January 19, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Brad Server grew up watching The Three Stooges on TV, not knowing he was related to one of the greatest comics of all time. Every day after school, Brad, his brother, and their friends would pile in front of the television to watch their idol, Jerome Howard, best known as “Curly.” Then, one day, the secret about their unknown grandfather was unveiled. Here’s Brad Server (aka “Curly G”) with the story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And up next
a story from Brad Server. Brad grew up watching The
Three Stooges on TV, not knowing he was related to
one of the greatest comic performers of all time. Every
day after school, Brad, his brother, and their friends would
pile in front of the TV to watch their idol,
(00:32):
Jerome Howard, best known as Curly. Then one day the
secret about their unknown grandfather was unveiled. Here's Brad Server
aka Curly g.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
To start this journey, we must first go back to Lithuania.
This were my great grandparents, Solomon and Jenny Horwitz and married.
They later left for America and arrived in Castlegarden, New
York in eighteen ninety. Here they would start their family
of five boys, irving Benjamin, Samuel, Moses, and Jerome. Later
(01:17):
the world would know the three in his boys as Shemp,
Mow and Curly. My name is Brad Server and I'm
the youngest grandson of Curley Howard of the Three Stooges.
This is my American story. When Shemp and Moe were
in their teens, they would sneak off to Coney Island
to watch the vaudeville acts. They would later join these
(01:38):
performers and were then discovered by Ted Healy, a well
known vaudeville actor. In time, they met Lawrence Finberg, better
known as Larry, and they became Ted Healy and his stooges.
In time, Shemp would leave the act and baby brother
filled in. The rest is comedy history for the ages.
(02:00):
WHI you college? You're afraid of? Say Niagara fools, n
Girl fools. I journ this stallion sy steps inch by
inch Joy. In nineteen thirty seven, Curly met and married
(02:24):
my grandmother, Elaine Ackerman. A year later, they would have
a baby girl named Marylyn my mom. In nineteen forty one,
my grandparents divorced when my mom was three. My grandmother
would remarry a year later to a man named Moses Diamond.
My mother lived with them, but would visit Curly on
(02:44):
the weekends when he was in town. As my grandfather's
health started to decline, her visits were less frequent, and
she remembers visiting him in the hospital often. In nineteen
fifty two, when my mom was fourteen, Curly Howard passed
away at the age of forty eight. After my grandfather's passing,
(03:04):
she would legally be adopted by her stepfather, who really
had become her everyday dad. In early nineteen sixty my
mom met my father, Haskellalate Server, in Los Angeles, California.
In December, my brother, Darren was born. Then in nineteen
sixty two, my sister Andrea, and then in nineteen sixty
(03:27):
five I joined them. My parents, though would later divorce
in nineteen seventy one. So after my parents divorced in
nineteen seventy one, it was a typical arrangement where my
brother's sister, and I lived with my mother. My dad
would then move to Pacific Palisades because he was doing
(03:50):
well in the insurance agency that he was working for,
and then later my brother would wind up moving in
with my dad. A year later, I would move in
with my dad. But we really started showing signs that
we had something very special in our blood because we
were performing. My brother was a self taught piano player.
(04:13):
I think at the age of five, we all loved
to sing. We would gather around the piano, my sister,
my brother, and I and we could all carry a tune,
so you know, it was great. So we would sing songs.
Later it would develop into performing makeshift musicals for you know,
(04:34):
my grandparents at the time, or my mom if she
was to drop us off, we'd say, Mom, come in
and see this, and we would, you know, we would
do the you know, the famous shows of that time.
In nineteen seventy one seventy two, we were doing Cabaret,
West Side Story, Soundy Music, And to this time, we
came home like every other kid after school. We came
(04:57):
home and we wanted to see the Stooges, so we'd
rush home. We'd watch in LA it was channel fifty
two UHF, and you had all the great shows that
were coming on. You know, you had Kimba, you had
the Three Stooges, the Little Rascals, you had speed Racer.
I mean, all these great shows, but the Stooges is
what we came home to watch most. And Curly was
(05:20):
our hero. My brother and I both loved Curly the most.
But the problem with that was at this age I
was six, my sister was eight, my brother was eleven.
We had no idea that we were the grandchildren of Curly.
We hadn't been told yet, but it was this one
(05:42):
day that we found out. I believe I was maybe
eight at the time, maybe my brother was twelve somewhere
around that time, and my grandmother had taken my brother,
Darren to see his first Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof,
and he was at awe when he saw the show.
