13 FAMOUS TRIOS IN THE HISTORY OF ENTERTAINMENT

Been watching a lot of Three Stooges lately, and I watched most of the latest round of the Republican debates a couple of nights ago, and it made me start thinking of other famous trios in entertainment history, and this is basically what I came up with in no time at all! Welcome to the Saturday Night Special version of The Dungeon!

Despite all the heavy hitters on this list, I personally think that Larry, Moe, and Curly, the Three Stooges, are the undisputed champions of the trio!

Musically in the trio department, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker collectively known as Cream, are hard to beat!

For fun in the movies, the trio of Dan Akyroyd, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis in "Ghostbusters" remains supreme!

 Lord knows Alvin and the Chipmunks ruled the the airwaves for a time in the 60's, and have resurged a couple of times since!

Folk trios used to be pretty common, but Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey, and Mary Travers collectively known as Peter, Paul, and Mary were one of the best, and had some great success with songs like "Leaving On A Jet Plane" in the 60's!

In my humble opinion, the first power trio was Blue Cheer! While everybody else in the bay area was making trippy hippie music, Dickie Peterson on bass and vocals, Leigh Stephens on guitar, and drummer Eric Albronda were knocking out some of the heaviest music of the time!

Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx were like the more intelligent version of The Three Stooges! They were still goofier than Hell, but without all the slapstick physical violence!

I've always had a soft spot in my heart and head for Charlie's Angels! In the 70's, Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith were always fun to watch no matter how insipidly stupid the shows were!

I need to teach a history course, because it's truly sad that a major portion of the population today doesn't even know who The Andrews Sisters were despite the fact that Patty, Maxene, and La Verne had more top ten hits than either Elvis or The Beatles!

"¡Three Amigos!"
 Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short do the best version of the Mexican Three Stooges in 1986!

John Stewart, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds, better known as The Kingston Trio were one of the major forces that pushed folk music into the limelight in the 50's and 60's! I literally wore out my copy of  "The Best Of The Kingston Trio," and I could probably still sing all the lyrics to every song if I was asked to, and I still have nightmares about being in a "Tijuana Jail!"

Why did I choose Z Z Top instead of The Jimi Hendrix Experience to be on this list? There's only one reason, this picture is ridiculous!

Back where we started with The Three Stooges! In the debate two nights ago, these three did everything but gouge each other's eyes, pull each other's hair, and bonk each other's heads! I guess that's probably not scheduled until the sequel, but I have no doubt that some day it will happen!
Buckle up kiddies, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

PIRANHA / Piranha Productions, New World Pictures - 1978

Time for a pretty good little flick from Roger Corman, filmed in LA and Texas, all about flesh-eating piranhas that are accidently released into the lakes surrounding a summer resort. It follows that the guests become their next meal.

I have a nice sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our cracked fish tank, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's... PIRANHA!

Keenan Wynn plays Jack, local booze hound, he makes liquor deliveries to his pals using a little radio flyer wagon, one of my favorite toys back in 1950!

Bradford Dillman plays our hero Paul Grogan, he hooks up with Heather Menzies as Maggie McKeown to investigate the weird shit going on in local rivers.

At a hidden government lab, Paul and Maggie discover freak animals being developed. There's even a stop motion animated mini monster loose in the room.

Jack likes to drink and go fishing with his pooch, you can hear him slur his words in the sound clip just before he gets it.

It doesn't end there, this fisherman end up on the wrong side of the food chain.

Kevin McCarthy plays Dr. Hoak, he's responsible for developing the mutant piranhas. Payback is a big old mean biting bitch! Kevin died in 2010 at age 96!!!

Then, pretty Barbara Steele shows up as Dr. Mengers, she works for the military.

Things get interesting at the kids' summer camp when the little critters mount an attack!

Here are two fun shots of some of the crazy action going on because of the deadly piranhas.

The only way to stop the little monsters is to open the valve of poison that is located in a submerged building. Paul is attached to a rope and has to be quickly pulled out by Maggie with her motor boat. Will it work?!

Dungeon Hero Dick Miller plays local big wig, Buck Gardner. He planned the event even after being warned of the potential danger.

Obviously, this blond dude didn't make it, now, he's just a tenderized brisket!

