The Three Stugots - Episode 68

Three familiar wiseguys lead the Howard crime family. How will Falk counter their unique fighting style? Why would you bring a slapstick to a gunfight? Listen to find out!

The Three Stugots, episode 68 of This Gun in My Hand, was clamped in a vise as it was crafted by Rob Northrup. This episode and all others are available on Youtube with automatically-generated closed captions of dialog. Visit http://ThisGuninMyHand.blogspot.com for credits, show notes, information on how to subscribe, and to buy my books, such as Little Heist in the Big Woods and Other Revisionist Atrocities. What will I deliver to you by French airmail? This Gun in My Hand!

Show Notes:
1. “With the electric rifle, Tom and friends bring down elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffalo, and save their lives several times in pitched battle with the red pygmies,” according to the Wikipedia entry on the 1911 novel Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_and_His_Electric_Rifle

2. I try to restrain myself from explaining all the allusions and inside jokes, but not today. This Gun in My Hand is set in 1939 or thereabouts, so Jerome is accurate when he guesses he might live another 12-13 years. He passed away 13 years later in 1952. In real life, his role was later filled by his brother Samuel, Joe Besser and Joe Wardell (real name, Joe DeRita).

3. Anna May Wong became a big star around 1924, earlier than mentioned here. According to Wikipedia, “...Wong's career would continue to be limited by American anti-miscegenation laws, which prevented her from sharing an on-screen kiss with any person of another race, even if the character was Asian, but being portrayed by a white actor.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_May_Wong

4. The vise attached to Jerome’s desk was a gift from the judge in Disorder in the Court (1936).

5. Their pie delivery boy was a costumed hero who could leap over tall buildings. He got a better offer and went “National” – as in National Allied Publications, which later became DC Comics.

6. Falk is confusing the Howard crew with those other guys, Abbott & Costello, whose “Bagel Street/Floogle Street/Susquehanna Hat Company” Vaudeville routine was similar to the Howards’ “Niagara Falls!”

Credits:
The opening music clip was from The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and the closing music was from Killer Bait (1949), both films in the public domain. Most of the music and sound effects used in the episode are modified or incomplete versions of the originals.

Music before and after the commercial was from the public domain film serial Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938).
https://archive.org/details/flash-gordons-trip-to-mars-chapter-10

Sound Effect Title: House Front Door Inside 3.wav
License: Public domain
https://freesound.org/people/saturdaysoundguy/sounds/388027/#

Title: Footsteps Dress Shoes Wood Floor.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/allrealsound/sounds/161756/

Sound Effect Title: ice grinding cracking freezing designed.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/kyles/sounds/452645/

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail from the novel cover of The Judas Goat (1953), painted by Rafael Desoto.