I love the Three Stooges, but I've always wondered about the question of how audiences originally saw them. Since the two reelers were only about 15 to 18 minutes long, how were they shown in theaters? Was one two-reeler movie shown before a full-length movie by someone else or were multiple two-reeler films by the Three Stooges shown in one sitting? Thanks! This question has been on my mind for so long because I'm just so used to seeing the Three Stooges on TV.
At the time, going to the movies was a bigger affair. You didn’t just go see the feature. It was a whole evening of programming.
Typically, between showings theaters would play a cliffhanger serial such as Flash Gordon, a couple of cartoons, a news reel and a Three Stooges episode or Laurel and Hardy.
People would wander in and out of the programming, and even the feature. It wasn’t unusual to purchase a ticket while the feature was playing, sit through the second half, and stay through the newsreels and Stooges to see the first half of the feature that was missed.
Theaters would also screen cartoons and Stooges comedies for a couple of hours on Saturday morning for kids.