When you’re raised by Stooges

If either of my brothers had died violently back when we were kids, it would have been the fault of television.

It’s true that in those dark ages there were only three channels (two of which you could watch without developing a squiggly line exposure headache). We weren’t inundated with a thousand channels, YouTube videos, and whatever other new media monstrosity is developed between the time I write this and the moment it appears in print.

But at the same time, we were considerably less world-wise than the youth of today. We were gullible, innocent (mostly), susceptible to suggestion. And I, at least, was the poster boy for the “Monkey See, Monkey Do” movement.

Which begs the question: why did my parents let me watch “The Three Stooges?”

Every Saturday, there I was, my skinny, blank face mere inches from our 16-inch, black-and-white Philco, the sound cranked up, a bowl of Cheerios growing soggy in my lap. My mother’s warnings that I would go blind from sitting so close fell on deaf ears, as did her concerns that I was exposing myself to all sorts of unknown TV radiation.

Radiation, according to my mother in 1964, leaked from most appliances like whiskey from a termite-infested aging keg. I wasn’t worried. At nine, I thought it would be cool to either glow in the dark or be transformed into one of those flesh-dripping aliens like I’d seen on “The Outer Limits.”

Or better yet, the radiation exposure might impart to me my fondest wish: X-ray vision. I had questions regarding Patty Tineman, who lived next door, questions that could not be answered through the course of normal, fourth-grade conversation.

But I digress.

My point is (I’m sure there was one here somewhere) Larry, Moe and Curly were instrumental in helping me develop relationships with my younger siblings. These guys, after all, were hilarious!

Maybe they weren’t so great at plumbing, or conducting orchestras, or fighting bulls or flying into outer space, or … well, a lot of things. But they provided a template for my familial affiliations.

As the oldest brother, I naturally assumed the role of Moe. My middle brother, William, took on the Larry part. Bobby, the youngest, seemed born to walk in Curly’s shoes.

In our family, eye pokes, noogies, hair pulling and n’yuk-n’yuk-accompanied face slaps were so common my mother finally gave up and stopped yelling about it. It wasn’t until the day I applied a hot iron to William’s backside (resulting in a scar I believe he carries to this day) that the parental contingent banned the Stooges from our suburban home.

I got to spend a week alone in my bedroom with no TV, comic books or fun of any kind. This was to help me “think about what I had done.” Instead, I used the time to plan the calamities I would visit upon my tattle-faced brother upon the moment of my release.

It was probably a year or more before the Stooges were again allowed on the Taylor Family television. Meanwhile, there were other shows that provided almost as much inspiration for destruction as did Larry, Moe and Curly.

Ed Sullivan, for instance. Yup, good old family-friendly Ed, with Señor Wences, watered-down rock acts and the guy who spun plates on the ends of poles; even Ed could provide a wealth of terrible ideas for our fertile yet un-discerning minds.

The spinning plate thing, for instance. Turns out that’s a lot harder than it looks. William and I made this discovery one summer’s afternoon, using a mop handle and my mother’s best china. We figured if we swept up the shards, she’d never notice a few missing plates. We were wrong.

At least that time I had William to keep me company in lockup. We spent the week’s incarceration building pillow “forts” and then throwing toys across the room at each other, pretending they were hand grenades, like we’d seen on “Combat!” As our battles progressed, the toys became increasingly heavy, metallic and pointy.

Our brotherly wars might have been imaginary, but the after-battle medical triage was all too real. I don’t recall anyone ever needing stitches, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Yet somehow, we all lived to adulthood. I became a writer, William a nurse. And Bobby? Well, he’s still Curly and I still give him noogies at every available opportunity. N’yuk n’yuck.