Did the History Channel Really Confuse Moe From The Three Stooges With Hitler?
The History Channel, America’s preferred method for putting dads to sleep in armchairs, used to produce a series called Hunting Hitler. The reality show floated the possibility that Hitler survived World War II and escaped to Argentina. Of course, if that were true, he’d be well over 100 years old, which would make the events of the show less of a “hunt” and more of an extended errand to collect some hypothetical bones.
In Season Two, Hunting Hitler featured an exciting development: A random Argentinian guy produced an old photograph of an elderly man that he claimed was really Adolf Hitler. For some reason he kept this important piece of evidence in a box in his closet instead of, say, giving it to the press or doing literally anything with it other than handing it over to the random strangers who showed up at his door with a reality TV crew in tow.
The photo was so immediately convincing that the Hunting Hitler crew kept it for analysis, arguing that it could be one of the most “significant discoveries” in all of history. Although they ultimately determined that the photo wasn’t of Hitler after all.
What the show didn’t reveal was the fact that the photo was really of comedy legend Moe Howard, of The Three Stooges fame. And last time we checked Moe A) was Jewish; B) never lived in Argentina; and C) definitely wasn’t not one of history’s greatest monsters.
Subsequent reruns of the episode apparently edited out the scenes featuring clear shots of Moe, as did the excerpted YouTube clips. But you can still see fleeting glimpses of the iconic Stooge in commercials for the season.
Thankfully, a YouTuber uploaded the scrapped scenes, in which a facial recognition expert compares a real photo of Hitler to the one of the star of The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. As the video points out, it seems highly unlikely that this was an “honest mistake,” seeing as how the image was taken from an old home movie of Moe and manipulated before being printed on photo paper.
All of which sure makes it seem like this was all a reality show contrivance. It’s possible that they picked Howard to be their phony Hitler as some kind of ill-conceived inside joke, owing to the fact that Moe famously dressed up as Hitler in the 1940 short You Natzy Spy!
Of course, there’s no conclusive proof of any of this – but we’d be hard-pressed to think of another plausible explanation for how a Hollywood comedy icon who never committed a crime greater than the odd eye-poking ended up being mistaken for a genocidal dictator.
We’ll keep a close eye on future History Channel shows, just in case they try to promote a conspiracy theory involving Stalin using an old 8x10 of Groucho Marx.