Name: Joan Howard Maurer (Moe's daughter) on Letterman, February 9, 1983
Uploaded: 2016-05-13T00:36:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joan Howard Maurer (Moe's daughter) on Letterman, February 9, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-05-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joan Howard Maurer (Moe's daughter) on Letterman, February 9, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-05-13. Transcript available.

Thank you, Paul.
I'm sure that many of us grew up watching the antics of Moe, Larry, and Curly,
of course, better known as the Three Stooges.
My next guest also grew up with the Stooges.
Her story is a bit more personal.
She is the daughter of Moe Howard, of Moe, of the Stooge,
and the author of this book, which is entitled The Three Stooges Scrapbook.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Joan Howard Maurer.
This is very exciting and interesting for me and to me, or however you would
say that.
As a young girl, what was it like to have, as a parent, a Stooge?
Well, at first, you know, when people would ask me the same question,
I used to say, perfectly normal.
We ate our pie at home. We didn't throw it.
But then I started to think about it.
It really isn't that normal because I can say,
and maybe we would make the Guinness Book of Records,
my father on the Mike Douglas show threw a pie at my mother.
My mother on the Mike Douglas show threw a pie at my father.
And about six months ago, I threw a pie on the Bob Braun show at a man by the,
some music director, in a way.
And next week on AMLA, I'm going to throw a pie at my husband.
I hope I'll be married until next week.
That's all very bizarre, but I guess, considering your heritage, it makes sense,
doesn't it?
Right.
But now, as a kid, in seriousness, were you proud that your father was one of
the Three Stooges?
I have to say, not really.
I was proud of him, but it was, I really wanted to fit in with the crowd.
I really didn't want to let anyone know.
I didn't lie.
If they asked me who he was, I'd tell them.
Did you have other brothers and sisters?
Yeah, I had a brother, Paul.
How did he feel about it?
Well, his, I just found this out about six months ago.
He lied.
They'd ask him who his father was, and he'd say he was a meter reader for the
gas company.
Now, tell me about Moe at home.
He was the guy who was kind of the heavy, the ringleader of the group.
Was he bizarre and crazy at home also?
No, very serious.
Very loving father.
Had difficulty demonstrating his love with hugs and kisses, but he would go off
on, he'd
go off on trips on his personal appearance tours, and he'd come back with suitcases
loaded
with presents for us, and that's the way he demonstrated his love.
Yeah, was it ever awkward when you were dating to bring home a guy that you
liked and suddenly
discovered that your father was one of them?
It's funny that you say that, because I remember one day, I came home with a
friend from school,
and my father loved to garden, and he would garden in just a pair of jeans with
no top,
and he had a bit of a potbelly, and he wound up, anyway, the friend came home,
and they
said, who's that potbellied gardener?
They didn't know it was my dad.
Yeah, this is Moe, Moe.
This is a great picture, by the way.
Oh, this is you in the middle of the Stooges.
Right.
Mugging like my father.
Yeah.
Now, just go from left to right or right to left, and explain who these guys
are and how
they're related and so on.
My father.
This is Moe, right there.
Okay.
Larry.
His hair is entousel, so that's why he looks a little different, and Curly, who
was my
uncle.
There was no relation to Larry.
And it looks like he has a hair there, Curly, though.
They didn't slice it off yet.
No, it might have been certain periods where he got married.
He liked to look nice for his wife, so he let his hair grow.
Now, Larry was not a relative.
No.
Just a friend.
Okay, we're going to take a look at, I guess, some random home movies.
Right.
Tell us who took them, and these don't have sound on them.
It was sort of like Citizen Kane, my father produced, directed, wrote, starred
in these
things, but I had a part, and they were from the 30s.
Okay, and this is obviously silent footage?
Silent, black and white footage from the 1930s.
The Three Stooges relaxing at home, ladies and gentlemen.
That was me, relaxing at home.
You can see my hair is the same.
Yeah.
You look confused.
That's Mort, that's Shemp's son.
Shemp was also a brother of the Howard's.
Right, there's Shemp, Shemp Howard from the, and that's in Hollywood, the Westlake
Park,
which is now called MacArthur Park.
That's Paramount.
The first time their names were in lights.
And that's the top of the theater when they were, they did, oh my dad, somebody
cut his
head off.
Yeah.
He was in costume for a thing called Night in Venice.
And there's Larry.
I have a feeling he's not working today.
He must have come from the track.
That was Larry dressed up like a banker?
Now there's Shemp.
We worked out little vignettes, little short stories.
Why you?
Some or other, our home movies always came out looking like stooge comedies.