The good news is that Paul survives the ordeal, barely!..

And, for the halibut, this is my surf tune from 1988, Eegah!! does some drum taps to boot. Here's... PIRANHA!

NERTZERY RHYME'S - Howard, Fine, and Howard (1933)

 Well, I've developed a new found interest in The Three Stooges, and it made me realize I didn't really know what their very first appearance was, but I'll tell you one thing, I wasn't ready for this!

Welcome to The Dungeon!

  Ted Healy was a vaudeville comic who in 1923 developed an act called "Ted Healy & His Stooges!" Some time later, the Horwitz brothers and Mr. Feinberg split off on their own, to become "The Three Stooges." In the 1930s, Ted Healy was the highest paid comic in the country, making $30,000 per week, but he only paid the stooges a paltry $33.00 each during the same time. Ted was a notorious alcoholic, and the night of his death, he started a bar room fight, and never regained consciousness! He was only 41 at the time!

Ted has the starring role as the Father, and The Stooges are his three sons! In case you wondered how they made Ted look so much bigger than the boys, it's really quite simple! The Three Stooges were very short little guys! Curly was the tallest of these three at 5' 5", Larry was only 5' 4", and Moe was really small at 5' 3 1/2" tall!

 It's just freakin' weird! "Tell us a bedtime story Papa!"

 Bonnie (Beer And Pretzels) Bonnell) has the role of the hot Good Fairy!

 The children look like they'd be more interested in the Bad Fairy!

Why don't we ever hear about the Bad Fairies?

 You know, throughout history, there were actually a lot of Bad Fairies in the world like Leanhaum-Shee, Gan Ceanach, Bendith Y Mamau, Bannik, Fachan, Sluagh, Berberoka, Red Cap, Ankou, and The Storm Hag, but folklore has just chose to ignore the evil side for some reason! If you'd like a better view of the darkside, you can find the fascinating stories of all these Bad Fairies right HERE!

Ted Healy didn't really like Jerome (Curly) Horwitz, so after Shemp left the act, Ted said he'd let Curly have the role if he shaved his head, thinking that he wouldn't do it, but he did! All the head bonking and eye poking all goes back to that original vaudevillian act!

 That was pretty much all just the introduction to this archive footage of a full scale song and dance production!

 The two gals doing the splits were pretty interesting!

 It's just one giant human peacock musical and this is just the first number! The next act is about The Woman In The Shoe, and is a quite the peppy little tune performed by The Rounders with Ethelind Terry that you can check out right HERE!

Good Night All!! Sweet Dreams!!!

ATOMIC WAR BRIDE / Jadran Film - 1960

We finally took the advice from pal Greg Goodsell in 2007 when he suggested that we review this here movie from Yugoslavia. The story's about John and Maria, as a war starts, planes fly overhead and the bombs start dropping. John is mobilized by the military minutes after the marriage ceremony, then, he and Maria are reunited just as an atomic bomb decimates their country.

I have a sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our Atomic M-80, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's a sample from... ATOMIC WAR BRIDE!

War has been declared and the military goes into the streets to pass out plastic suits to protect the civilians from radiation. You can hear the instructions being given on how to put the damn thing on in the sound clip.

John's suit is defective but there are no more to hand out. I remember in high school Algebra class in 1964, our teacher, Mr. Ward, replied to a student who thought their grade should have been higher. He said... Well, you know what they say in Russia, that's tough!

So, John has to go hide behind trash cans in an alley to feel half way safe!

I just had to show this photo because there's a beautiful 1957 Oldsmobile in the shot.

An interesting contrast shot with a woman questioning a soldier in fully weird looking war gear.

Bombs start falling at John and Maria's wedding, not a good start for a honeymoon.

John is drafted immediately and joins his pals to play war. An important exercise is to train the trigger finger to work properly!

The political leaders show the country that they have launched an A-Bomb against the enemy.

And, guess what the enemy does?!

Tit for tat, that's what the Bible sez... John and Maria head off into the big mess to see what they can see. That is one wasted V-Dub there!

Well, the worst ending ever... Maria dies in John's arms, end of story. Great. Join us Wednesday when the busiest dude in the universe brings us another cool post.