TeeHeeLawrence
TMF Expert
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2003
- Messages
- 460
- Points
- 0
***Gentle caveat: There is considerable M/F foot (virtually all nylon, with a wee bit o'bare) tickling herein, but pursuing it may tax the patience of readers who don't find the Three Stooges and their slaphappy brand of humor as amusing as I do. A chacun son gout!
We briefly cue a torch-bearing honey in a toga over the COLUMBIA PICTURES logo and theme.
Now, imagine, if you will, that you hear a jaunty rendition of "Three Blind Mice" as the opening credits unspool...
"Slaps and Tickles" 
a two-reel slapstickler <br>starring The Three Stooges <br>(as portrayed circa 1950 by Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard)
affectionately written and directed by Tee Hee Lawrence ("Oh, a wise guy, eh?")
In a dim hallway of a seedy office building, a curvaceous young woman with short, wavy golden blond hair and clad in a demure grey hat with a lacy half veil, simple but authentic pearls, a conservative, impeccably made grey woolen suit, white satin gloves, sheer tan nylons, and black high heels warily assured herself that she was unobserved. Satisfied, she approached a frosted glass door. Briefly sliding her sunglasses down her nose--revealing wide luminous blue eyes--she read the door's bold black lettering:
SNAPPY SERVICES, INC.
"We'll do anything, and will YOU be surprised when it's done!"
Moe Howard, President
Satisfied that she was in the right place, she gave quick glances around before lightly rapping on the glass with satin knuckles.
Inside, Moe was muttering, "SHHH! Careful...careful...just...two...more...."
With great pride, he leaned the last two playing cards together atop a towering deck, which stood beside a name plate reading, "Moe Howard, President." He exulted, "Phew! And they said it couldn't be DONE! Hehhehhehheh!"
At adjoining desks, noisily napped Larry (whose name plate read "Vice President") and Shemp (whose plate read "Vice Vice President"). Their loud snores produced gusts which fluttered the mess of Daily Racing Form and Police Gazette on their desks, and which duly collapsed Moe's just-finished house of cards.
Moe rubbed a hand down his face in frustration as he beheld his windy partners. At last, he reacted to the repeated knocks at their office door.
"Hey, you mugs!" he barked. "Get up! We got a customer!" He picked up the pitcher of water from the corner of his desk and flung its contents onto the two sleepers.
Larry and Shemp came noisily awake. Larry muttered, "Help! Man overboard!" He began to "swim" in his seat. Shemp spat out a stream of water as he sleepily muttered, "'Is it Saturday night awready?"
Outside, puzzled by the strange noises she heard and miffed that no one was admitting her, the woman rapped more forcefully at the door.
"You lamebrains!" Moe snarled. "Pull yourselves together! This'll be our first job in weeks!" He gestured to the mess on their desks. They gathered up the sodden newspapers, empty bottles, and overflowing ashtrays and shoved them into drawers.
Straightening his tie, Moe jumped to the door, and opened it, revealing an attractive and clearly classy lady. Larry and Shemp wolf whistled. "Shhh! Nix!" Moe hissed at them. To the woman, he offered, "Welcome to Snappy Services, babe, uh, ah, lady!" Larry and Shemp practically fell over themselves offering her a chair. Moe pushed them out of the way as he led her to it.
He sat at his desk, and made to offer her a glass of water, before realizing the pitcher was empty. Larry and Shemp, standing by his sides, haphazardly finished sweeping the fallen cards off Moe's desk and kicked them underneath. He gestured to his right. "This is my associate Larry." Larry bowed and said, "'Pleasure." Moe gestured left. "And this is my associate Shemp." Shemp looked her up and down, and curtseying, said, "'Business." Moe scowled, then smiled. "Yes, hehheh! Down to business!"
Moe picked up a stray ace off the desk and tucked it up his sleeve. Clearing his throat and assuming a serious mein, he asked their guest, "Now, what can we do for you?"
With casual hauteur, the blonde crossed her legs. When she noticed the Stooges raptly staring at them, she cleared HER throat. "Ahem! Mr. Howard, I'm Emmaline Van Cleeve. I noticed your advertisement in the telephone directory. Your company claims to specialize in, ah, odd jobs. I'm hoping that you can help me." She abruptly switched her crossed legs, startling the intent Stooges.
"Sure, lady!" Moe offered. "It'll be a snap!" He floridly snapped his fingers, followed by Larry snapping his. Shemp tried snapping his once, twice, and a third time without luck. Shrugging, he chimed in, "Yeah, a snap!"
"I'm hosting a party tonight, when I'll be introducing the Continental soprano Carmen Coloratura to our fair city. I'm newly wed to my husband, a distinguished businessman, and this is a great opportunity for me to make my mark in society. However, I have an unscrupulous rival, Mrs. Vanessa Laffingwell, who is spreading malicious gossip about me. She's coming tonight, and I want her to make a public spectacle of herself, ruining HER in society."
"Oh, defame a dame, huh?" Shemp cracked. Moe gave him a kick. "Ow! Oh! Oh!" Shemp howled, hopping.
Emmaline recrossed her legs, which again caught the three men's rapt gaze. Moe shook himself out of his moony trance and said, "Go on, Mrs. Legs, I mean, Mrs. Van Cleeve!"
"I have been, ahem, researching my rival, and learned from a confidential source at the office of the podiatrist we share that she has a terrible weakness."
"Fallen arches?" Shemp asked. Moe kicked him again. "Yow!" cried Shemp, rubbing his shin as he stumblingly switched places with Larry.
Emmaline recrossed her legs and allowed her shoe to drop from her raised foot. She leaned back and extended her shapely leg, waggling her tan-stockinged foot in the air. "Hardly." She admired her wiggling toes as the Stooges' eyes slavishly followed every waggle and wiggle. "No, my, heh, ARCH rival has UNusually tick-a-lish feet. Vanessa simply cannot BEAR to be tickled there. If her feet were to be tickled, say, during dinner this evening, she'd make a complete and utter fool of herself, laughing helplessly." At the thought, she laughed herself, and the Stooges joined in. When her expression abruptly turned serious, so did theirs, if a beat behind.
She slipped her foot back into her shoe, as their eyes followed. She sat up straight, startling them, and she intoned, "I want you to attend my party undercover and see to it that she laughs like the idiot she is."
"Undercover work's our specialty!" Moe announced.
"'Sounds more like under-a-table woik," Shemp mused. Reflexively, Moe kicked to his left, causing Larry to bleat, "Ow!" as he rubbed his shin. Shemp cried, "Hah!" Moe kicked HIM. "Ow! Cut it OUT, Moe!" Shemp protested, staggering.
Emmaline opened her purse and withdrew from it a thick handful of cash, which she fanned as the Stooges stared. "Of course, I'll compensate you well for your time, and there will be a bonus once you satisfactorily achieve the outcome." She plucked one bill--a five--from the many, and returned the rest to her purse, which she closed before the obviously disappointed Stooges. "I assume that you'll require a retainer." She placed the five on the desk.
All three men made a grab for the bill. Moe slapped at his partner's hands and pushed them back. "Spread OOOUUUT!" He picked up the bill and slid it into his desk's top drawer. "Consider us retained, Mrs. V!"
She opened her purse again, to the Stooges' renewed interest. To their dismay, she merely extracted a folded piece of paper and a card. She unfolded the paper and handed it to Moe. "This is a seating chart for the center table at dinner tonight. Vanessa's place is marked by a red 'X.' The table is very spacious, and will be covered by a generous tablecloth, hiding your activities at her feet. Her feet are SO ticklish that, once you begin tickling her there, she'll be too overcome by instant laughter to protest sensibly."
Her eyes narrowed. "Before long, our other prestigious guests will think she's, heh, under the influence, and by morning, it will be the talk of the town. She'll be ostracized forevermore and no one will again take seriously her character assaults against me."
She then handed Moe the card. He closely examined the blank back side before realizing with a start there was printing on the front. She informed him, "THAT is your invitation to the party, with the address. Please be punctual, and dress formally."
"Gee, formal!" Larry mused. "I'll have to get my tux outta mothballs."
"Mothballs, nothin'," Shemp added. "I'll haveta get mine outta hock."
Moe glanced daggers at both, before grinning at her and gushing, "Hehheh, always clowning!" He then quickly assured her, "Don't worry your pretty little head, lady! Me and my assistants'll get the job done toot sweet."
"Ah! Your...assistants." She gave Shemp and Larry dubious looks. "Ah, yes, well, whatever and, um, whoever is necessary to do the job." She picked up a fountain pen from a holder on his desk. She took the card from Moe, and applied the pen to it, but no ink would flow.
Shemp helpfully reached for the pen. "Here. Allow me." He fumbled with it until it ejected a stream of blue ink. "There!" Following the flow, he was shaken to behold Moe's scowling face dripping blue.
Emmaline took a silver pen from her purse. "Ah, here, allow ME." She wrote "and guests" below Moe's name calligraphied on the card. She initialled that as well, and then set it on the desk before Moe, who was muttering as he wiped the ink off his face with a handkerchief. Larry and Shemp loomed over Moe to examine the card.
She stood and intoned, "Gentlemen, I expect success."
Moe rose as all three men shouted "Success!" in unison and tried to move shoulder-to-shoulder. Instead, all three knocked their heads together with resounding clunks. "Ooooh! Oooo! Ow!" they cried, briefly weaving dizzily.
Emmaline, suppressing second thoughts, concluded, "Until tonight, gentlemen!" She turned on her heel and, as the Stooges, still somewhat dazed, dreamily watched her every clockwork movement, she walked out.
Shaking his head clear, Moe announced, "C'mon, you slugs! Get busy 'n' find every ticklin' tool we got!" He went to a closet and removed a doctor's bag, from which he noisily dumped medical tools like a stethoscope, a large syringe, a roll of bandages, a head mirror, chattering teeth, a rubber mallet, a skull, and a saw.
Meanwhile, Larry opened the top drawer on the file cabinet behind his desk and removed a feather duster. "This oughta tickle that dame's tootsies silly!" He slammed the drawer shut. The middle drawer opened and rammed him in the midsection. "Oof!" He shrugged it off, happily extracting some bristly paint brushes from the open drawer. "Good for ticklin' under her toes!" He slammed the drawer shut. The top drawer opened and smacked him in the jaw. "D'oh! Stupid dra--!" He angrily pushed that drawer shut. The bottom drawer flew open and bashed him in the shins. "Yow! Why, you...!"
He immediately forgot his pain when he grabbed a toothbrush and a hairbrush from the open drawer. "These'll tickle her to death!" He was about to slam the drawer shut, when he reconsidered. Eyeing the top drawer, he stayed crouched. Holding the middle drawer shut, he eased the bottom drawer closed. After a moment, he exulted, "Hehheh! OK!" and stood up. After a beat, the top drawer flew open, smacking him in the head. "Ow!" When he shut it, the middle drawer again rammed his stomach. "Argh!"
Moe walked over and held open the bag. "Stop foolin' around, porcupine! Put that tickling stuff in here!"
At the same time, Shemp was searching the desks for useful tools. He was pleased to find a shaving brush and backscratcher in Larry's desk drawer as well as a shower brush in his own. Considering them, he muttered, "Heh! We'll tickle her feet so pink they'll glow!" When he came to Moe's desk, he gave a furtive look to make sure Moe wasn't watching. Satisfied, he reached into the top drawer for the $5 retainer. There was a crack and Shemp yelped, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" He pulled out his hand, caught in a mouse trap.
"'Serves you right, cheese eater!" Moe barked, grabbing the ticking tools out of Shemp's other hand and tossing them in the open bag Larry had set on the desk. Larry closed the bag, catching Moe's fingers with a crunch. "Yow!" Moe counted his fingers, and was relieved to see that all were still there. "I'll murder you later! We got no time to lose!" He grabbed both of their noses and led Larry, holding the bag, and Shemp, waving the mousetrap still on his fingers, out of the office.
***************************************
That evening, limousines were pulling up to the carriage entrance of the Van Cleeve mansion. Fogarty, the footman, was opening the passenger doors for the guests and directing them up the steps to a gas lit doorway. Before he could open the door of a newly arrived Rolls Royce, the Stooges, in top hats and tails (as well as white socks and tennis shoes), on a tricycle built for three, blew their squeaky horn before rolling over his foot. "Ouch!" he cried, grabbing his foot and visibly struggling to hold his temper.
The Stooges dismounted. Moe snapped, "Here, bud! Stash our wheels!" They dropped the trike against Fogarty's shins. The beleagered footman cried, "Ow!", hopping in dismay. Shemp added, "And see that it don't get pinched, Paddy!"
"Paddy!" Fogarty grumbled. Struggling with the trike, he accidentally blew the sickly horn, akin to a raspberry, at a stately dowager who'd emerged from the Rolls. She stopped and turned, huffing, "The nerve!" as she slapped his face. "Ah, sorry, Mrs. Plumtree!" he cried, before rolling the trike on her foot.
She cried, "Ow! Tres clumsy idiote!" She peered at him through her lorgnette, folded her feather fan and batted his nose with it. He muttered, "Saints preserve us!" rubbing his injured nose and hastily rolling the trike away.
Inside the foyer, Simone, a cute, ebon-curled French maid, worked the checkroom. She had sneaked a bottle of champagne from the serving table, and, sampling discreetly from it, was feeling no pain. The Stooges came to check their hats. While her back was turned as she parked their toppers, Larry lifted the feather duster tucked behind her belt at her hip and tossed it into the bag Moe had opened, then shut, upon the counter. When she reached for the apparent medical bag, Moe pulled it away and insisted, "Nix, sister. This is, uh, our first aid kit."
Shemp tickled Simone under her chin and gushed, "If YOU need first aid, beautiful, remember ME!" She giggled, "Don't! Teeheehee! That teeckles!" It was only true. Champagne made her VERY ticklish, from her cute chin right down to her tiny, tender toes.
Moe glared and snarled sotto voce, "Turn off the siren, Kildare. We got work to do."
At the entrance to the reception room, Moe gave their invitation to James, the head butler. He looked dubiously at the amended invitation and the three before orotundly announcing, "Mr. Howard and, er, guests." The Stooges were greeted by Emmaline and Henry, her older, portly husband, who, snug in his tux, likewise cast a baleful eye upon the trio.
Clad in a flaring silver silk dress with a gold sash at her waist and gold filigree at her bust and below the knees, golden glittered nylons, and silver evening slippers, Emmaline trilled, "So GOOD of you to come! I KNOW how BUSY you are!"
Moe tucked his thumbs behind his lapels and, effecting upper class hauteur, said, "We wouldn't have missed your sorry, I mean, SOIREE for the world, lady, uh, Madam."
Rubbing his hands, Larry said, "And we'll go anywhere there's free eats."
"And plenty of dames," Shemp added, swiveling his head as two walked by.
Moe interjected, "Hehheh! How, uh, witty! C'mon!" He grabbed the backs of their collars and led them into the reception. Henry looked nonplussed. Emmaline assured him, "They're, ah, guests from the Continent." His skeptical gaze following them, Henry muttered, "The LOST Continent?" She smiled indulgently and quickly directed his attention to the next announced guests.
They happened to be Vanessa and her husband Carlton Laffingwell. Vanessa was a young statuesque brunette wearing a flattering black velvet sheath dress, red silk stole, black feathered headpiece, smoky nylon stockings, and highly polished high heels that were rose red with black highlights. Laffingwell was an older, mustachioed man with the twinkling roving eye of a wolf. He made no pretense of clearly admiring Emmaline's shape.
