Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

The Postal Disservice having applied its light touch to the Amazon.com package of GE BANCORP CFL bulbs I'm returning -- or possibly Amazon.com having it done it for them (Hey Very Littler Jeffy! We thought you were getting out of businesses that employed REAL PEOPLE! Although making them in China's close to the same thing) I requested some Sylvanias -- two dollars cheaper -- and to fill out the order for free shipping I got Vol. 6 of The Three Stooges. Look at the comments and you'll find it's HILARIOUS. That so many would use a news-hack favorite word that describes the unfunny things that tickle their shriveled funny bones says this isn't so funny either. But the motto of the day is "Everybody loves somebody sometime", and boy if Amazon.com's customers aren't love crazy. And there's a reason this may not be funny: This set is the second featuring Shemp, who as the world knows had to take over from Curly after the stroke that destroyed his health, and arguably the act. Perhaps because Shemp is widely regarded as the unfunny Stooge (how about the others?) the FANS think they must make up for it by calling him HILARIOUS. From overexposure in youth all I know is Shemp went MEEPMEEPMEEPMEEP!!!!! Half his schtick consisted of him downing an elixir, going into an uncontrolled spasm, and yelling MEEPMEEPMEEPMEEP!!!!! In a way his shtick's not so different from Curly's, and he went WOOWOOWOOWOO!!!!! (Curly was Shemp's replacement after vaudeville.) It's been long ago since I last saw them and never in high-def remastering but I'm certain I never laughed at them. What was funny about grown men acting as infants? And the Hays Office took care of the one thing that might have amused me as an adult, and then the boys would have been as funny as ADAM SANDLER. (And there is at least a hint of it in "Disorder in the Court".) Still I bought the first five volumes and am game for anything, even the remaining two including Joe Besser. As for Joe Di Rita, who appeared in the series of kiddie programmers and HILARIOUS TV cartoons Moe Howard devised after he finally realized how regally Harry Cohn shafted him, I can safely say fan disgust is not a matter of simple-minded groupthink.

P. S. on 7/31/2010 at 9:02 a. m. I had to return the Sylvanias. CFL bulbs are not meant for shipping -- and neither are the UPS or the USPS.