Christy Karacas and Titmouse are Reviving ‘The Three Stooges’

The legendary Larry, Moe, and Curly haven’t had a regular cartoon series since 1973. That changes when The Three Stooges’ licensor C3 Entertainment partners with animation studio Titmouse (Superjail!, Turbo FAST, Metalocalypse) and London-based distributor CAKE Entertainment to bring the slapstick trio back to cartoon life with a new animated series.

“I grew up watching The Three Stooges with my father,” Titmouse founder Chris Prynoski elaborated in a press release today. “When I signed on to helm this new show, I made a blood oath to my Dad that I would treat the Stooges brand like it was a newborn baby Fabergé egg. With the cartoon-making team we have lined up at Titmouse, it’s sure to be the most batty, bananas, insanely giggle-inducing version of The Three Stooges your eyeballs and brainhole have ever experienced. Dad, I won’t let you down!”

Promising visual slapstick and limited dialogue, Titmouse will build 52 11-minute episodes centered around the iconic trio. But visual humor and less talking isn’t a guaranteed formula for success, as evidenced by Chaplin & Co., a recent CGI cartoon series that awkwardly attempted to revive another icon of slapstick comedy.

The Three Stooges may fare better than the Chaplin series thanks to the talent attached to it. The series’ pilot animatic was created by Christy Karacas, whose hyper-violent cartoon series Superjail! can trace a line directly back to the choreographed smackdowns that Larry, Moe, and Curly delivered ninety years ago. Karacas will also direct the pilot.

Titmouse envisions the actual series will be directed by “a broad group of established directors, who will each be asked to take the lead on several episodes.” Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi comes immediately to mind — although he once admitted that “[The Three Stooges] are really hard to draw!” — as do many others candidates whose current wacky cartoons owe much to the Stooges’s pie-in-the-face legacy.