A Plumbing We Will Go is the 46th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.
A Plumbing We Will Go is considered a quintessential Three Stooges film. Ranking as a consistent fan favorite, the film was also a favorite of star Curly Howard.
As of 2010, A Plumbing We Will Go is the highest-rated Three Stooges film on the Internet Movie Database.
THE PLOT
After being found innocent on a charge of chicken stealing, the Stooges attempt to catch a live fish from a pet store aquarium tank. A beat cop (Bud Jamison) catches them in action and gives chase, forcing the boys to pose as plumbers to avoid being incarcerated.
The Stooges manage to destroy the entire plumbing system in the home in grand fashion. Curly attempts to repair a leak in the upstairs bathroom and ends up constructing a maze of pipes that traps him. Larry digs up the front lawn in search of the water shutoff valve. In addition, Moe and Curly end up connecting a water pipe with another nearby pipe housing electrical wires, leading to water exiting every electrical appliance in the mansion. When a hostess invites her guests to watch Niagra Falls on her new television set, the whole company gets doused with water (therefore leading to the invention of 4-D television).
The homeowner arrives to see his house in shambles and accidentally undoes the Stooges' convoluted repair work. As they are about to reprimand him, it becomes clear that the homeowner happens to be the judge who found them innocent a few hours earlier.
TRIVIA
A Plumbing We Will Go was filmed on December 13–18, 1939. It was the last Stooge short filmed in the 1930s. It was a remake of Sidney & Murray's 1934, short Plumbing for Gold and would be remade again with El Brendel and Shemp Howard as Pick a Peck of Plumbers in 1944. The Stooges remade A Plumbing We Will Go as Vagabond Loafers and Scheming Schemers using stock footage. Interestingly, the original story in Plumbing for Gold involved searching for a lost ring which the Stooges did not use until Scheming Schemers.
Curly would recreate the maze-of-pipes gag six year later in Swing Parade of 1946. Shemp Howard attempted it as well in Vagabond Loafers and Scheming Schemers, while Joe DeRita also attempted the gag in Have Rocket, Will Travel. The chicken-stealing segment that opens the film was also reworked in Listen, Judge.
Aside from the aforementioned reworked films, footage from A Plumbing We Will Go also reappeared in the 1960 compilation feature film Stop! Look! and Laugh!.
Like A Ducking They Did Go, the title is a play on the children's song, "A-Hunting We Will Go".
At the time of this short, television sets had been on the market for a few years. The set being demonstrated appears to be a DuMont model that would have cost $445. Using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics formula, adjusting for inflation, the same television would cost over $7,600 in 2015.
Curly Clips
Here are two short clips from this episode highlighting Curly's talent:
Curly The Dummy: Episode 46 A Plumbing We Will Go Clip1
Curly The Plumber: Episode 46 A Plumbing We Will Go Clip2
Enjoy the search!
Curly Code: XXX-XXX (The Curly Code is no longer valid for this one)