Ignoring Laffingwell's leer, Emmaline gushed, "Why, Vanessa! What a positively divine outfit! Those red shoes are just to DIE for!"
The tall Vanessa considered her hostess up and down and, with a cool smile, drawled. "Thank you, deah. YOUR couture WAS fashionable--LAST year." She sauntered into the room without a glance back.
Emmaline was furious. She was more determined than ever to see Vanessa humiliated before the assembled cream of society. As soon as she could, she left her husband greeting guests and sought out the Snappy Servicemen.
She found them at the serving table, eagerly helping themselves to the hors d'oeuvres and beverages. Moe was unsuccessfully ladling for a cherry floating in the punchbowl. Larry was trying to cram a bottle of wine into the inside pocket of his tailcoat. Shemp had emptied an entire bowl of stuffed olives into his right side pocket.
Suppressing her misgivings, she moved directly behind them and hissed, "Gentlemen!" Startled, Moe dropped the ladle into the punch. "LOOK what you DONE!" he said disgustedly. "Why don'tcha wait yer turn?" he growled, turning, only to realize with a start that it was Emmaline. He nudged his still distracted partners. Both complained before he shushed them.
"Gentlemen!" Emmaline repeated. The Stooges glanced behind themselves before understanding that she was addressing them. Noticing other guests near them, she spoke up, "I'm sure that you gentlemen would like to meet our guest of honor. Please come with me." The Stooges hurriedly dipped their cups in the punchbowl and followed her.
Broadly smiling and gushing greetings to passing guests, she directed the Stooges to the center of the reception room. Periodically, Moe or Shemp would sneakily pluck a feather from the stylish hat of a female guest, which they would toss into the bag that Larry held open. Out of the side of her mouth, she muttered, "A final instruction, gentlemen. During dinner, you're to tickle the woman wearing red shoes. Is that clear?"
In a low tone, Moe assured her. "Piece o'cake! We got the chart, the proper tools, and I'LL be the one at her feet. It'll be a snap!" He snapped his fingers, as did Larry--prompting a shush from Emmaline--but Shemp again couldn't manage it. "One of these days," he muttered. He wasn't so disappointed that he didn't take the opportunity to snatch the feather from Vanessa's headpiece as she ambled past, lecturing her clearly bored husband. Shemp slipped it into his inside tailcoat pocket, and the Stooges moved along as she remained blithely unaware that it was missing.
Emmaline introduced the three to an elegant woman seated upon a divan and surrounded by well-wishers. "This is Signorina Carmen Coloratura, the Continental soprano, making her American debut." Carmen, with coiled light blonde hair, a light blue, one-shoulder gown, lacy white silk stockings, and strappy blue satin evening slippers, smiled up at them.
Moe bowed and said, "Delighted!"
Larry bowed and said, "Delirious!"
Shemp bowed. There was a ripping sound. After glancing behind himself, he smiled sheepishly and murmured, "Dilapidated."
Carmen spoke with a theatrical Italian accent. "Hehheh. Such...how you say, charming men! In Milano, we would say ragazzi belli."
"Ragazzi, eh?" Shemp offered. "I go for Eye-Tie food. Spaghetti with matzoh balls in oyster sauce!"
"Hehhehheh! You Americans...how you say, tickle me!"
The Stooges, checking out her blue footwear, sadly shook their heads at each other. "You'll have to wait yer turn, lady," Larry said, to the puzzled blonde diva.
Emmaline, leaping into the awkward silence of Carmen's befuddlement, quickly introduced them to a tall, dark, and slippery-looking gentleman standing beside Carmen. "And this is her American representative, Mr. S.H. Ayster."
In a rich baritone, he declaimed, "I hope you gentlemen will accept an invitation to join many this evening eager to invest in the Signorina's American tour. Can I accept your pledge of $1,000?"
The Stooges, who had all just taken sips of punch, spat them out spectacularly. Moe spluttered, "A bit...a bit strong! But, sure, mac! See us about it, uh, later."
"Yeah, much later," Shemp muttered, as Moe shushed him.
Emmaline feigned amusement and took Moe and Larry's elbow. "Hehhehheh! Allow me to show you the dining room." Left behind, Shemp sat next to Carmen and reached into his pocket. He flipped an olive into the air, but failed to catch it in his mouth. "Oops! I'll try it again." He flipped another, and it too fell to the floor. "Hehheh!' He failed to catch the third one, as well. "I'll do this yet!"
Meanwhile, Ayster bent over to whisper into Carmen's ear, "This set-up is even RICHER than I thought. If you make a hit tonight, these chumps will fall over themselves to invest in the shell company I set up to promote your phony American tour. Within a week, we'll have enough to skip the country and land where they'll NEVER find us."
"None too soon fer me," she said, out of the side of her mouth, with a marked Brooklyn accent. "Even dese swells might wise up if they loin the closest ta Europe I evuh been is Canarsie." She winced. "And dese fancy shoes are killin' me."
"Grin and bear it, baby," he whispered. "You'll be laughing on your way to Rio soon enough."
A dignified older couple stepped up to meet Carmen, who resumed operatically exuding Continental charm.
In the dining room, Emmaline directed Moe and Larry to a long, well-appointed table as wait staff bustled in the background. She said, sotto voce, "Here, gentlemen, is where dinner will be served shortly. Mr. Howard, Vanessa's place is here." She pointed to a place card on the table. "You and your, ah, associates will be seated at another table." She waved airily to a small, distant table in the room's Siberia by the kitchen door. "WHAT? Way out THERE?" Larry complained. Moe kicked him. Larry cried, "Ooh!" and rubbed his shin. "I mean, yes, I'll be FINE out there!" Moe gave him a curt nod.
"You DO still have the marked seating chart?" Emmaline asked.
Moe assured her, "It's in the bag, lady." Behind him, Larry began slipping some silverware up his sleeve. Moe turned, slapped his hand and hissed, "Hold it, Houdini!" Turning back to Emmaline, he chirped, "Leave it to us!" Smiling wanly to dispel the mounting doubts she felt about these three, she returned to the reception.
Eyeing the busy wait staff, Moe muttered to Larry, "Listen, knothead! I'll hide underneath now. Cover me!" He knelt behind Larry and slipped under the tablecloth. Larry had resumed harvesting silverware. Seeing a knife fall, Moe reached out from under the table and pounded Larry's foot. Larry yelped, hopping. "You moron!" Moe hissed. "Hand me the bag." Still groaning, Larry awkwardly swung the bag under the table, hitting Moe in the face. "OH! Why you...!" Larry hightailed it back to the reception.
Back at the divan, Shemp persisted flipping and missing olives, which covered the floor before him. He peered into his pocket. "This'd be a fine time to run outta olives!" He reached into his pocket and beamed, "Ahhhh, there's one last one!"
James, holding a tray laden with canapés, walked past and slipped spectacularly on a fallen olive. He landed face down in the canapés. Shemp, eager to help, bent to help him to his feet. "Hey, you gotta quit drinkin', Smedley!"
"The name is James, sir!" insisted the butler, determined to maintain his dignity as he brushed off the hors d'oeuvres.
Emmaline, hurrying to restore order, slipped on another olive and sat on yet others. She wrinkled her nose with disgust as she sat, shifting uncomfortably. When James helped her to her feet, she stood unevenly, leaning on him. She removed her left shoe, and was aghast to see both that its heel was broken and that James' front was a gooey mess. She instructed him to clean up and called over to Simone, who was tipsily serving cocktails.
"Simone, I need you to fetch me a change of shoes." She waved the damaged shoe.
"Anay particulahr pair, Madame?" Simone smiled hazily. "Hic! Pardonez-moi! Hee hee!"
"Anything appropriate, Simone!" Emmaline snapped, trying to ignore the obvious, as she gingerly recovered a flattened olive from behind herself. "Now hurry!"
Henry approached her. "Emmaline! What th--?"
"Ah, hehheh, oh well, accidents will happen!" she assured him, forcing cheer.
Van Cleeve, noticing Shemp trying and failing to catch the last olive, watched it settle amidst the many on the floor, and muttered, "With SOME people around, CERTAINLY!"
As giggly Simone passed her, Carmen flagged her down. "Oh, maid? Maid!"
"Oui, madame?"
"Be a dear and fetch a pair of shoes from my trunk. I can't wear these a moment longer! My poor feet!" Carmen insisted, dramatically. She slipped her stocking feet out of her tight shoes and wiggled her toes.
Weaving a bit, Simone asked, "Wheech ones, Madame?"
"They're the slippers with the bows near the toes."
Moving quickly, if a tad unsteadily, Simone went to Emmaline's room and, after blurrily considering the closet full of shoes, tipsily selected a pair of cherry red open-toed, sling backed wedge heels for her mistress. "Zese red ones look zo prettee!" she gushed.
She then proceeded to the largest guest bedroom, where she opened Carmen's trunk. She blurrily recalled aloud, "The, uh, sleeppers with zee, ah, bows near zee toes," as she perused the shoe tree therein. "Here zay ahr!" She hazily focused on a pair of sequined red evening slippers with red bows. "Hmm! Zay ahr sleepers and zay 'ave bows. D'accord!"
Under the dinner table, Moe opened the bag and removed the seating chart. After pointing to the red "X," and counting to five from one end of the chart, he oriented himself, and whispered a count to five before he settled below one chair. "Just a snap," he chirped, sharply snapping his fingers before shushing himself. Chuckling, he opened the bag, rubbed his hands together eagerly, and began to lay out a few of the tickling tools on the floor before him.
Elsewhere, Simone brought the red slippers to Carmen, who happily kicking off the tight blue shoes, donned the red ones. They, too, pinched a bit. (All these fancy shoes are too small for MY big, touchy feet, she thought.) Still, admiring her stylish and flattering shoes, she was tickled that she had switched.
Emmaline, however, momentarily saw red when Simone handed her the replacement shoes. The style and the color were all wrong for her dress. There was no time to send her for another pair, so Emmaline hurriedly strapped the red shoes on. She intended to change shoes again directly after dinner.
James, having recovered his gravitas after his tumble, played some tones on a small xylophone with a pewter hammer as he moved among the guests, announcing, "Dinner will be served shortly in the dining room."
When he passed, Shemp slapped him on the back and cracked, "I didn't think you'd have dinner in the garage, Smedley, hehheh!"
James rolled his eyes and icily intoned, "Hardly, sir."
Arriving at James' other side, Larry took the hammer and sounded the first five calling notes of "Shave and a Haircut!" on the xylophone.
James took back the hammer and said, "THANK you, sir!"
Shemp immediately grabbed the hammer, saying, "Waitaminnut!" He sounded out the two answering notes for "Two bits!"
"There!" he said, handing the hammer back to the steaming James. Shemp and Larry joined the throng moving into the dining room.
Henry Van Cleeve entered the dining room beside them. Larry spotted two cigars in the breast pocket of Henry's tux. "Don't mind if I do!" he said, taking one, to Van Cleeve's obvious but silent annoyance. Larry sniffed the cigar and, satisfied, asked Shemp, "Want one?"
Shemp replied, "Sure!"
To Van Cleeve's mute astonishment, Larry plucked the other cigar and handed it to Shemp. Both Stooges saved the cigars, Larry slipping it in his breast pocket; Shemp, tucking his behind his ear. "Thanks!" said Shemp. "Don't mention it," said Larry. Van Cleeve was about to say something, but was interrupted by Emmaline taking his elbow and saying, "Henry, stop dawdling and find your seat."
Larry and Shemp both spotted an empty seat at the center table, but Larry managed to get in the chair first. "Hey!" cried Shemp, "No, ya don't!" He tried to pull Larry up. Smugly, Larry insisted, "I was here FIRST!" and stayed put. Shemp snatched up the place card, crossed out the printed name and quickly jotted his, assuring Larry, "Never MIND! I'LL get a place!"
Going to the other side of the table, Shemp tapped the seated Laffingwell on the right shoulder. Laffingwell turned to Vanessa, seated next to him, and asked, "What?" Vanessa, laughing at a quip from a handsome young man to HER right, distractedly replied, "What?" The two bickered briefly as Shemp reached over Laffingwell's left shoulder to cover his place card with the one he'd pinched.
He then tapped Laffingwell on the shoulder. "Hey, bud! Ya mind movin'. You're in my seat."
Laffingwell glanced at the place card and, confused, stood and apologized, "Oh, I'm SO sorry!" Shemp sat down and snapped open the napkin and tucked it into his collar. "Don't mention it, pal!"
Noticing that Laffingwell seemed at a loss as to where to sit, Shemp tapped Vanessa's shoulder and said, "Hey, toots! You mind moving down so this poor guy can sit down." She politely stood, causing the gallant young man next to her to offer his seat, beginning a chain of seat switching along the table.
Larry's intrusion on the other side caused similar seat-switching confusion. In due course, two guests were left standing awkwardly beside the head of the table.
Vanessa, appalled when Shemp reached across her to grab a celery stalk and a breadstick, which he bit into noisily, whispered to the gentleman seated on her right. He in turn whispered to the lady on his right, and soon Vanessa and the lady had switched places. Vanessa was now seated next to Henry Van Cleeve, whose puzzlement at suddenly seeing her next to him quickly gave way to smiles and chitchat between them.
Emmaline, seated at the head of the table, hurriedly called James to find a place for the displaced guests at one of the other tables. She was irritated to see that, somehow, Mr. Howard's assistants had gotten seats at her center table. They had disturbed her painstaking seating arrangement. Now, Vanessa was sitting next to Henry at the other end of the table, and they were getting along far too well!
Below the table, Moe, observing the sudden shift of seating, was flummoxed by a man moving into the seat he had thought was marked by the red "X" on the chart. He scanned the chart again to reorient himself. He was furthered alarmed by the realization that no fewer than three of the women now seated at the table were wearing red shoes.
Above, Larry took advantage of the lit candelabra before him to light his cigar. He puffed on it happily, causing Mrs. Plumtree, seated next to him, to cough, unfold her feather fan, and flutter away his smoke. "Young man?" she intoned.
"'Sorry, sister. I only got one," he replied, to her chagrin, as she marveled, "Tres gauche!" Fearing she might ask for his, he lowered the lit cigar under the table.
Below him, Moe was studying the seating chart. When Moe looked up, trying to locate his target, he didn't notice Larry's cigar setting the chart on fire. The flames burnt his fingers, so he dropped it. "Yow!" When he reached for it, Larry stepped on his fingers. "Owowow!" Recognizing the white socks and tennis shoes of one of his partners, Moe punched Larry's knee, causing Larry to reflexively kick Moe's chin. "Oh!" Moe barked, before catching himself. Irritated, he hissed up at Larry. "You idiot! Get down here!"
Larry, mindful Moe was calling below, thought fast and swept to the floor Mrs. Plumtree's feather fan, which she'd rested on the table. He murmured, "Oops! I'll get it! " to the lady, quite distracted in conversation on her other side. He slid down, slipping past the tablecloth and under the table.
Moe yanked Larry to him and state-whispered, "You moron! You tryin' to burn down the joint? Look what you did to the chart!" He thrust the ashes in Larry's face. "Why are ya sittin' up there anyhow? You mixed folks up!"
Larry coughed and spluttered, "I'm sorry, Moe. I, uh..."--thinking "fast"-- "thought it would help." He smiled uncertainly.
"Does THIS help?" Moe bopped Larry on the forehead. Larry cried, "Ow!" Moe clamped a hand over Larry's mouth. "Shhh!"
"OK, 'helper'," Moe growled, "Without the X on the chart, how are we going to figure out which one of these dames to tickle?"
