No Census, No Feeling

Census enumerators (census takers) have a difficult job at best. Can you imagine The Three Stooges interviewing local residents?

In a 1940 Three Stooges movie, Larry, Curly, and Moe obtained jobs as census enumerators and were to be paid four cents per name recorded. I watched the movie today, and now I understand some of census records I have looked at in the past! I think this is the same group that visited my great-great-grandfather's house.

You can watch The Three Stooges at their best, or worst, in "No Census, No Feeling" at http://www.threestooges.net/albums/realplayer/nocensus.rm.

Here is a bit of trivia:

The football sequences in “No Census, No Feeling” were filmed at USC in the autumn of 1940. Some of the crowd scenes apparently were filmed during a real game. Curly's Thanksgiving remark alludes to the 1939 law establishing Thanksgiving as a legal holiday to be celebrated on a Thursday, something that was still controversial when the movie was made a year later.

At one point, Moe says, "Wait a minute, flathead! We just got a job. We're working for the census." Curly then replies, "You mean Will Hays?"

The reference to Will Hays will escape most of today's viewers. William Hays was the creator of the Hays Code for censorship of American films. Every actor, producer, and director would have been very familiar with Will Hays and the Hays Code in 1940 and most everyone in Hollywood disliked Hays. Curly's remark confuses census with censorship.

Comments

[Cheryl]

This is great! Thank you for bringing it to my attention. This will be perfect for me to play (found a better version) for some seconds in my 7th grade English block as we're working on allusions. I'm always looking for "interest grabbers."

[Joseph]

This is based on memory (the fallible kind, in one's head)but I seem to recall that the Thanksgiving legislation was intended as a depression relief measure. The retail store industry wanted it to be a fixed number of days, as many as possible, ahead of Christmas (to allow more shopping days before Christmas, of course). I don't have that in writing, but that's the recollection.

[Michael J Denis]

As I recall my US history, Roosevelt proposed to move Thanksgiving from the last to the 4th Thursday in November as an economic stimulus. And Cheryl, my 7th graders would have LOVED to watch the Three Stooges in my class.

[Cheryl]

Michael, just remember, they're only going to get a little bit of it, not the whole thing. I am not a teacher who entertains a class with videos, but if I can catch their interest with a bit piece and help them connect it to something I'm teaching, I grab on to it.

Footnote was just releasing the Revolutionary War pension records when my kids were reading Johnny Tremain (pretend like that's underlined or bold italic). One very smart boy was finished with his work and getting bored so I logged on to Footnote and had him try reading a pension record I was interested in. Now the most interesting things happened. First of all, within seconds he had extracted two marriages and some deaths out of the old handwriting. Secondly, he achieved another view of the resulting years of the war that he probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Since he was not born in the US, I think he learned a lot that day. This is what makes me stay in teaching--these little bits of joy and many times they come because of my genealogy bug.

[Rose]

I'm so glad to hear you mention "Johnny Tremain." Not only do I own the book, I've read it several times, and my brother--who also read the book during his school days--named his son "Tremain." I say use anything (decent) that helps the students not just to LEARN but to LEARN HOW TO LEARN!

I keep hoping someday western education will be able to extract itself from its mania about TESTING everything using in such limited ways so teachers can begin TEACHING something besides the test again. Why, for instance, hasn't someone decided that a class in genealogy (ROOTS, if you will) would involve students MEANINGFULLY--while teaching them research methods, history, math, note-taking, referencing, organizing, writing, and who knows what else???!!!

[Kenneth Lary]

As it was mentioned earlier, there was discussion around which Thursday Thanksgiving should fall on. There is a movie reference for this, too. In the 1942 Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire movie Holiday Inn when they showed the calendar for November they had an animated turkey running back and forth between the two Thursdays, getting frustrated. It probably goes over the head of people who don't know the history of the holiday.

[Bob Paulson]

Someone mentioned finding a better version of this nice video - could you please tell us where? I'd rather not have RealPlayer installed on my computer - thanks.

- Bob

[Susan Daily]

I searched Google for "No Census No Feeling Three Stooges" and a beautiful clear version showed up in the first page of hits, near the bottom. By the way, in case anyone wants to know, I looked it up one of the props in the 1911 Grocer's Encyclopedia (Google that too): "ALUM: a salt composed of the combined sulphates of Potassium and Aluminum."

[Bob]

My mother used to participate as census taker. I remember so well her telling this story about an incident in 1930. She was interviewing the woman of the household, and in collecting the information she assumed the husband may be dead, but not wanting to just ask "Is he dead", she asked the woman, "Is your husband deceased?", she replied, "No Mame, he's dead."

[Bob Paulson]

Thanks, Susan, my eyes thank you too. Regarding alum, Wikipedia tells of several uses, of which I think the following is what the film was referring to: "Alum powder, found amongst spices at most grocery stores, is used in pickling recipes as a preservative, to maintain crispness, and as an ingredient in some play dough recipes. It is also commonly cited as a home remedy or pain relief for canker sores."

[Grannie B]

Wow! One can learn as well as be entertained by this story and all the comments that follow. Thanks for the memories.

[Frank]

Hey when curly says Sold America! after the infamous 43-50 scene, what is he referring to?