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Larry, Curly and Moe join Lakeport payroll Hamilton brewery hopes chaotic comics are great salesmen for novelty brew that began in New England In Three Little Beers, Larry, Curly and Moe are inept beer delivery men for Panther Brewing. They crash its golf tournament, destroy the course and escape in a beer truck spilling barrels down a steep hill. So Lakeport Brewing 'soitainly' hopes the boys do a better job of selling its novelty label, Three Stooges Beer, which arrived this week amid the comic trio's 75th anniversary TV bash. At least, this time, they have a fan at the top. "My brother, sister and I used to imitate them. My mom used to freak," says Lakeport president Teresa Cascioli, 41, who was a "fickle" Stooges fan growing up in Hamilton. "But this is a novelty item. No one gets rich selling Three Stooges Beer." But before Lakeport made 8,000 or so cases of Stooges beer for its Canadian debut, the Boston-area firm that holds the rights to the label had some success. In 1998, Panther Brewing Co. sold 120,000 cases in the six New England states in just three months. Panther president Dewey Parsons and a friend dreamed up the idea for Three Stooges Beer five years back, in a pub. He wasn't sure the world needed another beer. Until, that is, his buddy explained a simple equation. "Think about it. Three Stooges, guys, Stooges, guys, beer.' I thought about it and said, 'You know, that is a ... good idea,'" said Parsons, who quickly asked the Stooges' heirs for permission. "It came to them that, ... the Three Stooges were complete drinkers and philanderers. So why not put them on beer?" That's part of the Stooges legacy after 190 short films, most of which are now a blur of eye-poking, ear-pulling and horn-honking chaos. Though they may be unlikely beer salesmen, the Stooges can still draw a crowd when they're part of TV's nostalgia mill. When Global aired its Three Stooges 75th Anniversary Special on Tuesday night, the show placed second in the Canadian ratings behind the American Idol juggernaut on CTV. About 811,000 Canadians tuned in -- good news for Lakeport, but still an odd blip. "(The Stooges) are one of the early comedy troupes that survived because they invented a style of anti-intellectual humour that appealed to every generation that followed," said Bart Beaty, who teaches the history of comedy films at the University of Calgary. In 1922, the Horowitz brothers from Brooklyn -- Shemp, Moe and Curly -- became the goofballs in an act called Ted Healy and the Racketeers. (Louis Feinberg, a.k.a. "Larry Fine," later replaced Shemp.) They had one of the longest careers in film history. (Tuesday's April 1, 2003 TV show marked 75 years since the trio began calling themselves the Three Stooges, not the year they began.) Beaty said the Stooges enjoyed more lasting mass appeal and reruns than their counterparts the Marx Brothers because they were much less topical. Unlike Groucho's jokes about stars of the '30s, viewers of any decade could appreciate the trio's brute, physical humour. "Part of their longevity is that there's no topicality at all. A poke in the eye is always a poke in the eye," said Beaty. He said the Stooges appeal mostly to male viewers, who like the politically incorrect violence in films such as Disorder in the Court, Slippery Silks and A Pain in the Pullman. "The way the Stooges get used in culture is that they're seen as a humour style that's not very sophisticated, very juvenile. Yeah, I could see the way a beer company might want to lock into that," Beaty said. In Hamilton, Three Stooges Beer will be featured this weekend as the Y108 Good Beer Expo visits the Hamilton Convention Centre. With 50 brands to taste, the second annual event is expected to draw 5,000 people, up from 3,500 last year. See www.goodbeer.ca for details. Still, even if you sample the Stooges before it fades at summer's end, its arrival in the Beer Store does raise the question: Who does Lakeport expect will shell out $9.35 for a six-pack plastered with the faces of Hollywood's biggest dolts? Cascioli's been surprised by the diversity of people buying Stooges beer at the Lakeport store this week. Baby boomers come as fans of Stooges films. And younger folks, who make Cascioli cringe when they say, "Oh, my dad used to watch that." "Let's put it this way. There have been a ton of girls coming in who say they're buying it for their boyfriends. And I'm like, 'Yeah, OK,'" she says beside a stack of Stooges suds. "I think guys admit to it and girls aren't willing to. They're more closet Stooges fans."