"Easy!" Larry beamed. "She said tickle the one wearin' red shoes."
"Three of 'em got red shoes, Einstein! How do we TELL the right one?"
"We don't have to." Larry intuited. "We'll, uh, we'll tickle ALL THREE and that way we're SURE to tickle the right one."
Moe was silent for a beat. He smiled and pinched Larry's cheek and said, "You know, you're not as dumb as you look!"
"Thanks, Moe," Larry gushed. "Neither are you."
Moe frowned, slapped him and hissed, "Go ON! Get that OTHER nitwit down here!" He pointed to the only person left at the table wearing white socks and tennis shoes with his tux. "We'll tickle all three dames." He handed Larry some feathers and brushes.
Larry crawled over to Shemp and stabbed his right calf with a goose quill. "Ow!" Shemp cried, above, as he tried to make time with the society dame to his left. He looked down and was startled to see Larry peering up. Larry stage whispered, "Moe sez get down here." To the lady, Shemp muttered, "Loose shoelace. Be right back." He slipped under the table cloth as the lady shrugged and turned to speak to the gentleman on her other side.
Underneath, Larry handed Shemp the quill and a brush and said, "HERE! Moe says to take these and tickle that dame wearin' red shoes." He pointed at a pair of red wedges beneath a silver dress at the far end of the table.
Shemp was startled to see to his right that Moe scowling at him while kneeling before a lady in red shoes and black stockings. He was equally amazed to see to his left that Larry had camped before ANOTHER dame in red shoes and white stockings at the middle of the other side of the table. He hissed at Larry, "I thought we wuz ticklin' only one broad!"
"Shut up and get busy!" Larry spat back, giving the passing Shemp a shove.
"Awright, awright! Hold yer horses!" muttered Shemp, as he crawled down to the third pair of red shoes. "'Thought I was gonna get somethin' to eat!"
Above, Simone was tipsily helping James to serve the soup course. As James carefully ladled turtle soup from a tureen steaming on a serving cart into a gold-rimmed bowl, she took the opportunity to slip her right stocking foot out of her high-polished black shoe. These new shoes were much too tight. Her lovely little feet were tres sensitive. Smiling and sighing with relief, she flexed her petite, delicate foot in the black, reinforced hose. As James turned to hand her the bowl, he inadvertently kicked her loose shoe under the table. Desperate to reclaim her shoe and fearing James' censure if he saw she was without it, Simone thrust her stocking foot behind her past the tablecloth and under the table, her wiggling toes seeking her lost shoe.
Below, Moe's eyes were poked by Simone's suddenly-appearing toes. Covering his eyes, he barely smothered a pained "Oh!" When he uncovered, he flinched at the toes wiggling in hose before him. As the foot flailed around, it smacked him once, twice in the face. "Oh, yeah?" he murmured, reaching into the bag and pulling out a back scratcher. "I'll fix YOU, sister!" He dragged the scratcher along the intrusive upturned sole.
Above, Simone, balancing shakily on one foot, accepted the laden bowl from James. She was awkwardly setting it before Vanessa when she felt something tickle her hidden foot. She squealed and giggled, nearly tipping the bowl into Vanessa's lap before setting it down safely. James eyed her warily before he picked up another bowl to fill. She blushed and smiled helplessly at him. He filled another bowl--a generous one for Mr. Van Cleeve--and handed it to her.
Below, annoyed at the wayward foot still in his way, a determined Moe held it still and fiercely scratched its black stocking sole. Simone again burst into giggles and yanked her foot away, nearly spilling the bowl onto Van Cleeve, who gave Simone a perturbed look. James rescued her and grabbed the bowl, which he set before the dismayed Henry. James then took Simone's elbow and conducted her, lopsided on one shoe, to the kitchen, as she whispered, "Attendre! Ma chasseur!" to no avail.
Up at the head of the table, Emmaline beheld this near disaster nervously. Below her, Shemp arrived at her bright red ankle-strap wedges. Examining her shapely legs clad in the glittery stockings, he thought, "These gams look familiar. I wonder where I've seen 'em before." He was lost in thought when her raised foot smacked his nose. "Why, you...!" he muttered, holding his hooter, only to then suffer the waggling wedge clipping his chin.
Meanwhile, Larry sat cross-legged at the table's midsection before a dame in a diaphanous blue dress and white silk stockings with feet slipped into sequined red evening slippers. The feet seemed restless, constantly flexing in the slippers. One of them stepped on his hand, and he yelped in pain, getting free only with great difficulty.
Further along, Moe, finally free of the troublesome foot, stumbled on a stray shiny black shoe before him. Irritated. he flung it away, hitting Larry in the side of the head. "Ow!" Larry, baffled whence it came, shrugged and tossed it aside, hitting the back of Shemp's head.
"Oh!" Shemp picked up the shoe. Rubbing the back of his head as he peered around, he growled, "If I catch the wise gal that hit me...!" Not seeing the perpetrator, he flipped it aside, where it displaced the white shoe slipped off by a party guest. She, chatting heedlessly above, eased her stocking foot into the black shoe.
Finally distraction-free, Moe faced the crossed pair of shapely smoky stocking legs under a glittering black gown and sporting red open-toed heels. The raised right foot, jiggling wildly, mesmerized him momentarily, causing his eyes and head to mimic its movements. He shook his head to clear it. The foot kicked him in the throat. "Gah!" As he protected his throat, the toe of the shoe snagged his nose, causing him to hit his head under the table. "Ow!" Rubbing his head as he settled back on his heels, he murmured, "Oh, murder!"
Above, Vanessa and Henry were bantering over the soup course. She felt what she assumed was his playing footsie with her. "Why, the old lecher!" she thought. She gave Emmaline a bright smile, thinking, "I can hardly wait to tell EVERYONE of THIS development."
In the kitchen, James handed Simone a tray of stuffed squabs. He noticed her shoeless stocking foot. "Outrageous!" he huffed. "I couldn't help eet!" she bleated. Rolling his eyes, he opened a closet and drew out a pair of polished red Mary Janes. He handed them to Simone and said, "Here. Put these on."
"But, zhey are red!" Simone tipsily objected. "No matter," James huffed. "Don them and help me serve the squab." He handed her a tray of petite poulets and practically pushed her out the door.
Meanwhile, under the table, Shemp bobbed and weaved before the jiggling foot, only to be kicked in the face again. "That's it! That's it!" he muttered. He began undoing his belt.
Above, Emmaline, fitfully conversing with a guest, glanced nervously below, thinking, "Is that Mr. Howard down there? What is he doing at MY FEET? I thought I told him to tickle the woman wearing red shoes." She startled when she realized the color of the replacement shoes Simone had brought her. "No. NO! No one could be THAT stupid!" She tried to disguise her dismay by sipping her wine glass.
Below, Shemp grabbed her right foot and cinched his belt tightly around her stocking ankle. He then knotted the other end of the belt to a leg of her chair. He was pleased with himself for a moment until her OTHER foot smacked him across the face. He grabbed that one and began to unbuckle her shoe.
Above, Emmaline nearly choked on her wine as she felt her feet trapped. She thought, "This can't be happening!" She masked her mounting alarm with a forced smile for her guests, silently screaming, "Don't take MY shoe off, you idiot!" Making matters worse was the sight of her husband at the end of the table happily chatting with Vanessa. Infuriatingly, the two were thick as thieves.
Determined, Shemp gripped the struggling dame's golden ankle with one firm hand. With the other, he finally finished unbuckling her red shoe and tossed it away. He muttered, "OK, sister. You asked for it." Fluttering his fingertips floridly under her foot, he began teasing along the nylon covering her soft, wrinkly sole. She waggled her foot desperately but he held firm and persisted tickling. "No, ya don't!" Relishing her panicked reaction, he indulged in a whispered "Coochie coochie coooooooo, sister!"
Emmaline squirmed in her seat, somehow keeping her composure while feigning intense interest in the guest talking next to her. The idiot below was stroking her sole through her nylon with his fingertips, teasing the tenderness near her agonizing toes and along her arch and just above her heel. It tickled SO MUCH, sending electric sensations up her legs and causing butterflies to flutter in her tummy. Giggles backed up in her throat, and it was only with the greatest effort that she contained most of them behind a fitful grin, thinking, "You dope! You're tickling the wrong feet! You're tickling MY feet! STOP! YOU MUST STOP! I CAN'T STAND IT!"
Underneath the other end of the table, the woman seated before Moe again crossed her legs, her raised red shoe's toe catching him in the eye. "Yow!" He rubbed his eye and blearily peered out of it. The foot then smacked him again in the face. Above, Vanessa was unabashedly flirting with Henry, and she thought that her playful foot was merely meeting his.
At the middle of the table, Carmen was conversing with the smarmy Laffingwell across the table. She had been entertaining his and a number of other obvious flirtations all evening. Ayster had insisted that stringing these Don Juans along would mean bigger donations for her "tour." A smile fixed upon her face, she glanced down.
Below, her feet were still aching despite her change of shoes. Hoping the tablecloth provided cover, she kicked off the red slippers. Inwardly sighing, she crossed her legs and wiggled her toes happily. Larry watched raptly, mesmerized as her pretty little toes danced within her stockings. He smirked and thought, "Boy, is she askin' for it!" as her toes hovered just before his twitching nose.
With supreme effort, Emmaline managed to yank her left foot free, kicking Shemp on the chin ("OH!") before pulling her foot back under her chair. Shemp rubbed his chin ruefully and growled, "Oh, yeah? 'Think you're smart, huh?" He plucked a feather from the duster. "Kick me, willya?" He began to poke its quill through the open toe of the red wedge on her still bound right foot. He vengefully probed between her toes with the quill. Her foot quivered, but she was unable to work it loose. She brought her free stocking foot forward and smacked Shemp in the face again. He tried to catch it, but she quickly pulled it back.
"Just for THAT..." He undid the ankle strap on her bound foot and pulled off her wedge, tossing it behind. He plucked at the toe of her stocking and poked a hole in it with the quill. He ripped the stocking open at her toes and peeled it back to her heel. He began to sweep the feather duster fiendishly upon her exposed bare wrinkly sole. Her toes scrunched and spasmed open alternately in ticklish agony. Shemp dusted her from tiny pink toes to fleshy heel and back, fiendishly feathering every inch of her foot, all the while muttering, "Not so tough NOW, huh? Coochie coochie coo!"
Above, it was all Emmaline could do to suppress a geyser of giggles and keep from bouncing off her chair. Her lips quivered in her desperation to remain silent. Her face was turning beet red and rivulets of sweat were teasing down her back. The feathers were KILLING her. She was practically biting her glass.
Below, Shemp dropped the duster and began drumming her ticklish sole with his fingertips. She spat out her wine and helplessly collapsed into giggles. At the other end of the table, her husband looked on disapprovingly and Vanessa appeared smug, both assuming that she already had too much to drink.
Down the table, Carmen felt a hand firmly grasp her raised ankle. She gamely kept up her conversation. She didn't know which of the men seated around her was taking advantage, but she wouldn't let it distract her from charming these chumps. She'd fended off worse than a little footsie at Coney Island.
At that moment, Mr. Van Cleeve, irritated at what he perceived to be his young wife's inebriated inattention, took upon himself the task of introducing Carmen to those assembled. He struck his wine glass lightly with his knife four times. He stood, raised his glass, and announced, "I'd like to take this opportunity to make a toast to our honored guest, Signorina Carmen Coloratura. We welcome you to America, and hope many here tonight will generously contribute to your upcoming American tour."
There was polite applause, glasses raised, and murmurs of "Hear, hear!"
Carmen stood uneasily on one foot, for she could not yank her other foot free from whomever was grasping it. Nervous, she steadied herself, and said, "I want to, ah, thank you all for your w-warm w-welcome. I know that, w-with your generous help, I can put grand op-opera on a f-firm f-footing in your g-great country."
Larry staunchly maintained a firm grip on her ankle. "Oh, no, you don't! No, you don't! I gotcha! I gotcha good!" He began to stroke her stocking sole from toes to heel and back with a bristly paint brush.
Thus tickled, Carmen's speech became peppered with giggles. "I'm so ha-ha-happeehee...so hahahaha-happeeheehee tohoo beheehee here and ha-ha-ha, if you only knew ha-ha, how hahahahappee I ahhahaam!"
At that moment, Shemp spun a hairy shaving brush along Emmaline's curvaceous arch. His tactical tickling turn cracked her control. She burst into astonished laughter. Trying to convince her guests that she was merely responding to Carmen's apparent good humor, she motioned to the diva and began to applaud lightly. Almost immediately, tho', she then began slapping the table in her hilarity, rattling glasses and silverware.
After exchanging curious glances, the other guests, out of politeness, began to giggle a little with the hostess and the guest of honor. Soon, they were laughing outright, for Carmen had tumbled with laughter back into her chair as Larry pushed the bristles under her twitching toes. He slid the brush down to just above her heel, "painted" there, and swept it back up to her toes, which judging from her operatic peals, really tickled her.
Now stunned by her extended, hilarious performance, the guests began to whisper amongst themselves. Ayster hissed, "What are you DOING?"
Carmen shook her head, trying, through her teary, laughing eyes, to tell him that it was NONE of her doing. Larry switched to scratching the ball of her foot with the quill of a feather, and she just closed her eyes and howled.
Emmaline, through her own red-faced, tear-streamed laughter, was mortified. Now those idiots were apparently tickling the guest of honor! She saw the smug smile on Vanessa's face. "I'M being tickled! My honored GUEST is being tickled! I'm dying socially and that witch Vanessa is untouched!"
Through the mounting chaos at the table, James and Simone were gamely trying to serve the squab to the distracted diners. The butler somehow maintained a poker face, tho' Simone was unsuccessfully squelching tipsy giggles.
At Vanessa's feet, Moe, his sour puss practically black and blue from her red-shoed stubbornness, rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He took firm hold of her raised right ankle and slipped off her red high heel. Her long toes wiggled under the reinforced black nylon. Above, Vanessa gave Henry a leer, expressing mock outrage. "The very idea! Stealing my shoe!" she hissed at him. Henry, baffled and blushing, asked, "M-Mrs. Laffingwell, wha--?"
Moe flung Vanessa's red shoe between the feet of Mrs. Plumtree, who'd been dangling her silver evening shoes all evening. When the dowager's left shoe tumbled from her raised stocking foot, she pursued it with pointed toes. She slipped her foot into the red shoe instead. Again crossing her legs, her right foot was raised, its silver shoe dangling from her stocking toes.
With Vanessa's foot finally in hand, Moe, his face set with purpose, began to brush Vanessa's stocking sole with a feather. She yanked her foot away. Above, she giggled and admonished Henry. "Now, STOP that! I'm TICKLISH!" Van Cleeve was caught between bafflement and amusement at her presumably tipsy confession. He wasn't sure what to say.
Below, Moe grabbed her other foot, pulled off her shoe, and flung that away. It knocked Ms. Plumtree's remaining silver shoe off her foot. Sure enough, when her stocking foot sought it out, she slipped her foot into the red shoe instead. She crossed her legs, now dangling the red shoe from her pudgy toes.
Moe, clutching a fistful of feathers, began sweeping them up-and-down Vanessa's expansive, wrinkly and pampered stocking sole. After a momentary "Wha? HehhehNO!" she immediately erupted with high-pitched laughter, desperately, in her ticklish abandon, clutching at Henry's left lapel. Alarmed, he stood, and his lapel was ripped and left hanging down his front. Outraged, he yanked at the right shoulder of the obviously drunken Vanessa's dress and tore it so it hung down to her elbow. At this, Vanessa screamed with laughter for, below, Moe was vigorously tickling her foot.
