>>Mel Gibson, a definite fan, apparently did a show on their historical and cultural origins - it must have been a made for TV thing -we haven't seen it out here in Oz yet, anybody got any pointers?<<

Yeah, I'm watching them on Spike TV right now. Their cultural origins I think would be the infantile low brow Punch & Judy that has been around in Europe at least since medieval times. Now Jews had quite a hand in Europe at that time and no doubt many itinerant comedy troupes swinging through village and town from England to Italy were likely Jewish or Gypsy or a mix (they frequently traveled together in caravans since both were more or less outcasts of European society).

We know the Stooges were Jewish and that their parents had emigrated to the States. Their real name was Horowitz (Larry's was Feinberg) and Shamp got his name because his mother's thick Yiddish accent caused her to pronounce "Sams" as Shemp.

Being that Jews were outcasts performing for whoever would hire them, we can figure they had some wealthy patrons pay them to entertain the kids. So we often see the Stooges dressing as bratty kids or shady vagrants looking for a quick meal with as little work as possible, wreaking havoc on high society and mocking accepted social mores. This would have resonated as much among the American masses as European--especially during the Depression when many Stooge shorts were made.

The Punch & Judy is deliberately infantile and low brow because it is specifically geared to children. Curly is the quintessential man-child designed to appeal to the immature humor of young tots. The plots, however, were often adult-oriented which enabled adults to enjoy the Stooges perhaps as much if not more than kids. A kind of social release, a dropping of respectable pretensions, allowing us to be kids again for a brief time. This was, in fact, the identical purpose of the old blackface minstrels.

The adult criticism of the Stooges as being "stupid" or "insulting to my intelligence" is pretty much stating the obvious. It's like criticizing ice cream for being cold.