Further thoughts on all things Stooge

Published May 12, 2010 at 11:15 p.m.
Great minds working overtime. Plus, honoring ink-stained wretches, and fond farewells
Your superior correspondents were tempted to invoke the old cliché, “Great minds think alike.”

Your superior correspondents were tempted to invoke the old cliché, “Great minds think alike,” on Tuesday when we noticed that both Edward Fitzpatrick’s political column and Mark Patinkin’s “Pinky column” (well, what else would you call it?) in the Other Paper noted the more than passing resemblance between the recently arrested members of the North Providence Town Council (Messieurs Burchfield, Douglas, and Zambarano) and Messieurs Howard, Fine, and Howard, progenitors of the American Stooge Dynasty. A bit later that morning, while perusing the Tuesday edition of the Warwick Beacon, we noticed a Stooge-themed cartoon by Charlie Hall, also celebrating the similarities.

We know of at least three other friends and intimates who picked up on the Stooge likeness last week when the Urinal published a photograph with the Naught Providence councilmen posing in a three-head formation originally perfected by the Columbia Pictures PR department in the ’30s. But as tempting as it is to lean on that “great minds think alike” crutch, we think the synchronicity owes more to the fact that Fitzpatrick, Patinkin and Hall are in the right age group (over 45) and of the right gender to have been among the most deeply influenced by the Stooges in their ill-spent youth. (We also note that perhaps only at Casa Diablo would the phrase “great minds” be found in the same sentence as “Mark Patinkin” and “Charlie Hall.” The jury’s still out on Fitzpatrick, but we understand there are at least 12 angry men and women currently in deliberations.)

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