Along the table, hilarious Carmen, desperate to stop being tickled, kicked at Larry with her free foot. He took one kick on the nose. "Oh!" However, he not only somehow held on to her left foot, but secured her right one as well. With his back to her, he tucked both under his left arm and began to vigorously stroke both of her stocking soles with his fingertips.
Carmen screamed, "EEEEEEAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!" Ayster grabbed her, trying to calm her, but succeeding only in tearing her dress. Carmen seemed to find THAT hilarious. She flung out her arms, accidentally poking Simone in her ticklish ribs. Simone squealed and tipped over the tray of squabs that she was carrying onto Ayster, now dripping with tiny potatoes and gravy. Tickled Carmen found THAT even funnier.
Ayster stood stunned, weakly applying his serviette to his spattered shirtfront. It wasn't bad enough that Carmen apparently had too much to drink, threatening their scam. No, now everyone around him seemed to be laughing at him. No one was laughing more than Laffingwell seated across from him. Ayster impulsively stepped away from the table and grabbed a cream pie from a nearby dessert cart. He hurled it across the table, catching Laffingwell squarely in the face.
Laffingwell stopped laughing and fumed. He took some of the cream dripping from his face, set it upon his spoon, and fired it back at Ayster. Instead, it smacked Mrs. Plumtree right between the eyes. Fuming, she marched to the dessert cart and selected a pie. She intended to hurl it at Laffingwell. James, trying to intercede, entreatied, "Madame, please!" He stepped in front of her, and, for his trouble, took the pie in mid-stride. She whirled and picked up another.
As her guests gradually became embroiled in a frenzy of tit-for-tat pie throwing and clothes ripping, Emmaline, determined at the head of the table to restore order and salvage the evening, brought her free foot forward to kick her tickling tormentor. Shemp took it off his forehead with a barked, "OH!" He shook it off and, before she could land a second kick, caught her foot and began to tickle her stocking sole with five vengeful fingers. "Kitcheykitcheykitcheycoo, toots! Kitcheycoo!" he snarled. He ran his nails along the outer edge of her foot. He skated his fingertips around the concavity of her instep. He drummed his fingers on the sweet spot near her heel. Jaw set, he fiercely tickled her foot, remembering that wad of bills in the satin hands of the blonde who hired them. Won't she be tickled!
Emmaline squealed and roiled with laughter, trying to signal James to help her. But he seemed preoccupied trying to protect the dessert carts from guests bent on war. One guest responded to his entreaties by ripping his jacket up the back. Meanwhile, the idiot below was tickling her to death, now skimming a toothbrush torturously along the sheer nylon coating her soft sole. As she howled with laughter, openmouthed, she was smacked full in the face by an errant pie hurled by the creme-blinded Mrs. Plumtree.
Larry had relinquished one of Carmen's feet, but was holding firm onto her right ankle, He insinuated his fingers under her clenching stocking toes and was teasing between them. She weakly kicked at his back with her free foot, hooting with laughter in her seat. She was nearly breathless and her sides ached. Sputtering, she begged, "Hahhahahhhh! Stop! Stahahahahaap! I'll dohoo anneeheething! Hahahahahahah! Awright! Awright! Hahahahahahahhaa! I'm a phohohohneeheee! I'm hahaha frahahaham Brooklyn! I hahahaha ain't a deeheeheevahahahahahaaa! Now stahahahahap! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"
Too, too late, she finally yanked her foot away, but fell over screaming onto her back in her chair in the process. James, trying to relocate a tray of cream puffs, tripped over her, sending gooey pastries flying onto Mr. Van Cleeve. The host sat, stunned into apoplectic silence, as the custard dripped off of him.
Simone and James butted heads as they tried to aid the fallen guest of honor. Dizzy, the maid sunk to her knees, and heedlessly extended her feet under the table. Larry was stunned to see ANOTHER pair of red shoes before him. He shrugged and yanked the red Mary Janes off of Simone's stocking feet. He skimmed the blade of a feather across her upturned soles. Simone whooped with laughter as Carmen staggered to her feet. Tickled silly, Simone grabbed onto Carmen's dress and ripped it clean off. Appalled, James snatched the dress from the maid. Caught in her underwear, Carmen cried, "Holy Canarsie!" She slapped James and grabbed her dress from him. Trying to get Simone on her feet, James tore off HER dress. As Larry feathered her feet, Simone, tickled pink, simply laughed uproariously at all this.
Nearby, Moe had reached into the bag and, with a sense that he was deploying an ace up his sleeve, brought out the hairbrush. He began vigorously dragging its rubber tips along Vanessa's super ticklish sole. She, too, screamed with laughter, which was only magnified by the sight of Van Cleeve covered in pastry. Disgusted by the woman, Van Cleeve plucked a pastry off his front and pushed it into her face. Surveying it crosseyed, her momentary shock gave way to giggles as Moe brushed her heel. Not realizing that Van Cleeve couldn't have been both mercilessly tickling her foot AND pushing a pastry into her face, she wrested her foot from Moe's grasp, kicking him in the face. She rose from the table and hopped on stocking feet to the dessert cart.
She grabbed a pie and turned, raising it in her right hand to throw. Her husband, tie undone and collar torn in the melee, had just managed to wipe the pie off his face. Laffingwell raised a hand to Vanessa. "Now, dear, remember our position in the Social Registry!" Infuriated, she launched the pie into his face. Van Cleeve laughed uproariously at that. Vanessa picked up a chocolate layer cake. Marching on her stocking feet over to the chuckling Van Cleeve, she reared back and pushed the gooey cake into his face, causing him to topple back in his chair. He stood up, wiped the icing from his eyes, and the two of them dashed to the pastry carts for more ammo.
Confused, but recovering quickly, Moe spotted the red shoe dangling from Mrs. Plumtree's left foot. She had returned to her seat, her appetite honed by her energetic pie-throwing, and. ignoring the creme on her brow, was happily tucking into a squab. Frustrated by yet MORE red shoes, he crawled to them and grabbed her ankle. Above, she cried, "Who the devil--? Tres nerve!" He pulled off the red shoe and, as he saw it, resumed tickling his assigned target's stocking foot with the hairbrush. Dropping her knife and fork with a clatter, Mrs. Plumtree spluttered with giggles, kicking the hairbrush from Moe's hand. Looking around, Moe noticed Mrs. Plumtree's fortuitously fallen fan. He secured her other ankle, opened the fan, and stroked her sole with the silken feathers. Her limbs turned to jelly as she abruptly surrendered to girlish laughter, for her pudgy feet were très, tres ticklish.
Shemp, Larry, and Moe doggedly kept tickling the feet of Emmaline, Simone, and Mrs. Plumtree. Everyone else seemed to be either hurling pastry at one another or tearing each other's clothes. The room was filled with laughter, screams of outrage, and the sounds of pastry meeting faces and fabric being torn.
Finally aware of the clothes-ripping, pastry-flinging melee above them, the Stooges quit tickling and conferred. Shemp cried, "The joint's broken out in fights!" Larry added, "Yeah, we better beat it!" Moe agreed, "You ain't kiddin'! Shemp, take the point!"
Shemp protested, "Why do I haveta go out foist? They'll moider us!"
Moe insisted, "Always complainin'! Keep low, and it'll be a snap!" He tried to snap his fingers, but failed.
"Sure, a snap!" Larry concurred, though he also failed to snap his fingers.
Shemp dubiously snapped his fingers--and succeeded. "Hehheh! Well, whaddaya know! A snap!"
Moe gave him a shove. "Quit snappin' n' get goin'!"
The Stooges rapidly crawled on hands-and-knees out from under the table to the entrance to the reception room. They stood and dusted themselves off, relieved to have escaped the carnage. Larry and Shemp tossed their remaining tickling tools into the bag, which Moe closed with a snap.
A lady, her dress in tatters and wearing one white and one black shoe ran past screaming, pursued by a leering, creamed disheveled Laffingwell wielding two cream puffs. The Stooges exchanged shrugs.
Simone, giggling and shoeless in her frilly undies and stockings, was mere steps ahead of James, sternly waving a feather duster at her. Shemp chuckled, "Atta boy, Smedley!"
They walked calmly through the chaos, and had just reached the foyer, when they heard Emmaline trill, "Oh, gentlemen?" behind them.
They froze and Moe, ear cocked, said to his partners, "Hey, I think she means US!"
Larry offered, "We must be going up in the world!"
Shemp cracked, "The payoff at last! Greenbacks...simoleans...dead Presidents!"
The Three Stooges turned and saw Emmaline, Carmen, Vanessa, and Mrs. Plumtree, shoeless in torn clothing and dripping with cream, marching side-by-side up to them.
Mrs. Plumtree stepped forward and, eyes flashing daggers at them, huffed, "YOU vandals!" She gave all three a mighty slap-in-the-face in rapid succession. "GET OUT!" She deferred to the other three women, who stepped up with their hands behinds their backs.
"Wait a minute, boys," cooed Emmaline, her one bare foot tapping impatiently.
"Don't go yet," insisted Vanessa.
"Yeah, we wanna give ya somethin', " offered Carmen.
The Stooges grinned. Moe ventured, "Gee, we thought you'd be mad."
"After all," Larry admitted. "We kinda spoiled the party."
Shemp marveled, "Yeah, everybody's a mess but us, hehhehheh."
"Now, then, Mrs. V," Moe said, pressing his luck. "Do we get what's comin' to us?"
Emmaline gushed, "You certainly DOOO!"
The three women cried, "Close your eyes!" in unison.
"All ri-ight!" sang the Stooges simultaneously, eyes shut.
Each Stooge received a gooey pie smack in the face.
After a beat, goo dripping, Shemp smacked his lips and said, "Well, at least, I got dessert!" Another beat. "Mmm...chocolate."
Suddenly, Mr. Van Cleeve, also in tatters and pastry, appeared in the room with a shotgun, and the pied Stooges, duly and noisily alarmed, ran out to their trike. As they hastily hopped on and pedaled away--bowling over a hopping mad Fogarty--Henry loudly fired from the doorway.
When the smoke cleared, the Stooges--smeared in soot, their tuxes in tatters--were wobbly circling in the street on unicycles!
Seeing Van Cleeve was reloading in pursuit, with Fogarty also armed behind him, Moe, Larry and Shemp yelped and shakily pedaled away in a panic.
Van Cleeve set himself and noisily fired another smoky report at the Stooges. The recoil sent him tumbling back into Fogarty, who fired in the air. There was quacking and a flock of ducks fell on the pair.
Howling, the Stooges wildly accelerated into the distance.
(We fade out to the jolly closing bars of "Three Blind Mice.")
THE END
(Not Quite) A COLUMBIA SHORT SUBJECT PRESENTATION
**********************************************************************************
Afterwords:
The short comedies of The Three Stooges, released to movie theaters by Columbia Pictures from 1934 through 1959--and then ceaselessly shown on TV (and now online) since--are rife with fondly-remembered tickling scenes. These scenes featured without exception the Stooges themselves being tickled. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. The scenes are usually quite lengthy and sometimes even funny.
However, I do regret that none of the lovely and talented female players of the Columbia comedy shorts stock company were treated likewise. The prudish Production Code routinely censored anything remotely perceived as perversely erotic. Men tickling women was apparently ticklish territory. (Considering that women would sometimes be subject to violent slapstick in these shorts, it certainly wasn't out of sensitivity to charges of misogyny.)
This story, then, provides a modest corrective.
I suspect that Stooges fans will wonder why I chose to feature Shemp, and not Curly--the most popular third Stooge. One reason is that I think salty Shemp, ever quick with an adlib, is sadly underrated compared to his manic brother. (I would even argue that he was more clever and funnier than Curly, but don't want any head bonks from dissenters.) The other reason is that the women I chose to be bedeviled were series regulars around 1950, when Shemp starred in the shorts.
I know, I know. I have too much time on my hands.
For those wishing to know the faces of my chosen cast:
The Three Stooges: Moe, Larry, and Shemp
(The boys are pictured [in the next post below] in their opening credits glory.)
Connie Cezan as Emmaline Van Cleeve
(She had a very modest screen career, and appeared in only a few Stooges shorts. But, she made such an impression playing her usual gold-digging blonde that I had to cast her as the ambitious schemer who learns the perils of hiring the Stooges to enact a malicious tickling situation.)
Jean Willes as Vanessa Laffingwell
(Jean was a statuesque stalwart in Columbia short comedies in the decade after WW2. She was most memorable as a femme fatale. Afterwards, she had a busy career in TV, including so much work in Westerns that I indeed hope she liked horses.)
Christine McIntyre as Carmen Coloratura
(Christine is probably the favorite female player among Stoogists. Equally adept as a damsel in distress or a vixen, she managed to remain a lady no matter the mayhem around her. She had a lovely singing voice, making it natural that I cast her as the duplicitous Carmen.)
Nanette Bordeaux as Simone
(Her French [Canadian] accent added a bright touch of sexiness to the Stooges' foolery.)
Symona Boniface as Mrs. Plumtree
(One of the best foils the Stooges ever had, she was to them what Margaret Dumont was to the Marx Brothers. Nobody took a pie with more plangent outrage than Symona.)
Vernon Dent as Henry Van Cleeve
(The very embodiment of a comic foil, a literal heavy, Vernon Dent's career in comedy ran from early Hollywood slapstick to his dear friend Shemp's mid-50s swan songs. You knew that all his bluster wasn't going to keep him from falling on his ass at some point in a picture.)
Kenneth MacDonald as S.H. Ayster
(Gifted with a rich, resonant voice and sporting a smarmy mustache, Ken went from expertly playing oily con men for the Stooges to grimly presiding over trials on PERRY MASON for years.)
Philip Van Zandt as Carlton Laffingwell
(One always expected Phil's many villains in the Stooges movies to look at the audience, wink, and leer, "Can you believe I get paid to do this?")
Emil Sitka as James
(One of MY favorites in the Columbia stock company, this versatile and unfailingly funny guy was best playing befuddled professors and beleaguered butlers gamely trying to maintain dignity surrounded by Stooges.)
Herbert Evans as Fogarty (Veteran player whose gravitas was no match for the Stooges.)
***Finally, not long ago, there was a discussion here in the Story Forum on the wisdom of posting a tale using someone else's characters. It was agreed that copyright law entitled the holder of a copyrighted character to demand that the Forum remove such a tale. Quite fair, of course, and just.
Nonetheless, here I go, posting a story featuring characters clearly based on the likenesses of actors in a series of films. I do so with the understanding that its continued presence here is at the mercy of whatever entities hold copyright to the Stooges movies (and the likenesses therein) and any other parties with a legal interest in my cast members.
I hope, however, that anyone reading this silly thing will note my attempt to be affectionate and accurate to the Stooges and the dynamic of their screwy little universe. Rather than being merely salacious (not that there's anything inherently wrong with THAT), I like to think that my orchestrating the tickling of these lovely, spirited dames (to use the vernacular of mid-20th Century America) is playful, and fully in the slapstick tradition of classic American screen comedy and the Stooges themselves: violent, loud, and self-righteous, truly as American as you can get.
Many thanks for getting this far. 'Hope it was more fun for you than a poke in the eyes.<p>
P.S.:<br>BTW, the pics immediately below are of Phil Van Zandt (Laffingwell), Emil Sitka (James the butler), Kenneth MacDonald (S.H. Ayster), Vernon Dent (Van Cleeve), and Symona Boniface (Mrs. Plumtree), respectively.
