The Three Stooges #18
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe Three Stooges #18 (July 1964) is a solid mid-run representative of Gold Key's decade-long stewardship of the Three Stooges license — the single longest-running Stooges comic series in the characters' publishing history, ultimately reaching 46 numbered issues under that imprint. The issue arrives just as the Gold Key format had fully stabilized around its distinctive formula: a lead slapstick adventure anchored to the Curly-Joe DeRita lineup that moviegoers knew from contemporary Columbia features, a short backup strip, and a real-photograph cover that blurred the line between celebrity publicity and comic-book art in a way few Silver Age humor titles attempted. Its lead story, 'The Stooges Go Ape,' transplants the trio's brand of chaotic physical comedy into a jungle-adventure genre parody — a mode the Gold Key writers returned to repeatedly, demonstrating how elastic the Stooges' appeal was across genre settings. By 1964 the Gold Key Three Stooges was consistently reaching hundreds of thousands of readers monthly, making issues like #18 a meaningful snapshot of how Hollywood slapstick comedy was keeping itself alive and culturally visible on the newsstands for a young Silver Age audience.
In "The Stooges Go Ape," the Three Stooges trade their usual slapstick for jungle adventure, living as makeshift Tarzans in a treehouse and aiding a woman in her quest to find her missing father, a lost explorer. Their journey leads them to a hidden city inhabited by Roman soldiers, where their antics and Curly Joe’s surprising elephant call become their only escape. Art by Sparky Moore brings the wild escapade to life with energetic, expressive panels.
In a jungle treehouse where the Stooges play at being Tarzans, chaos reigns as Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe assist a young woman in tracking her missing father, a lost explorer. Their search leads them to a hidden city ruled by Roman soldiers, where their antics and Curly Joe’s unexpected elephant call become their only escape.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
When Dell Comics split off its proprietary Gold Key imprint in late 1962, the Three Stooges title transitioned seamlessly with it, picking up at issue #10 and continuing under the Western Publishing production umbrella — with K.K. Publications listed as the legal indicia publisher. The creative team working the Gold Key run drew on house artists including Pete Alvarado, Sparky Moore, and Joe Messerli, though the Gold Key editorial practice of omitting individual story and art credits means precise attribution for any single issue, including #18, cannot be confirmed from the comic itself. Norman Maurer — Moe Howard's son-in-law and the foundational creative force behind Stooges comics going back to 1949 — was by mid-1964 deeply occupied with feature-film production (he had just directed The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze in 1963 and was developing The Outlaws Is Coming), so the Gold Key run during this period operated largely as a Western Publishing house production rather than a Maurer-driven creative effort.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published July 1964 by Western Publishing / Gold Key, with K.K. Publications listed as the legal indicia publisher; 36 pages, full color.
- Lead story: 'The Stooges Go Ape' — Moe, Larry, and Curly-Joe DeRita living as jungle 'Tarzans' in a treehouse, helping a woman find her lost-explorer father; they discover a lost city occupied by Roman soldiers and escape via Curly-Joe's elephant call.
- Second main strip: 'Where's the Fire?' — the Stooges as inept firefighters attempting to battle a blaze inside a fireworks factory.
- Carries a continuing 'The Little Monsters' backup feature, which had debuted one issue earlier in #17 (May 1964) and ran through the remainder of the Gold Key series.
- Cover follows the Gold Key/Western house style for the title: a real photograph of the trio rather than illustrated art — a consistent trademark of the Gold Key Three Stooges run.
- No individual story or art credits are printed inside the issue, consistent with Gold Key's standard editorial practice for humor titles of this era.
- The lead story 'The Stooges Go Ape' was later selected for reprint in Three Stooges #50 (March 1971), confirming editorial regard for the story within the run.
- The Gold Key Three Stooges series — of which #18 is part — ran from issue #10 (October 1962) through issue #55 (1972), making it the longest-running Three Stooges comic series up to that point; artists associated with the full run include Pete Alvarado, Sparky Moore, and Joe Messerli.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in The Three Stooges #50 (1971), The Three Stooges #53 (1971)
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