It Took Ten Years...
for Sony Pictures to get it right. The Three Stooges have been screwed over by them for that long.
Ever since the introduction of DVD in March 1997, there has been VERY little output of Stooges shorts officially issued by Sony, and the ones that were released were WAY over-priced, colourized(!), and lacking any sort of contextual presentation or extras. What's worse is that the casual fan was no doubt continually confused by all the millions of repackaged public-domain shorts, the same four, over and over.
Well, the fans have spoken and the studios just issued the first chronological set last Tuesday, covering all 19 shorts from 1934-1935, for about the same price they'd originally charged for a small handful of random ones. falfax ordered it for me in advance, and it arrived Thursday! I just hope they keep it up and release a new set every few months, because to release them a year at a time until all 150+ shorts are released would take yet another decade! Nobody does Depression-era comedy better, representing the poor man of the times.
One of the last little slaps in the face from the studio is in the form of the front-sticker on the packaging which reads, "All-New Fan Requested edition". Uhh, no. They're basically saying, "We don't REALLY believe there's a market for this, but just so you guys will get off our backs we'll test this out." There'd have been a riot if episodes of some series like The Office or Friends had been routinely released out of order. Tools...but facing redemption.