(Phew!)
We briefly cue a torch-bearing honey in a toga over the COLUMBIA PICTURES logo and theme.
Now, imagine, if you will, that you hear a jaunty rendition of "Three Blind Mice" as the opening credits unspool...
"Slaps and Tickles" a two-reel slapstickler <br>starring The Three Stooges <br>(as portrayed circa 1950 by Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard)
affectionately written and directed by Tee Hee Lawrence ("Oh, a wise guy, eh?")
In a dim hallway of a seedy office building, a curvaceous young woman with short, wavy golden blond hair and clad in a demure grey hat with a lacy half veil, simple but authentic pearls, a conservative, impeccably made grey woolen suit, white satin gloves, sheer tan nylons, and black high heels warily assured herself that she was unobserved. Satisfied, she approached a frosted glass door. Briefly sliding her sunglasses down her nose--revealing wide luminous blue eyes--she read the door's bold black lettering:
SNAPPY SERVICES, INC.
"We'll do anything, and will YOU be surprised when it's done!"
Moe Howard, President
Satisfied that she was in the right place, she gave quick glances around before lightly rapping on the glass with satin knuckles.
Inside, Moe was muttering, "SHHH! Careful...careful...just...two...more...."
With great pride, he leaned the last two playing cards together atop a towering deck, which stood beside a name plate reading, "Moe Howard, President." He exulted, "Phew! And they said it couldn't be DONE! Hehhehhehheh!"
At adjoining desks, noisily napped Larry (whose name plate read "Vice President") and Shemp (whose plate read "Vice Vice President"). Their loud snores produced gusts which fluttered the mess of Daily Racing Form and Police Gazette on their desks, and which duly collapsed Moe's just-finished house of cards.
Moe rubbed a hand down his face in frustration as he beheld his windy partners. At last, he reacted to the repeated knocks at their office door.
"Hey, you mugs!" he barked. "Get up! We got a customer!" He picked up the pitcher of water from the corner of his desk and flung its contents onto the two sleepers.
Larry and Shemp came noisily awake. Larry muttered, "Help! Man overboard!" He began to "swim" in his seat. Shemp spat out a stream of water as he sleepily muttered, "'Is it Saturday night awready?"
Outside, puzzled by the strange noises she heard and miffed that no one was admitting her, the woman rapped more forcefully at the door.
"You lamebrains!" Moe snarled. "Pull yourselves together! This'll be our first job in weeks!" He gestured to the mess on their desks. They gathered up the sodden newspapers, empty bottles, and overflowing ashtrays and shoved them into drawers.
Straightening his tie, Moe jumped to the door, and opened it, revealing an attractive and clearly classy lady. Larry and Shemp wolf whistled. "Shhh! Nix!" Moe hissed at them. To the woman, he offered, "Welcome to Snappy Services, babe, uh, ah, lady!" Larry and Shemp practically fell over themselves offering her a chair. Moe pushed them out of the way as he led her to it.
He sat at his desk, and made to offer her a glass of water, before realizing the pitcher was empty. Larry and Shemp, standing by his sides, haphazardly finished sweeping the fallen cards off Moe's desk and kicked them underneath. He gestured to his right. "This is my associate Larry." Larry bowed and said, "'Pleasure." Moe gestured left. "And this is my associate Shemp." Shemp looked her up and down, and curtseying, said, "'Business." Moe scowled, then smiled. "Yes, hehheh! Down to business!"
Moe picked up a stray ace off the desk and tucked it up his sleeve. Clearing his throat and assuming a serious mein, he asked their guest, "Now, what can we do for you?"
With casual hauteur, the blonde crossed her legs. When she noticed the Stooges raptly staring at them, she cleared HER throat. "Ahem! Mr. Howard, I'm Emmaline Van Cleeve. I noticed your advertisement in the telephone directory. Your company claims to specialize in, ah, odd jobs. I'm hoping that you can help me." She abruptly switched her crossed legs, startling the intent Stooges.
"Sure, lady!" Moe offered. "It'll be a snap!" He floridly snapped his fingers, followed by Larry snapping his. Shemp tried snapping his once, twice, and a third time without luck. Shrugging, he chimed in, "Yeah, a snap!"
"I'm hosting a party tonight, when I'll be introducing the Continental soprano Carmen Coloratura to our fair city. I'm newly wed to my husband, a distinguished businessman, and this is a great opportunity for me to make my mark in society. However, I have an unscrupulous rival, Mrs. Vanessa Laffingwell, who is spreading malicious gossip about me. She's coming tonight, and I want her to make a public spectacle of herself, ruining HER in society."
"Oh, defame a dame, huh?" Shemp cracked. Moe gave him a kick. "Ow! Oh! Oh!" Shemp howled, hopping.
Emmaline recrossed her legs, which again caught the three men's rapt gaze. Moe shook himself out of his moony trance and said, "Go on, Mrs. Legs, I mean, Mrs. Van Cleeve!"
"I have been, ahem, researching my rival, and learned from a confidential source at the office of the podiatrist we share that she has a terrible weakness."
"Fallen arches?" Shemp asked. Moe kicked him again. "Yow!" cried Shemp, rubbing his shin as he stumblingly switched places with Larry.
Emmaline recrossed her legs and allowed her shoe to drop from her raised foot. She leaned back and extended her shapely leg, waggling her tan-stockinged foot in the air. "Hardly." She admired her wiggling toes as the Stooges' eyes slavishly followed every waggle and wiggle. "No, my, heh, ARCH rival has UNusually tick-a-lish feet. Vanessa simply cannot BEAR to be tickled there. If her feet were to be tickled, say, during dinner this evening, she'd make a complete and utter fool of herself, laughing helplessly." At the thought, she laughed herself, and the Stooges joined in. When her expression abruptly turned serious, so did theirs, if a beat behind.
She slipped her foot back into her shoe, as their eyes followed. She sat up straight, startling them, and she intoned, "I want you to attend my party undercover and see to it that she laughs like the idiot she is."
"Undercover work's our specialty!" Moe announced.
"'Sounds more like under-a-table woik," Shemp mused. Reflexively, Moe kicked to his left, causing Larry to bleat, "Ow!" as he rubbed his shin. Shemp cried, "Hah!" Moe kicked HIM. "Ow! Cut it OUT, Moe!" Shemp protested, staggering.
Emmaline opened her purse and withdrew from it a thick handful of cash, which she fanned as the Stooges stared. "Of course, I'll compensate you well for your time, and there will be a bonus once you satisfactorily achieve the outcome." She plucked one bill--a five--from the many, and returned the rest to her purse, which she closed before the obviously disappointed Stooges. "I assume that you'll require a retainer." She placed the five on the desk.
All three men made a grab for the bill. Moe slapped at his partner's hands and pushed them back. "Spread OOOUUUT!" He picked up the bill and slid it into his desk's top drawer. "Consider us retained, Mrs. V!"
She opened her purse again, to the Stooges' renewed interest. To their dismay, she merely extracted a folded piece of paper and a card. She unfolded the paper and handed it to Moe. "This is a seating chart for the center table at dinner tonight. Vanessa's place is marked by a red 'X.' The table is very spacious, and will be covered by a generous tablecloth, hiding your activities at her feet. Her feet are SO ticklish that, once you begin tickling her there, she'll be too overcome by instant laughter to protest sensibly."
Her eyes narrowed. "Before long, our other prestigious guests will think she's, heh, under the influence, and by morning, it will be the talk of the town. She'll be ostracized forevermore and no one will again take seriously her character assaults against me."
She then handed Moe the card. He closely examined the blank back side before realizing with a start there was printing on the front. She informed him, "THAT is your invitation to the party, with the address. Please be punctual, and dress formally."
"Gee, formal!" Larry mused. "I'll have to get my tux outta mothballs."
"Mothballs, nothin'," Shemp added. "I'll haveta get mine outta hock."
Moe glanced daggers at both, before grinning at her and gushing, "Hehheh, always clowning!" He then quickly assured her, "Don't worry your pretty little head, lady! Me and my assistants'll get the job done toot sweet."
"Ah! Your...assistants." She gave Shemp and Larry dubious looks. "Ah, yes, well, whatever and, um, whoever is necessary to do the job." She picked up a fountain pen from a holder on his desk. She took the card from Moe, and applied the pen to it, but no ink would flow.
Shemp helpfully reached for the pen. "Here. Allow me." He fumbled with it until it ejected a stream of blue ink. "There!" Following the flow, he was shaken to behold Moe's scowling face dripping blue.
Emmaline took a silver pen from her purse. "Ah, here, allow ME." She wrote "and guests" below Moe's name calligraphied on the card. She initialled that as well, and then set it on the desk before Moe, who was muttering as he wiped the ink off his face with a handkerchief. Larry and Shemp loomed over Moe to examine the card.
She stood and intoned, "Gentlemen, I expect success."
Moe rose as all three men shouted "Success!" in unison and tried to move shoulder-to-shoulder. Instead, all three knocked their heads together with resounding clunks. "Ooooh! Oooo! Ow!" they cried, briefly weaving dizzily.
Emmaline, suppressing second thoughts, concluded, "Until tonight, gentlemen!" She turned on her heel and, as the Stooges, still somewhat dazed, dreamily watched her every clockwork movement, she walked out.
Shaking his head clear, Moe announced, "C'mon, you slugs! Get busy 'n' find every ticklin' tool we got!" He went to a closet and removed a doctor's bag, from which he noisily dumped medical tools like a stethoscope, a large syringe, a roll of bandages, a head mirror, chattering teeth, a rubber mallet, a skull, and a saw.
Meanwhile, Larry opened the top drawer on the file cabinet behind his desk and removed a feather duster. "This oughta tickle that dame's tootsies silly!" He slammed the drawer shut. The middle drawer opened and rammed him in the midsection. "Oof!" He shrugged it off, happily extracting some bristly paint brushes from the open drawer. "Good for ticklin' under her toes!" He slammed the drawer shut. The top drawer opened and smacked him in the jaw. "D'oh! Stupid dra--!" He angrily pushed that drawer shut. The bottom drawer flew open and bashed him in the shins. "Yow! Why, you...!"
He immediately forgot his pain when he grabbed a toothbrush and a hairbrush from the open drawer. "These'll tickle her to death!" He was about to slam the drawer shut, when he reconsidered. Eyeing the top drawer, he stayed crouched. Holding the middle drawer shut, he eased the bottom drawer closed. After a moment, he exulted, "Hehheh! OK!" and stood up. After a beat, the top drawer flew open, smacking him in the head. "Ow!" When he shut it, the middle drawer again rammed his stomach. "Argh!"
Moe walked over and held open the bag. "Stop foolin' around, porcupine! Put that tickling stuff in here!"
At the same time, Shemp was searching the desks for useful tools. He was pleased to find a shaving brush and backscratcher in Larry's desk drawer as well as a shower brush in his own. Considering them, he muttered, "Heh! We'll tickle her feet so pink they'll glow!" When he came to Moe's desk, he gave a furtive look to make sure Moe wasn't watching. Satisfied, he reached into the top drawer for the $5 retainer. There was a crack and Shemp yelped, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" He pulled out his hand, caught in a mouse trap.
"'Serves you right, cheese eater!" Moe barked, grabbing the ticking tools out of Shemp's other hand and tossing them in the open bag Larry had set on the desk. Larry closed the bag, catching Moe's fingers with a crunch. "Yow!" Moe counted his fingers, and was relieved to see that all were still there. "I'll murder you later! We got no time to lose!" He grabbed both of their noses and led Larry, holding the bag, and Shemp, waving the mousetrap still on his fingers, out of the office.
***************************************
That evening, limousines were pulling up to the carriage entrance of the Van Cleeve mansion. Fogarty, the footman, was opening the passenger doors for the guests and directing them up the steps to a gas lit doorway. Before he could open the door of a newly arrived Rolls Royce, the Stooges, in top hats and tails (as well as white socks and tennis shoes), on a tricycle built for three, blew their squeaky horn before rolling over his foot. "Ouch!" he cried, grabbing his foot and visibly struggling to hold his temper.
The Stooges dismounted. Moe snapped, "Here, bud! Stash our wheels!" They dropped the trike against Fogarty's shins. The beleagered footman cried, "Ow!", hopping in dismay. Shemp added, "And see that it don't get pinched, Paddy!"
"Paddy!" Fogarty grumbled. Struggling with the trike, he accidentally blew the sickly horn, akin to a raspberry, at a stately dowager who'd emerged from the Rolls. She stopped and turned, huffing, "The nerve!" as she slapped his face. "Ah, sorry, Mrs. Plumtree!" he cried, before rolling the trike on her foot.
She cried, "Ow! Tres clumsy idiote!" She peered at him through her lorgnette, folded her feather fan and batted his nose with it. He muttered, "Saints preserve us!" rubbing his injured nose and hastily rolling the trike away.
Inside the foyer, Simone, a cute, ebon-curled French maid, worked the checkroom. She had sneaked a bottle of champagne from the serving table, and, sampling discreetly from it, was feeling no pain. The Stooges came to check their hats. While her back was turned as she parked their toppers, Larry lifted the feather duster tucked behind her belt at her hip and tossed it into the bag Moe had opened, then shut, upon the counter. When she reached for the apparent medical bag, Moe pulled it away and insisted, "Nix, sister. This is, uh, our first aid kit."
Shemp tickled Simone under her chin and gushed, "If YOU need first aid, beautiful, remember ME!" She giggled, "Don't! Teeheehee! That teeckles!" It was only true. Champagne made her VERY ticklish, from her cute chin right down to her tiny, tender toes.
Moe glared and snarled sotto voce, "Turn off the siren, Kildare. We got work to do."
At the entrance to the reception room, Moe gave their invitation to James, the head butler. He looked dubiously at the amended invitation and the three before orotundly announcing, "Mr. Howard and, er, guests." The Stooges were greeted by Emmaline and Henry, her older, portly husband, who, snug in his tux, likewise cast a baleful eye upon the trio.
Clad in a flaring silver silk dress with a gold sash at her waist and gold filigree at her bust and below the knees, golden glittered nylons, and silver evening slippers, Emmaline trilled, "So GOOD of you to come! I KNOW how BUSY you are!"
Moe tucked his thumbs behind his lapels and, effecting upper class hauteur, said, "We wouldn't have missed your sorry, I mean, SOIREE for the world, lady, uh, Madam."
Rubbing his hands, Larry said, "And we'll go anywhere there's free eats."
"And plenty of dames," Shemp added, swiveling his head as two walked by.
Moe interjected, "Hehheh! How, uh, witty! C'mon!" He grabbed the backs of their collars and led them into the reception. Henry looked nonplussed. Emmaline assured him, "They're, ah, guests from the Continent." His skeptical gaze following them, Henry muttered, "The LOST Continent?" She smiled indulgently and quickly directed his attention to the next announced guests.
They happened to be Vanessa and her husband Carlton Laffingwell. Vanessa was a young statuesque brunette wearing a flattering black velvet sheath dress, red silk stole, black feathered headpiece, smoky nylon stockings, and highly polished high heels that were rose red with black highlights. Laffingwell was an older, mustachioed man with the twinkling roving eye of a wolf. He made no pretense of clearly admiring Emmaline's shape.
Ignoring Laffingwell's leer, Emmaline gushed, "Why, Vanessa! What a positively divine outfit! Those red shoes are just to DIE for!"
