The Three Stooges/Recap/Men in Black
Calling Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard!
In their third short, Men in Black, The Three Stooges play medical school graduates whose only credentials are that they had the highest temperatures in their class. They are hired as doctors at the "Los Arms Hospital" only because they have been in their senior class for too many years. The new graduates at the hospital are warned by the superintendent that three of them (the Stooges) are "not overly bright," but that their identities will be concealed as long as they promise to devote their lives to "the glorious cause of duty and humanity", which prompts the three to step forward and thank him profusely for not letting their identities be known. The rest of the short consists of a series of skits in which the Stooges go from one patient to the next, making mistakes ranging from drinking a patient's medicine to sewing their tools inside a man on the operating table.
The short marked the only time the Stooges were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject - Comedy.
Tropes:
- Face Fault: Inverted: they fall backwards.
- It Won't Turn Off: The loud speaker, even after the stooges destroy it.
- Open-Heart Dentistry
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: Moe's names for the surgical tools.
- Running Gag: The Stooges come out of the storage room with different vehicles every time.
- Also, breaking the glass in Dr. Graves' door.
- And of course: "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!"
- Tap on the Head: For once though it actually doesn't work on the doctor they try it on. It later works on Dr. Graves, however.
- Why Are We Whispering?: While operating on Dr.Graves. The nurse's reason for whispering is that she lost her voice asking for a raise.