Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Moe Howard, his kid brother Curly, and Larry Fine, a popular vaudeville/movie comedy team, had recently split up with their former boss, a mediocre comedian named Ted Healy. "Ted Healey and his Stooges" had made a handful of very forgettable comedy shorts for MGM in 1933. The Stooges and Healy also made a few feature films during their brief stint at MGM, most notably a musical called Dancing Lady starring Clark Gable and Joan Crawford. Dancing Lady was also the film debut of a young dancer named Fred Astaire.

After the split with Healy, Curly and Larry were both worried, but Moe, always the group's leader, reassured them. "Look," Moe told his partners, "Let's call ourselves the Three Stooges and go out on our own."

Moe managed to wrangle a contract with Columbia Studios in March of 1934. The first verifiable Three Stooges contract called for a $1,000 fee to be paid to the threesome for one short film, with the option for eight additional shorts at the same salary. Equal partners, the Stooges split their salary in equal portions.

On May 5, 1934, the first Three Stooges short was released. It was titled Woman Haters. This short did not have the legendary opening Three Stooges banner on it at the time. The next short, Punch Drunks, was actually their first "official" short, billing Moe, Larry, and Curly as "The Three Stooges" for the first time. Woman Haters, upon its release for television, would have the Three Stooges introduction banner added to it.

Billed as a "musical novelty," not a comedy, this strange short is unlike any other film the Stooges would ever appear in. The plot involves three best friends getting together and swearing off women for life. To insure they can do this, they join a club called The Woman Haters Club. Also unlike future Stooge shorts, the boys each assume a real name: Moe is "Tommy," Larry is "Jim," and Curly plays "Jackie." In almost every other Stooges short, they go by their own names: Moe, Larry, and Curly, and play essentially themselves, just three bumbling idiots.

Strangely, the film's dialogue is recited completely in rhyme! For example, at one point, Larry sings, "Either rain or shine, I'll meet youse on the train/ and now I'll tell the lady I'll never see her again.

For the first and only time in his movie career as a Stooge, Larry Fine, the middle Stooge, takes on the starring role, a romantic lead yet! Larry (Jim) falls for a very pretty, petite, platinum blonde and agrees to marry her (albeit under duress). The marriage upsets Jackie and Tom (Curly and Moe), and they go on a train, following the couple, and try to break the marriage off.