The tall Vanessa considered her hostess up and down and, with a cool smile, drawled. "Thank you, deah. YOUR couture WAS fashionable--LAST year." She sauntered into the room without a glance back.
Emmaline was furious. She was more determined than ever to see Vanessa humiliated before the assembled cream of society. As soon as she could, she left her husband greeting guests and sought out the Snappy Servicemen.
She found them at the serving table, eagerly helping themselves to the hors d'oeuvres and beverages. Moe was unsuccessfully ladling for a cherry floating in the punchbowl. Larry was trying to cram a bottle of wine into the inside pocket of his tailcoat. Shemp had emptied an entire bowl of stuffed olives into his right side pocket.
Suppressing her misgivings, she moved directly behind them and hissed, "Gentlemen!" Startled, Moe dropped the ladle into the punch. "LOOK what you DONE!" he said disgustedly. "Why don'tcha wait yer turn?" he growled, turning, only to realize with a start that it was Emmaline. He nudged his still distracted partners. Both complained before he shushed them.
"Gentlemen!" Emmaline repeated. The Stooges glanced behind themselves before understanding that she was addressing them. Noticing other guests near them, she spoke up, "I'm sure that you gentlemen would like to meet our guest of honor. Please come with me." The Stooges hurriedly dipped their cups in the punchbowl and followed her.
Broadly smiling and gushing greetings to passing guests, she directed the Stooges to the center of the reception room. Periodically, Moe or Shemp would sneakily pluck a feather from the stylish hat of a female guest, which they would toss into the bag that Larry held open. Out of the side of her mouth, she muttered, "A final instruction, gentlemen. During dinner, you're to tickle the woman wearing red shoes. Is that clear?"
In a low tone, Moe assured her. "Piece o'cake! We got the chart, the proper tools, and I'LL be the one at her feet. It'll be a snap!" He snapped his fingers, as did Larry--prompting a shush from Emmaline--but Shemp again couldn't manage it. "One of these days," he muttered. He wasn't so disappointed that he didn't take the opportunity to snatch the feather from Vanessa's headpiece as she ambled past, lecturing her clearly bored husband. Shemp slipped it into his inside tailcoat pocket, and the Stooges moved along as she remained blithely unaware that it was missing.
Emmaline introduced the three to an elegant woman seated upon a divan and surrounded by well-wishers. "This is Signorina Carmen Coloratura, the Continental soprano, making her American debut." Carmen, with coiled light blonde hair, a light blue, one-shoulder gown, lacy white silk stockings, and strappy blue satin evening slippers, smiled up at them.
Moe bowed and said, "Delighted!"
Larry bowed and said, "Delirious!"
Shemp bowed. There was a ripping sound. After glancing behind himself, he smiled sheepishly and murmured, "Dilapidated."
Carmen spoke with a theatrical Italian accent. "Hehheh. Such...how you say, charming men! In Milano, we would say ragazzi belli."
"Ragazzi, eh?" Shemp offered. "I go for Eye-Tie food. Spaghetti with matzoh balls in oyster sauce!"
"Hehhehheh! You Americans...how you say, tickle me!"
The Stooges, checking out her blue footwear, sadly shook their heads at each other. "You'll have to wait yer turn, lady," Larry said, to the puzzled blonde diva.
Emmaline, leaping into the awkward silence of Carmen's befuddlement, quickly introduced them to a tall, dark, and slippery-looking gentleman standing beside Carmen. "And this is her American representative, Mr. S.H. Ayster."
In a rich baritone, he declaimed, "I hope you gentlemen will accept an invitation to join many this evening eager to invest in the Signorina's American tour. Can I accept your pledge of $1,000?"
The Stooges, who had all just taken sips of punch, spat them out spectacularly. Moe spluttered, "A bit...a bit strong! But, sure, mac! See us about it, uh, later."
"Yeah, much later," Shemp muttered, as Moe shushed him.
Emmaline feigned amusement and took Moe and Larry's elbow. "Hehhehheh! Allow me to show you the dining room." Left behind, Shemp sat next to Carmen and reached into his pocket. He flipped an olive into the air, but failed to catch it in his mouth. "Oops! I'll try it again." He flipped another, and it too fell to the floor. "Hehheh!' He failed to catch the third one, as well. "I'll do this yet!"
Meanwhile, Ayster bent over to whisper into Carmen's ear, "This set-up is even RICHER than I thought. If you make a hit tonight, these chumps will fall over themselves to invest in the shell company I set up to promote your phony American tour. Within a week, we'll have enough to skip the country and land where they'll NEVER find us."
"None too soon fer me," she said, out of the side of her mouth, with a marked Brooklyn accent. "Even dese swells might wise up if they loin the closest ta Europe I evuh been is Canarsie." She winced. "And dese fancy shoes are killin' me."
"Grin and bear it, baby," he whispered. "You'll be laughing on your way to Rio soon enough."
A dignified older couple stepped up to meet Carmen, who resumed operatically exuding Continental charm.
In the dining room, Emmaline directed Moe and Larry to a long, well-appointed table as wait staff bustled in the background. She said, sotto voce, "Here, gentlemen, is where dinner will be served shortly. Mr. Howard, Vanessa's place is here." She pointed to a place card on the table. "You and your, ah, associates will be seated at another table." She waved airily to a small, distant table in the room's Siberia by the kitchen door. "WHAT? Way out THERE?" Larry complained. Moe kicked him. Larry cried, "Ooh!" and rubbed his shin. "I mean, yes, I'll be FINE out there!" Moe gave him a curt nod.
"You DO still have the marked seating chart?" Emmaline asked.
Moe assured her, "It's in the bag, lady." Behind him, Larry began slipping some silverware up his sleeve. Moe turned, slapped his hand and hissed, "Hold it, Houdini!" Turning back to Emmaline, he chirped, "Leave it to us!" Smiling wanly to dispel the mounting doubts she felt about these three, she returned to the reception.
Eyeing the busy wait staff, Moe muttered to Larry, "Listen, knothead! I'll hide underneath now. Cover me!" He knelt behind Larry and slipped under the tablecloth. Larry had resumed harvesting silverware. Seeing a knife fall, Moe reached out from under the table and pounded Larry's foot. Larry yelped, hopping. "You moron!" Moe hissed. "Hand me the bag." Still groaning, Larry awkwardly swung the bag under the table, hitting Moe in the face. "OH! Why you...!" Larry hightailed it back to the reception.
Back at the divan, Shemp persisted flipping and missing olives, which covered the floor before him. He peered into his pocket. "This'd be a fine time to run outta olives!" He reached into his pocket and beamed, "Ahhhh, there's one last one!"
James, holding a tray laden with canapés, walked past and slipped spectacularly on a fallen olive. He landed face down in the canapés. Shemp, eager to help, bent to help him to his feet. "Hey, you gotta quit drinkin', Smedley!"
"The name is James, sir!" insisted the butler, determined to maintain his dignity as he brushed off the hors d'oeuvres.
Emmaline, hurrying to restore order, slipped on another olive and sat on yet others. She wrinkled her nose with disgust as she sat, shifting uncomfortably. When James helped her to her feet, she stood unevenly, leaning on him. She removed her left shoe, and was aghast to see both that its heel was broken and that James' front was a gooey mess. She instructed him to clean up and called over to Simone, who was tipsily serving cocktails.
"Simone, I need you to fetch me a change of shoes." She waved the damaged shoe.
"Anay particulahr pair, Madame?" Simone smiled hazily. "Hic! Pardonez-moi! Hee hee!"
"Anything appropriate, Simone!" Emmaline snapped, trying to ignore the obvious, as she gingerly recovered a flattened olive from behind herself. "Now hurry!"
Henry approached her. "Emmaline! What th--?"
"Ah, hehheh, oh well, accidents will happen!" she assured him, forcing cheer.
Van Cleeve, noticing Shemp trying and failing to catch the last olive, watched it settle amidst the many on the floor, and muttered, "With SOME people around, CERTAINLY!"
As giggly Simone passed her, Carmen flagged her down. "Oh, maid? Maid!"
"Oui, madame?"
"Be a dear and fetch a pair of shoes from my trunk. I can't wear these a moment longer! My poor feet!" Carmen insisted, dramatically. She slipped her stocking feet out of her tight shoes and wiggled her toes.
Weaving a bit, Simone asked, "Wheech ones, Madame?"
"They're the slippers with the bows near the toes."
Moving quickly, if a tad unsteadily, Simone went to Emmaline's room and, after blurrily considering the closet full of shoes, tipsily selected a pair of cherry red open-toed, sling backed wedge heels for her mistress. "Zese red ones look zo prettee!" she gushed.
She then proceeded to the largest guest bedroom, where she opened Carmen's trunk. She blurrily recalled aloud, "The, uh, sleeppers with zee, ah, bows near zee toes," as she perused the shoe tree therein. "Here zay ahr!" She hazily focused on a pair of sequined red evening slippers with red bows. "Hmm! Zay ahr sleepers and zay 'ave bows. D'accord!"
Under the dinner table, Moe opened the bag and removed the seating chart. After pointing to the red "X," and counting to five from one end of the chart, he oriented himself, and whispered a count to five before he settled below one chair. "Just a snap," he chirped, sharply snapping his fingers before shushing himself. Chuckling, he opened the bag, rubbed his hands together eagerly, and began to lay out a few of the tickling tools on the floor before him.
Elsewhere, Simone brought the red slippers to Carmen, who happily kicking off the tight blue shoes, donned the red ones. They, too, pinched a bit. (All these fancy shoes are too small for MY big, touchy feet, she thought.) Still, admiring her stylish and flattering shoes, she was tickled that she had switched.
Emmaline, however, momentarily saw red when Simone handed her the replacement shoes. The style and the color were all wrong for her dress. There was no time to send her for another pair, so Emmaline hurriedly strapped the red shoes on. She intended to change shoes again directly after dinner.
James, having recovered his gravitas after his tumble, played some tones on a small xylophone with a pewter hammer as he moved among the guests, announcing, "Dinner will be served shortly in the dining room."
When he passed, Shemp slapped him on the back and cracked, "I didn't think you'd have dinner in the garage, Smedley, hehheh!"
James rolled his eyes and icily intoned, "Hardly, sir."
Arriving at James' other side, Larry took the hammer and sounded the first five calling notes of "Shave and a Haircut!" on the xylophone.
James took back the hammer and said, "THANK you, sir!"
Shemp immediately grabbed the hammer, saying, "Waitaminnut!" He sounded out the two answering notes for "Two bits!"
"There!" he said, handing the hammer back to the steaming James. Shemp and Larry joined the throng moving into the dining room.
Henry Van Cleeve entered the dining room beside them. Larry spotted two cigars in the breast pocket of Henry's tux. "Don't mind if I do!" he said, taking one, to Van Cleeve's obvious but silent annoyance. Larry sniffed the cigar and, satisfied, asked Shemp, "Want one?"
Shemp replied, "Sure!"
To Van Cleeve's mute astonishment, Larry plucked the other cigar and handed it to Shemp. Both Stooges saved the cigars, Larry slipping it in his breast pocket; Shemp, tucking his behind his ear. "Thanks!" said Shemp. "Don't mention it," said Larry. Van Cleeve was about to say something, but was interrupted by Emmaline taking his elbow and saying, "Henry, stop dawdling and find your seat."
Larry and Shemp both spotted an empty seat at the center table, but Larry managed to get in the chair first. "Hey!" cried Shemp, "No, ya don't!" He tried to pull Larry up. Smugly, Larry insisted, "I was here FIRST!" and stayed put. Shemp snatched up the place card, crossed out the printed name and quickly jotted his, assuring Larry, "Never MIND! I'LL get a place!"
Going to the other side of the table, Shemp tapped the seated Laffingwell on the right shoulder. Laffingwell turned to Vanessa, seated next to him, and asked, "What?" Vanessa, laughing at a quip from a handsome young man to HER right, distractedly replied, "What?" The two bickered briefly as Shemp reached over Laffingwell's left shoulder to cover his place card with the one he'd pinched.
He then tapped Laffingwell on the shoulder. "Hey, bud! Ya mind movin'. You're in my seat."
Laffingwell glanced at the place card and, confused, stood and apologized, "Oh, I'm SO sorry!" Shemp sat down and snapped open the napkin and tucked it into his collar. "Don't mention it, pal!"
Noticing that Laffingwell seemed at a loss as to where to sit, Shemp tapped Vanessa's shoulder and said, "Hey, toots! You mind moving down so this poor guy can sit down." She politely stood, causing the gallant young man next to her to offer his seat, beginning a chain of seat switching along the table.
Larry's intrusion on the other side caused similar seat-switching confusion. In due course, two guests were left standing awkwardly beside the head of the table.
Vanessa, appalled when Shemp reached across her to grab a celery stalk and a breadstick, which he bit into noisily, whispered to the gentleman seated on her right. He in turn whispered to the lady on his right, and soon Vanessa and the lady had switched places. Vanessa was now seated next to Henry Van Cleeve, whose puzzlement at suddenly seeing her next to him quickly gave way to smiles and chitchat between them.
Emmaline, seated at the head of the table, hurriedly called James to find a place for the displaced guests at one of the other tables. She was irritated to see that, somehow, Mr. Howard's assistants had gotten seats at her center table. They had disturbed her painstaking seating arrangement. Now, Vanessa was sitting next to Henry at the other end of the table, and they were getting along far too well!
Below the table, Moe, observing the sudden shift of seating, was flummoxed by a man moving into the seat he had thought was marked by the red "X" on the chart. He scanned the chart again to reorient himself. He was furthered alarmed by the realization that no fewer than three of the women now seated at the table were wearing red shoes.
Above, Larry took advantage of the lit candelabra before him to light his cigar. He puffed on it happily, causing Mrs. Plumtree, seated next to him, to cough, unfold her feather fan, and flutter away his smoke. "Young man?" she intoned.
"'Sorry, sister. I only got one," he replied, to her chagrin, as she marveled, "Tres gauche!" Fearing she might ask for his, he lowered the lit cigar under the table.
Below him, Moe was studying the seating chart. When Moe looked up, trying to locate his target, he didn't notice Larry's cigar setting the chart on fire. The flames burnt his fingers, so he dropped it. "Yow!" When he reached for it, Larry stepped on his fingers. "Owowow!" Recognizing the white socks and tennis shoes of one of his partners, Moe punched Larry's knee, causing Larry to reflexively kick Moe's chin. "Oh!" Moe barked, before catching himself. Irritated, he hissed up at Larry. "You idiot! Get down here!"
Larry, mindful Moe was calling below, thought fast and swept to the floor Mrs. Plumtree's feather fan, which she'd rested on the table. He murmured, "Oops! I'll get it! " to the lady, quite distracted in conversation on her other side. He slid down, slipping past the tablecloth and under the table.
Moe yanked Larry to him and state-whispered, "You moron! You tryin' to burn down the joint? Look what you did to the chart!" He thrust the ashes in Larry's face. "Why are ya sittin' up there anyhow? You mixed folks up!"
Larry coughed and spluttered, "I'm sorry, Moe. I, uh..."--thinking "fast"-- "thought it would help." He smiled uncertainly.
"Does THIS help?" Moe bopped Larry on the forehead. Larry cried, "Ow!" Moe clamped a hand over Larry's mouth. "Shhh!"
"OK, 'helper'," Moe growled, "Without the X on the chart, how are we going to figure out which one of these dames to tickle?"
"Easy!" Larry beamed. "She said tickle the one wearin' red shoes."
"Three of 'em got red shoes, Einstein! How do we TELL the right one?"