(06:02):
I mean, after the show, when they were driving home,
my grandmother and him, he just kept going on and
on of how he wanted to be an actor, he
wanted to be an actor, and he was just persistent
and on, and I think finally my grandmother said, Darren, enough,
I get it. It's probably because show business runs in
(06:24):
your blood. Your biological grandfather was Curly from the Three Stooges.
What do you mean, grandma, Yes, yes, yes, never mind
that you have your grandfather that you have now, so
just know that your talents come inherently through your bloodline
and just don't carry on with it when you get home.
(06:46):
La la la. So it's like my brother was basically
in shock, you know, he didn't say another word, I
think on the way home. And then he comes home
and he tells me and we're like, I mean, I
was like, you have to be that's not true. Slightly,
and he's like Bradley it's true, grandmother told me, and
we were just, you know, we're like, what do you
(07:06):
do with that? I mean, your heroes become your family.
We're not ordinary people, we're more rons. And then what
are you supposed to do with that? I mean, did
I really think? Or did we really think? The next
day when we went to school, you know, and tell
our friends, the same kids that came home with us
every day to watch The Stooges, we were now saying, oh,
(07:28):
by the way, Curly is our grandfather, so you know,
we live with it. We watched The Stooges, We're like, wow,
that's our grandfather, and it was like we didn't talk
about it when we were at our dad's once we
found out, because of course that's my mom's father, so
he doesn't want to hear anything about my mom. They're divorced.
(07:51):
My mom she didn't talk about it because one, she
was very young when Curly died. She was when she
was three years old, she was you know, adopted by
her new father, so that really became her everyday father.
She channeled out the Three Stooges. Curly was just not
(08:12):
something that she talked about. And then it was something
that we were kind of told not to talk about
because even though our grandfather, Moses Diamond was an amazing
man and an amazing grandfather to us, he wasn't Curly
Howard from the Three Stooges. So we basically were in check.
(08:33):
So you know, through high school, did I talk about
being Curly's grandson? No, not really. You know, I was
already class clown. I was space case. I was the
guy that they wanted. Everyone wanted Brad Server to go
to the parties because I was the funny guy. It
was probably only later if I was ever if someone
(08:54):
didn't like me, or some guy was going to kick
my or whatever, that the guy they would go, hey,
you know that's, by the way, that's Curly's grandson. And
then the person would say, oh, okay, you know it
gave me a a little a hall pass.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And you've been listening to Brad Server tell a remarkable story.
By the way, what a good shock. Right, my granddad's Curly.
I bought him a lot of hall passes. When we
come back, more of the story of Brad Server and
in the end, a story of family bloodlines. Here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:45):
and Brad Servers story. Let's pick up what we last
left off.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So I continue to through the nineties build my career,
and I still at this point hadn't met anyone from
the three Stooge family, and I was I was thirty
years old or something. At the time. It was just
it was it didn't even cross my mind. But it
was one day my mom said, hey, Aunt Joan, which
(10:11):
is Moe's daughter, is having a little reunion at her house.
And so I went to this reunion where I met
my aunt Joan, Moe's daughter, and it was great. She
was an incredibly wonderful, warm lady, and she had so
much memorabilia, and it finally was a chance to talk about,
(10:33):
you know, being the grandson with another family member, and
it was it was great, and it was just it
was so odd that, all these years later, why am
I just talking to a Stooge family member. It just
the whole thing about being the grandchildren of Curly Howard,
one of the most iconic comedians of all time, was suppressed.
(10:55):
It was like we weren't to talk about it. We
didn't talk about it. But now I was, you know,
I was with Moe's daughter, and this would start turning
into spending more time in the future with Stuge family members,
which was great. But what really turn my life around
was in two thousand, I had my daughter, Elizabeth Elaine Server,
(11:20):
and she's named her middle name, Elaine, is after my grandmother, Elaine.
And I love being a dad, and you know, had
my career, but I still hadn't gotten in the stooge
thing until I went to my first Stooge convention. And
these conventions were going on for a long time, and
they were usually in Pennsylvania and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, which
(11:42):
is about thirty minutes from Philadelphia. And I went to
my first Stooge convention and I bet the fans, you know,
and the fans are so endearing and amazing. They love
the Stooges to this day. They mean everything to them.
And I would hear the stories of how the Stooges
(12:03):
change their lives and how much the Stooges mean to them.
I want a piece of turkey too, Oh, so you
want a piece of turkey, give it me now, you
got it. And then other Stuge family members were at
these events, so I started building relationships with them and
that was great, and so I would continue. It was
(12:26):
about every year we would go to these Stuge events.
