May 5, 1934: Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! Woo, woo, woo!

Listen you woman haters: we meet for the seventh time,
to convince each member of the club that romance in a crime!

And joining this meeting – in verse, of course – were three newcomers: Larry, Moe, and Curly, together for the first time on screen in the short Woman Haters, released on this day in 1934.

The vaudeville troupe had evolved over the years. In the 1920s, Larry Fine and Moe Howard, along with Moe’s brother Shemp, had been “Stooges” in a group led by comedian Ted Healy. The four released a film called Soup to Nuts, written by Rube Goldberg (of bizarre contraption fame).

(Note: A “stooge” was someone planted in the audience to provide fodder for the comedian – usually at the stooge’s expense.)

Shemp went off on his own, and younger brother Jerome – known as “Curly” – came aboard; the Stooges later severed ties with Healy after a contract dispute. (Shemp would return in 1946 after Curly suffered a debilitating stroke.)

After the wild success of Woman Haters, the trio signed a contract with Columbia Pictures for a combined $7,500 per short – six figures in today’s money. Although they would end up making 190 shorts over 23 years, they never got a raise, because the studio somehow kept them in the dark as to how popular they were.

For more on The Three Stooges, particularly some of the ugly things that allegedly happened behind the scenes, read this article from Empire magazine.