"We don't have to." Larry intuited. "We'll, uh, we'll tickle ALL THREE and that way we're SURE to tickle the right one."
Moe was silent for a beat. He smiled and pinched Larry's cheek and said, "You know, you're not as dumb as you look!"
"Thanks, Moe," Larry gushed. "Neither are you."
Moe frowned, slapped him and hissed, "Go ON! Get that OTHER nitwit down here!" He pointed to the only person left at the table wearing white socks and tennis shoes with his tux. "We'll tickle all three dames." He handed Larry some feathers and brushes.
Larry crawled over to Shemp and stabbed his right calf with a goose quill. "Ow!" Shemp cried, above, as he tried to make time with the society dame to his left. He looked down and was startled to see Larry peering up. Larry stage whispered, "Moe sez get down here." To the lady, Shemp muttered, "Loose shoelace. Be right back." He slipped under the table cloth as the lady shrugged and turned to speak to the gentleman on her other side.
Underneath, Larry handed Shemp the quill and a brush and said, "HERE! Moe says to take these and tickle that dame wearin' red shoes." He pointed at a pair of red wedges beneath a silver dress at the far end of the table.
Shemp was startled to see to his right that Moe scowling at him while kneeling before a lady in red shoes and black stockings. He was equally amazed to see to his left that Larry had camped before ANOTHER dame in red shoes and white stockings at the middle of the other side of the table. He hissed at Larry, "I thought we wuz ticklin' only one broad!"
"Shut up and get busy!" Larry spat back, giving the passing Shemp a shove.
"Awright, awright! Hold yer horses!" muttered Shemp, as he crawled down to the third pair of red shoes. "'Thought I was gonna get somethin' to eat!"
Above, Simone was tipsily helping James to serve the soup course. As James carefully ladled turtle soup from a tureen steaming on a serving cart into a gold-rimmed bowl, she took the opportunity to slip her right stocking foot out of her high-polished black shoe. These new shoes were much too tight. Her lovely little feet were tres sensitive. Smiling and sighing with relief, she flexed her petite, delicate foot in the black, reinforced hose. As James turned to hand her the bowl, he inadvertently kicked her loose shoe under the table. Desperate to reclaim her shoe and fearing James' censure if he saw she was without it, Simone thrust her stocking foot behind her past the tablecloth and under the table, her wiggling toes seeking her lost shoe.
Below, Moe's eyes were poked by Simone's suddenly-appearing toes. Covering his eyes, he barely smothered a pained "Oh!" When he uncovered, he flinched at the toes wiggling in hose before him. As the foot flailed around, it smacked him once, twice in the face. "Oh, yeah?" he murmured, reaching into the bag and pulling out a back scratcher. "I'll fix YOU, sister!" He dragged the scratcher along the intrusive upturned sole.
Above, Simone, balancing shakily on one foot, accepted the laden bowl from James. She was awkwardly setting it before Vanessa when she felt something tickle her hidden foot. She squealed and giggled, nearly tipping the bowl into Vanessa's lap before setting it down safely. James eyed her warily before he picked up another bowl to fill. She blushed and smiled helplessly at him. He filled another bowl--a generous one for Mr. Van Cleeve--and handed it to her.
Below, annoyed at the wayward foot still in his way, a determined Moe held it still and fiercely scratched its black stocking sole. Simone again burst into giggles and yanked her foot away, nearly spilling the bowl onto Van Cleeve, who gave Simone a perturbed look. James rescued her and grabbed the bowl, which he set before the dismayed Henry. James then took Simone's elbow and conducted her, lopsided on one shoe, to the kitchen, as she whispered, "Attendre! Ma chasseur!" to no avail.
Up at the head of the table, Emmaline beheld this near disaster nervously. Below her, Shemp arrived at her bright red ankle-strap wedges. Examining her shapely legs clad in the glittery stockings, he thought, "These gams look familiar. I wonder where I've seen 'em before." He was lost in thought when her raised foot smacked his nose. "Why, you...!" he muttered, holding his hooter, only to then suffer the waggling wedge clipping his chin.
Meanwhile, Larry sat cross-legged at the table's midsection before a dame in a diaphanous blue dress and white silk stockings with feet slipped into sequined red evening slippers. The feet seemed restless, constantly flexing in the slippers. One of them stepped on his hand, and he yelped in pain, getting free only with great difficulty.
Further along, Moe, finally free of the troublesome foot, stumbled on a stray shiny black shoe before him. Irritated. he flung it away, hitting Larry in the side of the head. "Ow!" Larry, baffled whence it came, shrugged and tossed it aside, hitting the back of Shemp's head.
"Oh!" Shemp picked up the shoe. Rubbing the back of his head as he peered around, he growled, "If I catch the wise gal that hit me...!" Not seeing the perpetrator, he flipped it aside, where it displaced the white shoe slipped off by a party guest. She, chatting heedlessly above, eased her stocking foot into the black shoe.
Finally distraction-free, Moe faced the crossed pair of shapely smoky stocking legs under a glittering black gown and sporting red open-toed heels. The raised right foot, jiggling wildly, mesmerized him momentarily, causing his eyes and head to mimic its movements. He shook his head to clear it. The foot kicked him in the throat. "Gah!" As he protected his throat, the toe of the shoe snagged his nose, causing him to hit his head under the table. "Ow!" Rubbing his head as he settled back on his heels, he murmured, "Oh, murder!"
Above, Vanessa and Henry were bantering over the soup course. She felt what she assumed was his playing footsie with her. "Why, the old lecher!" she thought. She gave Emmaline a bright smile, thinking, "I can hardly wait to tell EVERYONE of THIS development."
In the kitchen, James handed Simone a tray of stuffed squabs. He noticed her shoeless stocking foot. "Outrageous!" he huffed. "I couldn't help eet!" she bleated. Rolling his eyes, he opened a closet and drew out a pair of polished red Mary Janes. He handed them to Simone and said, "Here. Put these on."
"But, zhey are red!" Simone tipsily objected. "No matter," James huffed. "Don them and help me serve the squab." He handed her a tray of petite poulets and practically pushed her out the door.
Meanwhile, under the table, Shemp bobbed and weaved before the jiggling foot, only to be kicked in the face again. "That's it! That's it!" he muttered. He began undoing his belt.
Above, Emmaline, fitfully conversing with a guest, glanced nervously below, thinking, "Is that Mr. Howard down there? What is he doing at MY FEET? I thought I told him to tickle the woman wearing red shoes." She startled when she realized the color of the replacement shoes Simone had brought her. "No. NO! No one could be THAT stupid!" She tried to disguise her dismay by sipping her wine glass.
Below, Shemp grabbed her right foot and cinched his belt tightly around her stocking ankle. He then knotted the other end of the belt to a leg of her chair. He was pleased with himself for a moment until her OTHER foot smacked him across the face. He grabbed that one and began to unbuckle her shoe.
Above, Emmaline nearly choked on her wine as she felt her feet trapped. She thought, "This can't be happening!" She masked her mounting alarm with a forced smile for her guests, silently screaming, "Don't take MY shoe off, you idiot!" Making matters worse was the sight of her husband at the end of the table happily chatting with Vanessa. Infuriatingly, the two were thick as thieves.
Determined, Shemp gripped the struggling dame's golden ankle with one firm hand. With the other, he finally finished unbuckling her red shoe and tossed it away. He muttered, "OK, sister. You asked for it." Fluttering his fingertips floridly under her foot, he began teasing along the nylon covering her soft, wrinkly sole. She waggled her foot desperately but he held firm and persisted tickling. "No, ya don't!" Relishing her panicked reaction, he indulged in a whispered "Coochie coochie coooooooo, sister!"
Emmaline squirmed in her seat, somehow keeping her composure while feigning intense interest in the guest talking next to her. The idiot below was stroking her sole through her nylon with his fingertips, teasing the tenderness near her agonizing toes and along her arch and just above her heel. It tickled SO MUCH, sending electric sensations up her legs and causing butterflies to flutter in her tummy. Giggles backed up in her throat, and it was only with the greatest effort that she contained most of them behind a fitful grin, thinking, "You dope! You're tickling the wrong feet! You're tickling MY feet! STOP! YOU MUST STOP! I CAN'T STAND IT!"
Underneath the other end of the table, the woman seated before Moe again crossed her legs, her raised red shoe's toe catching him in the eye. "Yow!" He rubbed his eye and blearily peered out of it. The foot then smacked him again in the face. Above, Vanessa was unabashedly flirting with Henry, and she thought that her playful foot was merely meeting his.
At the middle of the table, Carmen was conversing with the smarmy Laffingwell across the table. She had been entertaining his and a number of other obvious flirtations all evening. Ayster had insisted that stringing these Don Juans along would mean bigger donations for her "tour." A smile fixed upon her face, she glanced down.
Below, her feet were still aching despite her change of shoes. Hoping the tablecloth provided cover, she kicked off the red slippers. Inwardly sighing, she crossed her legs and wiggled her toes happily. Larry watched raptly, mesmerized as her pretty little toes danced within her stockings. He smirked and thought, "Boy, is she askin' for it!" as her toes hovered just before his twitching nose.
With supreme effort, Emmaline managed to yank her left foot free, kicking Shemp on the chin ("OH!") before pulling her foot back under her chair. Shemp rubbed his chin ruefully and growled, "Oh, yeah? 'Think you're smart, huh?" He plucked a feather from the duster. "Kick me, willya?" He began to poke its quill through the open toe of the red wedge on her still bound right foot. He vengefully probed between her toes with the quill. Her foot quivered, but she was unable to work it loose. She brought her free stocking foot forward and smacked Shemp in the face again. He tried to catch it, but she quickly pulled it back.
"Just for THAT..." He undid the ankle strap on her bound foot and pulled off her wedge, tossing it behind. He plucked at the toe of her stocking and poked a hole in it with the quill. He ripped the stocking open at her toes and peeled it back to her heel. He began to sweep the feather duster fiendishly upon her exposed bare wrinkly sole. Her toes scrunched and spasmed open alternately in ticklish agony. Shemp dusted her from tiny pink toes to fleshy heel and back, fiendishly feathering every inch of her foot, all the while muttering, "Not so tough NOW, huh? Coochie coochie coo!"
Above, it was all Emmaline could do to suppress a geyser of giggles and keep from bouncing off her chair. Her lips quivered in her desperation to remain silent. Her face was turning beet red and rivulets of sweat were teasing down her back. The feathers were KILLING her. She was practically biting her glass.
Below, Shemp dropped the duster and began drumming her ticklish sole with his fingertips. She spat out her wine and helplessly collapsed into giggles. At the other end of the table, her husband looked on disapprovingly and Vanessa appeared smug, both assuming that she already had too much to drink.
Down the table, Carmen felt a hand firmly grasp her raised ankle. She gamely kept up her conversation. She didn't know which of the men seated around her was taking advantage, but she wouldn't let it distract her from charming these chumps. She'd fended off worse than a little footsie at Coney Island.
At that moment, Mr. Van Cleeve, irritated at what he perceived to be his young wife's inebriated inattention, took upon himself the task of introducing Carmen to those assembled. He struck his wine glass lightly with his knife four times. He stood, raised his glass, and announced, "I'd like to take this opportunity to make a toast to our honored guest, Signorina Carmen Coloratura. We welcome you to America, and hope many here tonight will generously contribute to your upcoming American tour."
There was polite applause, glasses raised, and murmurs of "Hear, hear!"
Carmen stood uneasily on one foot, for she could not yank her other foot free from whomever was grasping it. Nervous, she steadied herself, and said, "I want to, ah, thank you all for your w-warm w-welcome. I know that, w-with your generous help, I can put grand op-opera on a f-firm f-footing in your g-great country."
Larry staunchly maintained a firm grip on her ankle. "Oh, no, you don't! No, you don't! I gotcha! I gotcha good!" He began to stroke her stocking sole from toes to heel and back with a bristly paint brush.
Thus tickled, Carmen's speech became peppered with giggles. "I'm so ha-ha-happeehee...so hahahaha-happeeheehee tohoo beheehee here and ha-ha-ha, if you only knew ha-ha, how hahahahappee I ahhahaam!"
At that moment, Shemp spun a hairy shaving brush along Emmaline's curvaceous arch. His tactical tickling turn cracked her control. She burst into astonished laughter. Trying to convince her guests that she was merely responding to Carmen's apparent good humor, she motioned to the diva and began to applaud lightly. Almost immediately, tho', she then began slapping the table in her hilarity, rattling glasses and silverware.
After exchanging curious glances, the other guests, out of politeness, began to giggle a little with the hostess and the guest of honor. Soon, they were laughing outright, for Carmen had tumbled with laughter back into her chair as Larry pushed the bristles under her twitching toes. He slid the brush down to just above her heel, "painted" there, and swept it back up to her toes, which judging from her operatic peals, really tickled her.
Now stunned by her extended, hilarious performance, the guests began to whisper amongst themselves. Ayster hissed, "What are you DOING?"
Carmen shook her head, trying, through her teary, laughing eyes, to tell him that it was NONE of her doing. Larry switched to scratching the ball of her foot with the quill of a feather, and she just closed her eyes and howled.
Emmaline, through her own red-faced, tear-streamed laughter, was mortified. Now those idiots were apparently tickling the guest of honor! She saw the smug smile on Vanessa's face. "I'M being tickled! My honored GUEST is being tickled! I'm dying socially and that witch Vanessa is untouched!"
Through the mounting chaos at the table, James and Simone were gamely trying to serve the squab to the distracted diners. The butler somehow maintained a poker face, tho' Simone was unsuccessfully squelching tipsy giggles.
At Vanessa's feet, Moe, his sour puss practically black and blue from her red-shoed stubbornness, rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He took firm hold of her raised right ankle and slipped off her red high heel. Her long toes wiggled under the reinforced black nylon. Above, Vanessa gave Henry a leer, expressing mock outrage. "The very idea! Stealing my shoe!" she hissed at him. Henry, baffled and blushing, asked, "M-Mrs. Laffingwell, wha--?"
Moe flung Vanessa's red shoe between the feet of Mrs. Plumtree, who'd been dangling her silver evening shoes all evening. When the dowager's left shoe tumbled from her raised stocking foot, she pursued it with pointed toes. She slipped her foot into the red shoe instead. Again crossing her legs, her right foot was raised, its silver shoe dangling from her stocking toes.
With Vanessa's foot finally in hand, Moe, his face set with purpose, began to brush Vanessa's stocking sole with a feather. She yanked her foot away. Above, she giggled and admonished Henry. "Now, STOP that! I'm TICKLISH!" Van Cleeve was caught between bafflement and amusement at her presumably tipsy confession. He wasn't sure what to say.
Below, Moe grabbed her other foot, pulled off her shoe, and flung that away. It knocked Ms. Plumtree's remaining silver shoe off her foot. Sure enough, when her stocking foot sought it out, she slipped her foot into the red shoe instead. She crossed her legs, now dangling the red shoe from her pudgy toes.
Moe, clutching a fistful of feathers, began sweeping them up-and-down Vanessa's expansive, wrinkly and pampered stocking sole. After a momentary "Wha? HehhehNO!" she immediately erupted with high-pitched laughter, desperately, in her ticklish abandon, clutching at Henry's left lapel. Alarmed, he stood, and his lapel was ripped and left hanging down his front. Outraged, he yanked at the right shoulder of the obviously drunken Vanessa's dress and tore it so it hung down to her elbow. At this, Vanessa screamed with laughter for, below, Moe was vigorously tickling her foot.
