>>Your linking of the Stooges with the Punch and Judy shows and the vaudeville tradition is well thought out.<<

The Stooges WERE vaudevillians long before landing a contract with Columbia Pictures. When I say Shemp was the original 3rd stooge, it was their vaudeville days I refer to. It was originally just Moe and aguy named Ted Healy. Then they found Larry performing in another vaudeville act and hired him away from them. Then Healy and Moe decided a 3rd stooge was required and Moe got his brother Shemp to join up and for years they toured the vaudeville circuit and Ted Healy & His Three Stooges.

Healy, however, was a drunk and the stooges got tired of it. Shemp got so sick of it, he decided to leave first. He didn't want to screw over his partners so he told Moe that the youngest brother, Jerome, whom they called "Babe" (also Shemp's wife's name coincidentally) could fill in. Moe was dead against it since Babe had no show biz experience. Shemp twisted Moe's arm and Moe relented and Babe became Curly. Because he forgot lines quite frequently, Curly developed an arsenal of sight and sound gags to employ to cover up his lapses and these went over so hugely that the stooges worked them into the act.

When Curly left the Stooges in '52 due to health problems, Shemp was able to take over so well because he had long ago worked out his routine as 3rd stooge. The studio at first tried to make him imitate Curly but it wasn't working and when the public felt that Shemp's own antics were hilarious on their own, the studio got off his back and let him do what he wanted.

AS for the Stooge-Hitler connection, it is not known if Hitler had ever seen them. It is noteworthy that Moe did his Hitler routines while Hitler was still in power. Hitler may have seen them or heard of them. His antisemitism, however, was ingrained long before and it actually had a very long tradition in Europe. Yellow Stars of David, for example, came from the medieval French (in fact, French Jews also had to wear a horned cap in public in addition to the star).

Still, you have to wonder if Hitler ever saw Moe's routine. I'd hate to be one of his generals having to watch a private screening with him because I'd laugh so hard, he'd have had me executed for treason. As soon as Moe said, "Gimme back my personality!" I would have totally lost it.