Hollywood, 1947
It was an age where man and toon had reached its zenith in the wake of the biggest conspiracy the world had ever known. Judge Doom – Toontown's sinister superior court judge – was dead. Believed to have been an average human, he was exposed as a toon in human disguise and ultimately killed by his own "Dip," a sickly green, ghastly concoction of turpentine, acetone, and benzene – known to be the only source on the planet that could kill a toon.
The man who did the deed was a human private investigator by the name of Eddie Valiant. Since then, the newspapers heralded Eddie as the "Hero of Toontown," not only solving the murder of Marvin Acme, CEO of Acme Corporation and owner of Toontown, but also clearing the name of Roger Rabbit.
Valiant's efforts brought him more clients and cases than any other investigator in Los Angeles.
That included three novices by the name of Moe, Larry, and Curly.
With barely any clients or cases within the last month, the boys were forced to relocate their floundering operations to a five-story apartment house in the Hollywood slums. "A whole month and that Valiant guy is getting all the press!" Larry griped near the doorstep of their new home.
Moe held the newspaper with Valiant's smug mug printed on the front. If he would, he'd poke that picture in the eyes, even at the risk of putting holes in the newspaper. "I know how you feel, fellas," Moe told his associates. "But the way I see it, Valiant's yesterday's news."
"But this is today's paper," Curly teased, following it up with a chortle of Nyuck's that earned him a bonk on the nose from Moe.
"You three dumbbells still haven't settled in, eh?"
The boys jumped when they heard the rough, haughty voice of their new landlady – a thirtysomething woman in a cardigan sweater and a long-pleated grey skirt. Her brown hair was done up in a bun, and she stood at exactly six feet tall. While she was quite young and beautiful, she carried a very stern disposition that seemed to have little time for her new tenets.
"Ah! Good afternoon, Miss Shoeshine!" Moe greeted.
"Her name ain't Shoeshine, it's Moonshine." Larry corrected.
"You're both wrong," Curly argued. "It's Chlor-rhine."
"IT'S FLORSHINE, YOU IDIOTS!" Miss Florshine thundered. Already the boys were making a terrible first impression. "And when are you gettin' settled in? That big dumb moving truck is blocking the entrance!"
The Edgar Brothers' delivery truck was parked along the sidewalk, just across the apartment entrance. The Edgars, a trio of toon pigs that very well could have been the "Three Little Pigs," had unloaded everything off the truck bed by the time Florshine made her demands.
"You heard the lady, gentlemen," Moe addressed the brothers. "How long's it gonna be to move everything in?"
The lead brother, who maintained a commanding demeanor among his siblings, told Moe, "It won't take any time at all...because we ain't moving it in. You fellas can do it yourself." On that, the pigs climbed back into their truck and drove away, leaving all of the boys' furniture sitting right out in the open there on the sidewalk.
Miss Florshine wasn't much help, barking to them, "All that furniture better be moved in before curfew hours, or else it all stays out here!"
"We can't live it out here!" Larry protested. "This is a rough neighborhood!"
"Then ya better get movin'!" Florshine advised, storming back inside.
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Moe, Larry, and Curly only managed to get one couch, a desk, a refrigerator, and an ironing board (with a flatiron) inside in the span of two hours. All the heavy lifting wore them out, but no more so than when they lugged in their bed, mattress and all. "Hold on a second – let's break right here," Moe suggested, having carried the bed from the frontside.
As he took a breather, he looked back and was surprised (and furious) to see Curly sleeping on the bed that Moe and Larry were carrying. The bald, rotund Stooge was even snoring. Moe went right to him and woke him up with a swift slug to the gut. Fully awake with an aching stomach, Curly yelled, "What's the big idea?!"
"Whaddya mean 'What's the big idea'?!" Moe countered. "What's the idea making us carry this bed while you play 'Sleeping Beauty'?!"
They bickered back and forth before a sweet, Southern-accented voice spoke up and asked, "Everything alright out here?" The boys stopped and searched around for the voice, until their collective gaze focused on the open door right across from their apartment. There, by the door, stood an elegant young blonde in a red-and-white polka-dotted dress. Her hair was long and wavy, her eyes were sparkling blue, her lips were rose red, and her skin was fair.
She was a sight to behold for the Three Stooges, even motivating Curly to jump off the bed and stand in attention. Moe straightened his tie and Larry fixed what hair he had left. Together, they welcomed their new neighbor with a harmonious "Hello, hello, hello!"
The young woman chuckled. "Well, ain't ya'll quite the gentlemen."
"We're Moe, Larry, and Curly," Moe introduced. "Who might you be, Miss?"
"My name's Gwendoline. When I heard I'd be gettin' some new neighbors, I just had to prepare a dish to welcome ya'll to the neighborhood." She reached inside her apartment and presented a cream pie to the boys. "A nice lemon cream pie."
The boys were touched by the sentiment. "Gee, thanks, Miss Gwendoline!"
"Now, if you boys need anything, don't hesitate to come by and knock, ya hear?"
Gwendoline skipped her way back inside her apartment. Curly, drawn by her skips, tried to follow her in, only to have the door slam right in his face. Revolted by his ravenous behavior, Moe yanked him by the ear, bringing him inside their partially moved-in apartment.
"You imbeciles figure out how to get that bed in, while I put this pie in the refrigerator," Moe ordered. As he headed towards the kitchen, he felt the floor slosh beneath his feet. A large puddle of water had formed all the way from the kitchen to the middle of the living room. Angered, Moe asked Larry and Curly, "Hey! Which of you numbskulls put a hole in the refrigerator?!"