I'd go with my brother, and then later I would
go by myself, and then I'd bring my daughter, and
she got exposed to being part of it, and she
she loved it, you know, for a while. You know,
as she got older, she was like, I don't want
to go to these things anymore. But it really was special,
and really all the fans out there, of the three Stooges,
(12:46):
are fans in general of comedy. If you're in the
Philadelphia area, there's the largest Stooge museum, maybe the only
Stuge museum, but it is three stories of the largest
and great Stuge museum in the world. It's called the
Stougium and it's in Ambler, Pennsylvania, which there again isn't
too far from Philadelphia, and I strongly recommend that you
(13:09):
go there. It's it's a muss for any Stooge fan
that can go. It's it's it's it's truly amazing. And
a couple of things that come with, you know, the
singing and the the other talents and be able to
play music. Was out of the three of us, I
call us the grand Stooges. Was I was able to
(13:30):
go up this in my register and topic this, and
it was it was like, what what is that? I'm
a victim a circumstance were quiet, but it was like WHOA.
I didn't even know that I could do that. All
these years later, I was like, well, I guess that
was something that was you know, God given curly gave
(13:52):
me that that I had this kind of high pitched
voice slightly. So continue to go to the Stooge event,
and of course social media was happening on Big Ben
and was on Facebook, and I was reaching out to
the fans and going back and forth listening to their stories, telling,
you know, commenting them, telling you know, there again, the
(14:13):
Stooges brought a lot of these people out of their
darkest times, and it meant so much for me to
be able to give back and tell them thank you
and how much I appreciate them, and just kind of
just building off that. But in twenty twelve, you know,
something that I thought that would never happen was the
Stooges were going to be on the big screen, the
(14:34):
Three Stooges movie. So what else happened in twenty twelve?
I on social media met a friend who now is
my business partner, who is the gentleman that is extremely
talented named Andy Pagana. And Andy found me shortly after
(14:55):
the Stooges movie came out, and he actually tried out
for the role of Curly and came in third place,
and he sent me his audition video. So I was like, wow,
I met this guy that tried out for Curly. He
wound up having he had such a love not only
for the Three Stooges, but had such a background in
(15:15):
the comedy trios and duos of that genre. He was
you know, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx brothers and
all of them. And we became extremely good friends. And
he was a writer. He was a producer. He was producing,
he wrote screenplays. He was a great photographer with filming stuff.
(15:39):
So it was like he was like, Brad, you got
to make videos. I mean, he was doing some videos,
but it was like, the fans need to see you.
I was like, I guess, I mean, I loved I
loved the camera, right, I experienced that. So we started
filming videos. In the first video that I think I
remember doing that, it was going to be my grandfather's
(16:00):
one hundred and thirteenth birthday, and I thought that we
should do a tribute birthday, you know, or tribute for
his birthday, right, So so we came up with why
not get hit by one hundred and thirteen pies. So
we spent the day going throughout Hollywood and the day
and night and we went to different places and some
people were celebrities, some people were just people off the street.
(16:22):
Most of them were people off the street. And for
the whole day and night, I just got pelted with
one hundred and thirteen pies. And I was like honored,
I was beat. I was so tired I was. I mean,
it was it was hard, But I'm like, wait a second.
The Three Stooges did this for years and took so
much punishment, and my grandfather took so much punishment. The
(16:43):
least I can do is take one hundred and thirteen
pies in one day. And that video can be seen
on YouTube on my YouTube channel with Early's grandson. But
it came out great and the fans loved it, right,
and so ninety nine percent of the comments, which is
hard to find these days, we're all very positive. They
loved it, they laughed, they enjoyed it, so Andy and
(17:07):
a couple of my other buddies that are extremely talented,
we started doing video content. So we built the Curly's
Grandson channel and Andy Bagana's got his own channel and
it's just it's slapstick type comedy and I just am myself.
I'm Brad Serverer, that funny guy, but I used my
high pitch voice. But it's just naturally in my nature
(17:30):
that I look a little bit like him, which is
a blessing because he's a very handsome man. We all
know that. But something else came up, and it was
a challenge that I didn't think that I would ever encounter,
and that was a live performance. We're going to be
putting on the Three Stooges live and it's going to
tour the US, and we want you to be the
(17:51):
fifth man, which is basically a supporting actor and all
the little skits and what about it? Do you want
to be in the show? And I was like, of course,
because we didn't know where the Stooge is still going
to be relevant? Was our show going to be relevant?
