The Three Stooges in Color - Region 1 DVD

"Sing a Song of Six Pants" is a lesser outing, with the boys running a tailor shop and getting mixed up with gangsters. It does provide an illustration of that Stooges truism: when a beartrap is located anywhere nearby, the law of probabilities favors an eventual convergence with Moe's backside. "Malice in the Palace" takes place in an Arabian café, where Moe, Larry, and Shemp are waiters. The best sequence has the boys and their diners convinced that Larry has sacrificed a dog and cat for the evening's entree.

This Fox DVD offers colorized versions of the shorts, but like the 2004 Columbia colorized discs, it also features the original black-and-white versions. The fake color looks pretty bad, with the lurid shades of the Arabian nights episode especially glaring. Stick with the improved black-and-white versions of these familiar shorts. Wraparound introductions are provided by Mike Nelson and a couple of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew--they're hit and miss, but their mockery of poor, sputtering Shemp Howard is just a bit cruel. --Robert Horton