Neither Curly nor Larry claimed accountability, neither did they know how the leak happened in the first place.
Frustrated, Moe griped, "I have to do everything around here!"
Between his frustration over the leaky fridge and the exhaustion from moving in, Moe sat down on the only available chair in the apartment – not realizing that the flatiron was sitting there, plugged into the wall. The moment that his posterior and the flatiron met, Moe let out an agonized howl. Gwendoline's cream pie skyrocketed out of his hands and stuck right to the ceiling.
"What happened?" Curly asked.
Looking between the flatiron and Curly, it didn't take much brains for Moe to figure out who the culprit was. "What happened," Moe furiously mocked Curly's words before unleashing a plethora of slaps over Curly's face and banging his bulbous stomach like a drum.
During the violent onslaught, the water on their living room floor began to soak through. The puddle had formed into a wet spot along the ceiling of the apartment just below the Stooges' – the one that belonged to Miss Florshine. There she was, sitting peacefully by the radio, listening to a classical music while reading a copy of War and Peace. And then...
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The first few droplets fell into her hair, so she didn't sense them quite as much as she did when they tapped her forehead. By that point, she mistakenly believed it to have been raining in the room, until she reminded herself that she was indoors. Her hazel eyes searched to the ceiling and was unsettled to find the massive wet spot that formed on her ceiling. Those careless morons! I'll murder them!
Singling out the Stooges as the offenders, she removed herself from her reading chair and rushed out of her apartment. Thundering up the stairs, her path to the boys' apartment was blocked by the oversized bed that was still sitting in the hall. Unable to walk around it, Miss Florshine channeled her athleticism by vaulting herself over the headboard, springing off the mattress into a perfect cartwheel that ended with a graceful dismount.
She was impressed that she still possessed such talents, which she hadn't used since being a gymnast in her youth. But that was beside the point. There were three nuts that needed to be cracked.
Rushing right through the door, Miss Florshine began her fury with a few words, "Now see here, you three..."
Those were all the words she was able to get out before the soles of her slippers slipped along the wet floor. That gracefulness she displayed mere seconds earlier wouldn't have been enough to save her from the fall she took on the Stooges' wet living room floor. To make matters worse, the floor's structure had weakened from the sogginess, so when Miss Florshine's bottom touched down, all her weight crashed through the floor, dropping her back into her living room below.
Luckily, she fell right back in her reading chair.
Unfortunately, there was still the hole in her ceiling (in the Stooges' floor).
Looking up at it, she wasn't prepared for the cream pie that fell from the Stooges' ceiling and right on her face with a loud SPLAT!
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While Moe, Larry, and Curly were successful in getting all their furniture in before curfew, the mishap with the wet floor and the cream pie nearly ended their tenure in the apartment house before it even started. "Ya know, we're real lucky Miss Florshine didn't kick us out," Larry reflected, as he and Moe worked together in boarding up the hole in their floor, with Larry hammering.
"Gee, she's got a swell heart," Curly said while ironing his pants.
"Whaddya mean?" Moe was baffled by his sentiment.
"She was so mad that she could've thrown us out, but instead she let us stay."
"Yeah, only after she warned us that if it happened again, she'd rip out our tonsils and make us wear 'em for a bowtie."
SLAM!
The fingers on Moe's left hand, which he used to hold the nail in place for Larry, flared just as Larry missed his mark and struck Moe's hand by accident. "Watch where you're swingin', porcupine!"
"I'm sorry, Moe! I'm..."
RIIIIIIIIP!!!
Larry's apologies did nothing to prevent him from being the recipient of Moe's wrath, as a chunk of his hair was torn right off his scalp. Moe dispensed it down into the half-boarded hole, without thinking of where it might land in Miss Florshine's apartment. Not that he would have a moment to, with his attention brought to an envelope that had been slipped underneath their door.
"Look, fellas!" He called Curly and Larry's attention to it. Retrieving the envelope, Moe opened it to find a letter inside, addressed specifically to them:
Dear Mister Howard, Mister Fine, Mister Howard,
Your presence is required tomorrow evening at the Ink and Paint Club. Please meet me backstage, and I'll explain everything in my dressing room.
It was signed not with a signature but a kiss.
"Oh, boy! A kiss!" Curly cheered. "You know what that means!"
"It could mean anything," Moe disputed.
"Maybe it's from Miss Gwendoline next door," Larry surmised.
"Impossible, lamebrain," Moe shut him down. "She's too innocent for such a swanky joint." He examined the letter again. "Whoever it's from, we'll find out tomorrow night. That gives us enough time to freshen up."
"Good thing I started pressing my pants this early," Curly reveled.
"Ha!" Moe balked. "You're gonna need more than a pair of pressed pants to get into the Ink and Paint Club. You're gonna need..."
SSSHHHHZZZZZZZ!!!!
Once again, Moe sat without looking and got his backside burnt by the same hot flatiron as before, much to the amusement of Curly and Larry. "Looks like you're gonna need more than a pair of pants, too," the latter teased, laughing uproariously.
Moe wasn't so amused.
He grabbed the hot flatiron and, with its tip, stuck it into Larry's open mouth and scorched his tongue. The painful display made Curly laugh even harder, but Moe immediately put an end to that when he pressed the iron right onto Curly's hairless scalp.