And it was? And it was. It was really after
the shows where the fans stayed for we did Q
(18:13):
and A's and they stood in lines for hours to
take pictures with us and to say thank you so
much for bringing us back in time, you know, when
things were so much simpler and so much better. I mean,
today has so much muck muck and so much stuff
going on that going to see a Three Stooges show,
a Matt and A or an eating show and they
(18:34):
absolutely loved it. You know, There's some things that happened
that I don't have all the answers to that I'm
going to work on. And I just want to continue
to bring laughter to the fans. I want to continue
to be in front of the camera. I want to
have people go to my channel, Curly's Grandson on YouTube
(18:56):
and find me on Instagram, and find me on Facebook
and interact and I do my best to try to
reach out to them. And Curly G there again short
for Curly's Grandson. Build that brand. You know, it represents
my grandfather. I'm representing his legacy. So I want to
continue to do that. And I just want to thank
(19:19):
you for allowing me to be on your show.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh and thank you Brad Curly G for coming on
our show. And thanks to Greg Hangler for the great
production on the piece. And my goodness, my favorite part
of this story is when he went to his first
Stooge convention and we are heading the show is heading
to a stage convention, we promise you. And there he
met the fans who told him how much the Stooges
(19:41):
had changed their lives and how much the Stooges meant
to them. And then it led to, of course, three
Stooges live and touring the country, the story of Brad
Server in the end, the story of a family bond
between he and his grandfather Curly, of the three Stooges.
Here on our American story
And we continue with our American stories. And up next
a story from Brad Server. Brad grew up watching The
Three Stooges on TV, not knowing he was related to
one of the greatest comic performers of all time. Every
day after school, Brad, his brother, and their friends would
pile in front of the TV to watch their idol,
(00:32):
Jerome Howard, best known as Curly. Then one day the
secret about their unknown grandfather was unveiled. Here's Brad Server
aka Curly g.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
To start this journey, we must first go back to Lithuania.
This were my great grandparents, Solomon and Jenny Horwitz and married.
They later left for America and arrived in Castlegarden, New
York in eighteen ninety. Here they would start their family
of five boys, irving Benjamin, Samuel, Moses, and Jerome. Later
(01:17):
the world would know the three in his boys as Shemp,
Mow and Curly. My name is Brad Server and I'm
the youngest grandson of Curley Howard of the Three Stooges.
This is my American story. When Shemp and Moe were
in their teens, they would sneak off to Coney Island
to watch the vaudeville acts. They would later join these
(01:38):
performers and were then discovered by Ted Healy, a well
known vaudeville actor. In time, they met Lawrence Finberg, better
known as Larry, and they became Ted Healy and his stooges.
In time, Shemp would leave the act and baby brother
filled in. The rest is comedy history for the ages.
(02:00):
WHI you college? You're afraid of? Say Niagara fools, n
Girl fools. I journ this stallion sy steps inch by
inch Joy. In nineteen thirty seven, Curly met and married
(02:24):
my grandmother, Elaine Ackerman. A year later, they would have
a baby girl named Marylyn my mom. In nineteen forty one,
my grandparents divorced when my mom was three. My grandmother
would remarry a year later to a man named Moses Diamond.
My mother lived with them, but would visit Curly on
(02:44):
the weekends when he was in town. As my grandfather's
health started to decline, her visits were less frequent, and
she remembers visiting him in the hospital often. In nineteen
fifty two, when my mom was fourteen, Curly Howard passed
away at the age of forty eight. After my grandfather's passing,
(03:04):
she would legally be adopted by her stepfather, who really
had become her everyday dad. In early nineteen sixty my
mom met my father, Haskellalate Server, in Los Angeles, California.
In December, my brother, Darren was born. Then in nineteen
sixty two, my sister Andrea, and then in nineteen sixty
(03:27):
five I joined them. My parents, though would later divorce
in nineteen seventy one. So after my parents divorced in
nineteen seventy one, it was a typical arrangement where my
brother's sister, and I lived with my mother. My dad
would then move to Pacific Palisades because he was doing
(03:50):
well in the insurance agency that he was working for,
and then later my brother would wind up moving in
with my dad. A year later, I would move in
with my dad. But we really started showing signs that
we had something very special in our blood because we
were performing. My brother was a self taught piano player.
(04:13):
I think at the age of five, we all loved
to sing. We would gather around the piano, my sister,
my brother, and I and we could all carry a tune,
so you know, it was great. So we would sing songs.
Later it would develop into performing makeshift musicals for you know,
(04:34):
my grandparents at the time, or my mom if she
was to drop us off, we'd say, Mom, come in
and see this, and we would, you know, we would
do the you know, the famous shows of that time.
