugees escape a prison camp (known during World War II as 'relocation centers'), and work their way onto the Stooges' farm. Curly is the first to notice some suspicious activity (one of the refugees place the carved pumpkin on his head, spooking Curly). Eventually, Moe and Larry believe him, and realize that the farm is surrounded by the Japanese. Curly then throws an ostrich egg (laden with digested gunpowder) at the refugees, killing them.

Wartime Propaganda

During World War II, the Stooges made a few comedies that engaged in propaganda against on the then-enemy Japanese, including "Spook Louder", "Booby Dupes" and "The Yoke's on Me", which no longer reflect America's official relationship with Japan. While well intentioned at the time, these films can be uncomfortable to view today.

"The Yoke's on Me" was especially singled out by modern critics. It has been blacklisted from the Stooges' television syndication package, and is rarely seen today. Author Jon Solomon has said, "no Stooge film so profoundly disturbs modern viewers as this one."cite book
last = Solomon
first = Jon
authorlink = Jon Solomon
coauthors =
title = "The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion"
publisher = Comedy III Productions, Inc
date = 2002
location =
pages = 246
id =
isbn = 0971186804] Author Michael Fleming put it more bluntly: "Knowing what we do now about how Japanese-born American citizens were mistreated and stripped of their belongings in relocations centers makes this as funny as a train wreck." [Fleming, Michael (1999). "The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons", p. 208, Broadway Publishing. ISBN 0767905567 ]

Notes

*The title "The Yoke's on Me" is a pun on the expression "the joke's on me", along with the egg theme.

ee also

* Japanese American internment
* Internment

References

Further reading

*"Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; by Moe Howard, ISBN 978-0806507231 (Citadel Press, 1977).
*"The Three Stooges Scrapbook"; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg, ISBN 978-0806509464 (Citadel Press, 1994).
*"One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures"; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry, ISBN 978-1581823639 (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).