Have Rocket, Will Travel

Lore & Background

The film's plot follows the Stooges as janitors at a space center who accidentally launch themselves into space and land on Venus. There, they encounter a talking horse, a giant tarantula (which does not breathe fire), and an alien computer that has eradicated all life on the planet. The computer creates evil robot duplicates of the Stooges, who later cause chaos at the Stooges' welcome-back party on Earth. The film ends with the Stooges singing a song about being in space while riding a rocket.

Have Rocket, Will Travel was Joe DeRita's inaugural screen appearance with the Stooges, replacing Joe Besser after Columbia ceased production of the Stooges' shorts series. The title is a play on the popular television show Have Gun – Will Travel.

Reader's Guide

Have Rocket, Will Travel holds a place in film history as the first feature to introduce Joe DeRita as Curly Joe, marking a new era for the Three Stooges after the end of their short-subject series. The film capitalized on the Stooges' late-1950s resurgence and the public's fascination with space travel. Despite mixed critical reviews, it was a box-office success, grossing over $2.5 million against a $380,000 budget. Moe Howard later expressed dislike for the film, calling it contrived. The soundtrack, a two-sided 45-rpm single featuring the Stooges singing the theme song, sold well but did not chart highly due to limited publicity. The film remains a notable entry in the Stooges' filmography, reflecting both their enduring popularity and the era's space-age pop culture.

Did You Know?

• The film was Joe DeRita's first screen appearance with the Three Stooges.
• The title is a play on the television show Have Gun – Will Travel.
• Filming was completed over 13 days between May 18 and June 1, 1959.

The DeRita Debut and Production

Have Rocket, Will Travel marked a pivotal transition point for the Three Stooges, as it was the first screen appearance of Joe DeRita, who assumed the Curly-like role after Columbia Pictures ended its short-film series and Joe Besser departed. The studio crafted the title as a deliberate nod to the hugely popular television series Have Gun – Will Travel, signaling their intent to position the comedy troupe within the broader late-1950s pop-culture landscape. Production moved with unusual speed: principal photography wrapped in just thirteen days, from May 18 through June 1, 1959. The supporting ensemble included Anna-Lisa as Dr. Ingrid Naarveg and Robert Colbert as Dr. Ted Benson, alongside character actors Jerome Cowan and Don Lamond. One notable creative friction emerged during post-production. In the original cut, the Stooges were the sole characters visible after the rocket-launch sequence, but Columbia executives demanded the insertion of a welcome-back party scene to introduce the additional cast members, reshaping the film's structure to accommodate its supporting players.

Plot and Comedic Architecture

The narrative places Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe as lowly janitors at a government space center, where a cascade of slapstick mishaps propels them accidentally into orbit and ultimately onto the planet Venus. Their extraterrestrial adventure introduces a menagerie of absurd set pieces: a talking unicorn voiced by Dal McKennon, a giant fire-breathing tarantula, and a malevolent alien computer that has already wiped out every living creature on the world. The computer's most sinister act is manufacturing evil robotic duplicates of the three janitors. After managing their escape back to Earth, the trio is greeted as triumphant heroes at a celebration. The film's climax erupts when the robot doppelgängers crash the party, triggering a chaotic physical comedy sequence. The closing number has the Stooges singing a song about their space ride while perched atop a rocket, and Moe is pelted with cream pies—a gag that, as the comedian himself later admitted, felt tacked onto the story.

Box Office Triumph

Released on August 1, 1959, Have Rocket, Will Travel arrived amid mixed critical reception yet proved a substantial financial victory for Columbia Pictures. In its opening five-day engagement across multiple Los Angeles theaters, where it was double-billed with The Legend of Tom Dooley, the picture collected $127,000, a figure equivalent to roughly $1.4 million in today's dollars. Over its full theatrical run, the film surpassed $2.5 million in gross receipts, translating to approximately $27.6 million in adjusted terms. Against a production budget of just $380,000, around $4.2 million in modern currency, those returns represented a remarkable profit margin for a comedy feature. The commercial performance validated Columbia's strategy of leveraging the Stooges' late-1950s popularity resurgence to fill the void left by the cancellation of their short-film series, and it helped justify the studio's continued investment in the trio's feature-film output in the years that followed.

Reception, Soundtrack, and the Space-Theme Legacy

Moe Howard's own retrospective assessment, voiced in 1973, was notably unflattering: he called the picture contrived, complained that the cream-pie gags were shoehorned into the ending, and dismissed the unicorn sequence with a blunt exclamation. The film's musical footprint extended beyond the screen. In August 1959, Colpix Records issued a two-sided 45-rpm single featuring the Stooges singing the theme song, backed by the vocal group the Tinglers. The track was composed by George Duning and Stanley Styne with arrangements by Dennis Farnon. Although the record sold respectably, it never climbed high on the charts, largely because Columbia Pictures invested little in promotional support. The space-travel premise also situated the film within a broader late-1950s trend; the trio had already explored the genre in three Columbia shorts—Space Ship Sappy, Outer Space Jitters, and Flying Saucer Daffy—and would return to the theme in 1962's The Three Stooges in Orbit.