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.