Yeah.
An old 30s Packard.
Boy, that would be worth a lot.
That's a beautiful car.
Right.
And there's a scene.
Dad worked out the story.
We're teasing him.
He's supposed to be sleeping.
And there, this is also in the Hollywood area.
I think somewhere near Hobart Street.
Well, we're fixing him up.
He must have loved that.
Didn't he?
He planned the whole thing.
And this again is, this is Shemp, right?
Right.
Yeah.
And let me.
Oh, yeah, there's Dad again.
And any minute, I think the ladies are going to come.
Those will be the wives.
Well, maybe not.
That was his first check.
And there they are.
They're on their way in 1939.
This is an actual trip?
To England.
Yeah, this is, they're on their way actually to do the provinces in England.
But they were actually on the Queen Mary.
Right, actually on the Queen Mary.
The Three Stooges and the Queen Mary.
Right.
And they're just relaxing there.
Now, this is Dublin Zoo, or the London Zoo.
I'm not quite sure which one.
Also in the provinces in England.
And there was this one.
Now, which one is Moe?
Well, that's what I was going to say.
Dad's on the right.
And the.
Curly loved animals.
And in a minute you'll see, there's one he didn't love.
Take a look.
And this is the film that should have been cut.
That was the band part.
That's the part that's supposed to be cut out.
That's very nice.
Tell me about Curly.
He was the baby brother of the family?
Right, five sons.
And what kind of person was he?
Very quiet.
Not a very happy man.
Oh, really?
He died very young.
Yeah.
We won't keep that sad note, but he was marvelous on film.
My husband felt that he was really a genius,
and so did my father feel that way at pantomime.
Well, he seemed to be, they were all funny, of course,
but he seemed to be the one who was the real innovator.
Mole was, he had his part to play,
but Curly came up with a lot of stuff that is classic stuff.
Very innovative.
The noises, I wish I knew how to do those things,
like nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.
Now, we have, I believe, some film now of,
this would be Curly's wedding.
Wedding, right.
About the 1937 or eight.
Okay.
All right, we'll take a look at that.
Curly being married and probably the hot invitation of the day.
And there he is waiting for his second wife, Elaine Ackerman.
Her name was prior to her marriage.
And there's Shemp.
He's also waiting.
There's some question now that she...
That's my grandfather, the father of all five sons.
The father of the Stooges.
Of three Stooges.
Not Larry, though.
Larry is a little late as usual.
Larry looks great, doesn't he?
Doesn't he look terrific?
Yeah.
My dad.
Why you.
He must have been about 39 there.
All of them were in that age group, 38, 39.
And he...
My grandfather was rather...
He would smile, but when you see...
There's the bride.
That's Elaine.
Oh, boy.
It's kind of a hot ticket, isn't she?
Right.
She's a lovely lady.
There I am.
I guess I'm mugging it like my father.
And that's my mother on the right.
That hat is doing something.
She looked like she was frightened by a Playboy bunny.
That's my grandmother.
Muggy.
That's great.
That's terrific.
I wish we had more time to talk about each of the guys, your uncles.
You had a Stooge for a father and two Stooge uncles.
Right.
What about stuff like that?
Where did that come from?
Was that written or improvised?
Yeah, it was funny that you say that.
I think it happened at one of those houses on the film that we just saw.
But one day, Shemp and Larry were playing cards.
And they got into a terrible fight.
And Shemp got angry.
He was not a...
He usually didn't show his anger.
But he took the fingers and he went like this right into Larry's forehead.
My father got so hysterical that he fell over backwards through a French door.
And he was hurt a little.
He was cut up a bit.
But the next day, he said, in the middle of the act,
they were doing a personal appearance to ours.
He said, that was so funny.
He says, let's try that in the act.
And that's how that evolved.
Now, how popular were the Stooges as an act before they started showing up on
television?
Or was that when they really got hot?
It really did.
They were seen all over the world after that.
They were always popular.
But the films were originally an adult product for theatricals at night.
And during the day, the children's matinees.
But they would come out so seldom.
In other words, a short would be shot and you would maybe come out one every
three, four months.
We're on television every single day.
And still on worldwide, I'm guessing.
Right.
Did these guys do well for themselves?
They looked very prosperous in these films.
They did fine.
Columbia Studio did a lot better because they did not share in any of those old
shorts at all.
This is a terrific film and it was a pleasure meeting you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for having me.
Gillian Howard-Morer, ladies and gentlemen.
The daughter of Moe Howard.
We'll be right back with Andy Breckham.
Very nice.
Thank you.
Thank you.