Along the table, hilarious Carmen, desperate to stop being tickled, kicked at Larry with her free foot. He took one kick on the nose. "Oh!" However, he not only somehow held on to her left foot, but secured her right one as well. With his back to her, he tucked both under his left arm and began to vigorously stroke both of her stocking soles with his fingertips.
Carmen screamed, "EEEEEEAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!" Ayster grabbed her, trying to calm her, but succeeding only in tearing her dress. Carmen seemed to find THAT hilarious. She flung out her arms, accidentally poking Simone in her ticklish ribs. Simone squealed and tipped over the tray of squabs that she was carrying onto Ayster, now dripping with tiny potatoes and gravy. Tickled Carmen found THAT even funnier.
Ayster stood stunned, weakly applying his serviette to his spattered shirtfront. It wasn't bad enough that Carmen apparently had too much to drink, threatening their scam. No, now everyone around him seemed to be laughing at him. No one was laughing more than Laffingwell seated across from him. Ayster impulsively stepped away from the table and grabbed a cream pie from a nearby dessert cart. He hurled it across the table, catching Laffingwell squarely in the face.
Laffingwell stopped laughing and fumed. He took some of the cream dripping from his face, set it upon his spoon, and fired it back at Ayster. Instead, it smacked Mrs. Plumtree right between the eyes. Fuming, she marched to the dessert cart and selected a pie. She intended to hurl it at Laffingwell. James, trying to intercede, entreatied, "Madame, please!" He stepped in front of her, and, for his trouble, took the pie in mid-stride. She whirled and picked up another.
As her guests gradually became embroiled in a frenzy of tit-for-tat pie throwing and clothes ripping, Emmaline, determined at the head of the table to restore order and salvage the evening, brought her free foot forward to kick her tickling tormentor. Shemp took it off his forehead with a barked, "OH!" He shook it off and, before she could land a second kick, caught her foot and began to tickle her stocking sole with five vengeful fingers. "Kitcheykitcheykitcheycoo, toots! Kitcheycoo!" he snarled. He ran his nails along the outer edge of her foot. He skated his fingertips around the concavity of her instep. He drummed his fingers on the sweet spot near her heel. Jaw set, he fiercely tickled her foot, remembering that wad of bills in the satin hands of the blonde who hired them. Won't she be tickled!
Emmaline squealed and roiled with laughter, trying to signal James to help her. But he seemed preoccupied trying to protect the dessert carts from guests bent on war. One guest responded to his entreaties by ripping his jacket up the back. Meanwhile, the idiot below was tickling her to death, now skimming a toothbrush torturously along the sheer nylon coating her soft sole. As she howled with laughter, openmouthed, she was smacked full in the face by an errant pie hurled by the creme-blinded Mrs. Plumtree.
Larry had relinquished one of Carmen's feet, but was holding firm onto her right ankle, He insinuated his fingers under her clenching stocking toes and was teasing between them. She weakly kicked at his back with her free foot, hooting with laughter in her seat. She was nearly breathless and her sides ached. Sputtering, she begged, "Hahhahahhhh! Stop! Stahahahahaap! I'll dohoo anneeheething! Hahahahahahah! Awright! Awright! Hahahahahahahhaa! I'm a phohohohneeheee! I'm hahaha frahahaham Brooklyn! I hahahaha ain't a deeheeheevahahahahahaaa! Now stahahahahap! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"
Too, too late, she finally yanked her foot away, but fell over screaming onto her back in her chair in the process. James, trying to relocate a tray of cream puffs, tripped over her, sending gooey pastries flying onto Mr. Van Cleeve. The host sat, stunned into apoplectic silence, as the custard dripped off of him.
Simone and James butted heads as they tried to aid the fallen guest of honor. Dizzy, the maid sunk to her knees, and heedlessly extended her feet under the table. Larry was stunned to see ANOTHER pair of red shoes before him. He shrugged and yanked the red Mary Janes off of Simone's stocking feet. He skimmed the blade of a feather across her upturned soles. Simone whooped with laughter as Carmen staggered to her feet. Tickled silly, Simone grabbed onto Carmen's dress and ripped it clean off. Appalled, James snatched the dress from the maid. Caught in her underwear, Carmen cried, "Holy Canarsie!" She slapped James and grabbed her dress from him. Trying to get Simone on her feet, James tore off HER dress. As Larry feathered her feet, Simone, tickled pink, simply laughed uproariously at all this.
Nearby, Moe had reached into the bag and, with a sense that he was deploying an ace up his sleeve, brought out the hairbrush. He began vigorously dragging its rubber tips along Vanessa's super ticklish sole. She, too, screamed with laughter, which was only magnified by the sight of Van Cleeve covered in pastry. Disgusted by the woman, Van Cleeve plucked a pastry off his front and pushed it into her face. Surveying it crosseyed, her momentary shock gave way to giggles as Moe brushed her heel. Not realizing that Van Cleeve couldn't have been both mercilessly tickling her foot AND pushing a pastry into her face, she wrested her foot from Moe's grasp, kicking him in the face. She rose from the table and hopped on stocking feet to the dessert cart.
She grabbed a pie and turned, raising it in her right hand to throw. Her husband, tie undone and collar torn in the melee, had just managed to wipe the pie off his face. Laffingwell raised a hand to Vanessa. "Now, dear, remember our position in the Social Registry!" Infuriated, she launched the pie into his face. Van Cleeve laughed uproariously at that. Vanessa picked up a chocolate layer cake. Marching on her stocking feet over to the chuckling Van Cleeve, she reared back and pushed the gooey cake into his face, causing him to topple back in his chair. He stood up, wiped the icing from his eyes, and the two of them dashed to the pastry carts for more ammo.
Confused, but recovering quickly, Moe spotted the red shoe dangling from Mrs. Plumtree's left foot. She had returned to her seat, her appetite honed by her energetic pie-throwing, and. ignoring the creme on her brow, was happily tucking into a squab. Frustrated by yet MORE red shoes, he crawled to them and grabbed her ankle. Above, she cried, "Who the devil--? Tres nerve!" He pulled off the red shoe and, as he saw it, resumed tickling his assigned target's stocking foot with the hairbrush. Dropping her knife and fork with a clatter, Mrs. Plumtree spluttered with giggles, kicking the hairbrush from Moe's hand. Looking around, Moe noticed Mrs. Plumtree's fortuitously fallen fan. He secured her other ankle, opened the fan, and stroked her sole with the silken feathers. Her limbs turned to jelly as she abruptly surrendered to girlish laughter, for her pudgy feet were très, tres ticklish.
Shemp, Larry, and Moe doggedly kept tickling the feet of Emmaline, Simone, and Mrs. Plumtree. Everyone else seemed to be either hurling pastry at one another or tearing each other's clothes. The room was filled with laughter, screams of outrage, and the sounds of pastry meeting faces and fabric being torn.
Finally aware of the clothes-ripping, pastry-flinging melee above them, the Stooges quit tickling and conferred. Shemp cried, "The joint's broken out in fights!" Larry added, "Yeah, we better beat it!" Moe agreed, "You ain't kiddin'! Shemp, take the point!"
Shemp protested, "Why do I haveta go out foist? They'll moider us!"
Moe insisted, "Always complainin'! Keep low, and it'll be a snap!" He tried to snap his fingers, but failed.
"Sure, a snap!" Larry concurred, though he also failed to snap his fingers.
Shemp dubiously snapped his fingers--and succeeded. "Hehheh! Well, whaddaya know! A snap!"
Moe gave him a shove. "Quit snappin' n' get goin'!"
The Stooges rapidly crawled on hands-and-knees out from under the table to the entrance to the reception room. They stood and dusted themselves off, relieved to have escaped the carnage. Larry and Shemp tossed their remaining tickling tools into the bag, which Moe closed with a snap.
A lady, her dress in tatters and wearing one white and one black shoe ran past screaming, pursued by a leering, creamed disheveled Laffingwell wielding two cream puffs. The Stooges exchanged shrugs.
Simone, giggling and shoeless in her frilly undies and stockings, was mere steps ahead of James, sternly waving a feather duster at her. Shemp chuckled, "Atta boy, Smedley!"
They walked calmly through the chaos, and had just reached the foyer, when they heard Emmaline trill, "Oh, gentlemen?" behind them.
They froze and Moe, ear cocked, said to his partners, "Hey, I think she means US!"
Larry offered, "We must be going up in the world!"
Shemp cracked, "The payoff at last! Greenbacks...simoleans...dead Presidents!"
The Three Stooges turned and saw Emmaline, Carmen, Vanessa, and Mrs. Plumtree, shoeless in torn clothing and dripping with cream, marching side-by-side up to them.
Mrs. Plumtree stepped forward and, eyes flashing daggers at them, huffed, "YOU vandals!" She gave all three a mighty slap-in-the-face in rapid succession. "GET OUT!" She deferred to the other three women, who stepped up with their hands behinds their backs.
"Wait a minute, boys," cooed Emmaline, her one bare foot tapping impatiently.
"Don't go yet," insisted Vanessa.
"Yeah, we wanna give ya somethin', " offered Carmen.
The Stooges grinned. Moe ventured, "Gee, we thought you'd be mad."
"After all," Larry admitted. "We kinda spoiled the party."
Shemp marveled, "Yeah, everybody's a mess but us, hehhehheh."
"Now, then, Mrs. V," Moe said, pressing his luck. "Do we get what's comin' to us?"
Emmaline gushed, "You certainly DOOO!"
The three women cried, "Close your eyes!" in unison.
"All ri-ight!" sang the Stooges simultaneously, eyes shut.
Each Stooge received a gooey pie smack in the face.
After a beat, goo dripping, Shemp smacked his lips and said, "Well, at least, I got dessert!" Another beat. "Mmm...chocolate."
Suddenly, Mr. Van Cleeve, also in tatters and pastry, appeared in the room with a shotgun, and the pied Stooges, duly and noisily alarmed, ran out to their trike. As they hastily hopped on and pedaled away--bowling over a hopping mad Fogarty--Henry loudly fired from the doorway.
When the smoke cleared, the Stooges--smeared in soot, their tuxes in tatters--were wobbly circling in the street on unicycles!
Seeing Van Cleeve was reloading in pursuit, with Fogarty also armed behind him, Moe, Larry and Shemp yelped and shakily pedaled away in a panic.
Van Cleeve set himself and noisily fired another smoky report at the Stooges. The recoil sent him tumbling back into Fogarty, who fired in the air. There was quacking and a flock of ducks fell on the pair.
Howling, the Stooges wildly accelerated into the distance.
(We fade out to the jolly closing bars of "Three Blind Mice.")
THE END
(Not Quite) A COLUMBIA SHORT SUBJECT PRESENTATION
**********************************************************************************
Afterwords:
The short comedies of The Three Stooges, released to movie theaters by Columbia Pictures from 1934 through 1959--and then ceaselessly shown on TV (and now online) since--are rife with fondly-remembered tickling scenes. These scenes featured without exception the Stooges themselves being tickled. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. The scenes are usually quite lengthy and sometimes even funny.
However, I do regret that none of the lovely and talented female players of the Columbia comedy shorts stock company were treated likewise. The prudish Production Code routinely censored anything remotely perceived as perversely erotic. Men tickling women was apparently ticklish territory. (Considering that women would sometimes be subject to violent slapstick in these shorts, it certainly wasn't out of sensitivity to charges of misogyny.)
This story, then, provides a modest corrective.
I suspect that Stooges fans will wonder why I chose to feature Shemp, and not Curly--the most popular third Stooge. One reason is that I think salty Shemp, ever quick with an adlib, is sadly underrated compared to his manic brother. (I would even argue that he was more clever and funnier than Curly, but don't want any head bonks from dissenters.) The other reason is that the women I chose to be bedeviled were series regulars around 1950, when Shemp starred in the shorts.
I know, I know. I have too much time on my hands.
For those wishing to know the faces of my chosen cast:
The Three Stooges: Moe, Larry, and Shemp
(The boys are pictured [in the next post below] in their opening credits glory.)
Connie Cezan as Emmaline Van Cleeve
(She had a very modest screen career, and appeared in only a few Stooges shorts. But, she made such an impression playing her usual gold-digging blonde that I had to cast her as the ambitious schemer who learns the perils of hiring the Stooges to enact a malicious tickling situation.)
Jean Willes as Vanessa Laffingwell
(Jean was a statuesque stalwart in Columbia short comedies in the decade after WW2. She was most memorable as a femme fatale. Afterwards, she had a busy career in TV, including so much work in Westerns that I indeed hope she liked horses.)
Christine McIntyre as Carmen Coloratura
(Christine is probably the favorite female player among Stoogists. Equally adept as a damsel in distress or a vixen, she managed to remain a lady no matter the mayhem around her. She had a lovely singing voice, making it natural that I cast her as the duplicitous Carmen.)
Nanette Bordeaux as Simone
(Her French [Canadian] accent added a bright touch of sexiness to the Stooges' foolery.)
Symona Boniface as Mrs. Plumtree
(One of the best foils the Stooges ever had, she was to them what Margaret Dumont was to the Marx Brothers. Nobody took a pie with more plangent outrage than Symona.)
Vernon Dent as Henry Van Cleeve
(The very embodiment of a comic foil, a literal heavy, Vernon Dent's career in comedy ran from early Hollywood slapstick to his dear friend Shemp's mid-50s swan songs. You knew that all his bluster wasn't going to keep him from falling on his ass at some point in a picture.)
Kenneth MacDonald as S.H. Ayster
(Gifted with a rich, resonant voice and sporting a smarmy mustache, Ken went from expertly playing oily con men for the Stooges to grimly presiding over trials on PERRY MASON for years.)
Philip Van Zandt as Carlton Laffingwell
(One always expected Phil's many villains in the Stooges movies to look at the audience, wink, and leer, "Can you believe I get paid to do this?")
Emil Sitka as James
(One of MY favorites in the Columbia stock company, this versatile and unfailingly funny guy was best playing befuddled professors and beleaguered butlers gamely trying to maintain dignity surrounded by Stooges.)
Herbert Evans as Fogarty (Veteran player whose gravitas was no match for the Stooges.)
***Finally, not long ago, there was a discussion here in the Story Forum on the wisdom of posting a tale using someone else's characters. It was agreed that copyright law entitled the holder of a copyrighted character to demand that the Forum remove such a tale. Quite fair, of course, and just.
Nonetheless, here I go, posting a story featuring characters clearly based on the likenesses of actors in a series of films. I do so with the understanding that its continued presence here is at the mercy of whatever entities hold copyright to the Stooges movies (and the likenesses therein) and any other parties with a legal interest in my cast members.
I hope, however, that anyone reading this silly thing will note my attempt to be affectionate and accurate to the Stooges and the dynamic of their screwy little universe. Rather than being merely salacious (not that there's anything inherently wrong with THAT), I like to think that my orchestrating the tickling of these lovely, spirited dames (to use the vernacular of mid-20th Century America) is playful, and fully in the slapstick tradition of classic American screen comedy and the Stooges themselves: violent, loud, and self-righteous, truly as American as you can get.
Many thanks for getting this far. 'Hope it was more fun for you than a poke in the eyes.
<p>P.S.:<br>BTW, the pics immediately below are of Phil Van Zandt (Laffingwell), Emil Sitka (James the butler), Kenneth MacDonald (S.H. Ayster), Vernon Dent (Van Cleeve), and Symona Boniface (Mrs. Plumtree), respectively.
(Phew!)
Attachments
Last edited:
It captures the spirit of the Three Stooges and is also an entertaining foot-tickling tale. 
