All the World's a Stooge

Did You Know?

• The title parodies William Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage."
• Adopting refugees from European countries was a common event amongst society people during World War II.
• The film was shot over four days in August 1940.

Plot

Wealthy Ajax Bullion is unhappy when his eccentric wife announces she has arranged to adopt a refugee, saying it is socially fashionable. Ajax has a bad toothache, and his wife insists he go to the dentist while she gets the nursery ready. The Stooges are washing windows on a tall building’s scaffold. After a bucket of water is thrown through a dentist’s office window, the angry dentist threatens to fire them and orders them to dry the wet floor.

Ajax enters, mistakes the Stooges for dentists, and asks them to pull his tooth. They knock him out with a mallet and remove his bridge-work. Their attempts to reattach the bridge with cement fail, so they use dynamite. The dentist returns just as the dynamite is lit, and the Stooges flee.

Ajax wakes up unharmed and thanks the dentist. The Stooges descend on their scaffold and crash into a police officer. They hide in Ajax’s parked car. Ajax finds them and convinces them to pretend to be refugee children to discourage his wife.

Dressed as toddlers, they are adopted by Mrs. Bullion as Johnny, Frankie, and Mabel. Their chaotic behavior at a party makes her regret the adoption. Ajax, already annoyed by their theft of his cigars, becomes furious when a pie thrown by “Johnny” hits him in the face, and he chases them out of the house with an axe.