Hello Pop!

Ted Healy and the Three Stooges in "Hello Pop!"

I got an interesting reference question today at work concerning my beloved Three Stooges. A Patron wanted to know where he could find a copy of the 1933 Stooges short Hello Pop!, the final musical short that the Stooges made with Ted Healy at MGM. The correct answer: nowhere.

According to the Official Three Stooges Website (www.threestooges.com), no prints or negatives of this short are known to exist, making it unique in the Stooges canon.

Turner Classic Movie's "Lost Films" link adds: "In 1967 a vault fire at MGM was a major fire that took place on Saturday, May 13, 1967 at studio at MGM Vault #7. An electrical fire burned the vault and destroyed hundreds of silent films, including A Blind Bargain, The Big City, The Devine Woman, and, more famously, London After Midnight. Early talkies such as the Technicolor scene of The Broadway Melody, Chasing Rainbows, The Rogue Song, or the uncut version of the Laurel and Hardy short Blotto and the early Three Stooges musical short Hello Pop! were also destroyed at the fire, as with the original negatives for cartoons produced by the studio during the 1930s and 1940s, including the unedited versions of the pre-1951 Tom and Jerry shorts."

Hello Pop! may be gone forever, which is a tragedy, but as far as Three Stooge legacy goes: Time will not dim the glory of their deeds!