In nineteen seventy one seventy two, we were doing Cabaret,
West Side Story, Soundy Music, And to this time, we
came home like every other kid after school. We came
(04:57):
home and we wanted to see the Stooges, so we'd
rush home. We'd watch in LA it was channel fifty
two UHF, and you had all the great shows that
were coming on. You know, you had Kimba, you had
the Three Stooges, the Little Rascals, you had speed Racer.
I mean, all these great shows, but the Stooges is
what we came home to watch most. And Curly was
(05:20):
our hero. My brother and I both loved Curly the most.
But the problem with that was at this age I
was six, my sister was eight, my brother was eleven.
We had no idea that we were the grandchildren of Curly.
We hadn't been told yet, but it was this one
(05:42):
day that we found out. I believe I was maybe
eight at the time, maybe my brother was twelve somewhere
around that time, and my grandmother had taken my brother,
Darren to see his first Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof,
and he was at awe when he saw the show.
(06:02):
I mean, after the show, when they were driving home,
my grandmother and him, he just kept going on and
on of how he wanted to be an actor, he
wanted to be an actor, and he was just persistent
and on, and I think finally my grandmother said, Darren, enough,
I get it. It's probably because show business runs in
(06:24):
your blood. Your biological grandfather was Curly from the Three Stooges.
What do you mean, grandma, Yes, yes, yes, never mind
that you have your grandfather that you have now, so
just know that your talents come inherently through your bloodline
and just don't carry on with it when you get home.
(06:46):
La la la. So it's like my brother was basically
in shock, you know, he didn't say another word, I
think on the way home. And then he comes home
and he tells me and we're like, I mean, I
was like, you have to be that's not true. Slightly,
and he's like Bradley it's true, grandmother told me, and
we were just, you know, we're like, what do you
(07:06):
do with that? I mean, your heroes become your family.
We're not ordinary people, we're more rons. And then what
are you supposed to do with that? I mean, did
I really think? Or did we really think? The next
day when we went to school, you know, and tell
our friends, the same kids that came home with us
every day to watch The Stooges, we were now saying, oh,
(07:28):
by the way, Curly is our grandfather, so you know,
we live with it. We watched The Stooges, We're like, wow,
that's our grandfather, and it was like we didn't talk
about it when we were at our dad's once we
found out, because of course that's my mom's father, so
he doesn't want to hear anything about my mom. They're divorced.
(07:51):
My mom she didn't talk about it because one, she
was very young when Curly died. She was when she
was three years old, she was you know, adopted by
her new father, so that really became her everyday father.
She channeled out the Three Stooges. Curly was just not
(08:12):
something that she talked about. And then it was something
that we were kind of told not to talk about
because even though our grandfather, Moses Diamond was an amazing
man and an amazing grandfather to us, he wasn't Curly
Howard from the Three Stooges. So we basically were in check.
(08:33):
So you know, through high school, did I talk about
being Curly's grandson? No, not really. You know, I was
already class clown. I was space case. I was the
guy that they wanted. Everyone wanted Brad Server to go
to the parties because I was the funny guy. It
was probably only later if I was ever if someone
(08:54):
didn't like me, or some guy was going to kick
my or whatever, that the guy they would go, hey,
you know that's, by the way, that's Curly's grandson. And
then the person would say, oh, okay, you know it
gave me a a little a hall pass.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And you've been listening to Brad Server tell a remarkable story.
By the way, what a good shock. Right, my granddad's Curly.
I bought him a lot of hall passes. When we
come back, more of the story of Brad Server and
in the end, a story of family bloodlines. Here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:45):
and Brad Servers story. Let's pick up what we last
left off.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So I continue to through the nineties build my career,
and I still at this point hadn't met anyone from
the three Stooge family, and I was I was thirty
years old or something. At the time. It was just
it was it didn't even cross my mind. But it
was one day my mom said, hey, Aunt Joan, which
(10:11):
is Moe's daughter, is having a little reunion at her house.
And so I went to this reunion where I met
my aunt Joan, Moe's daughter, and it was great. She
was an incredibly wonderful, warm lady, and she had so
much memorabilia, and it finally was a chance to talk about,
(10:33):
you know, being the grandson with another family member, and
it was it was great, and it was just it
was so odd that, all these years later, why am
I just talking to a Stooge family member. It just
the whole thing about being the grandchildren of Curly Howard,
one of the most iconic comedians of all time, was suppressed.
(10:55):
It was like we weren't to talk about it. We
didn't talk about it. But now I was, you know,
I was with Moe's daughter, and this would start turning
into spending more time in the future with Stuge family members,
which was great. But what really turn my life around
was in two thousand, I had my daughter, Elizabeth Elaine Server,
(11:20):
and she's named her middle name, Elaine, is after my grandmother, Elaine.
And I love being a dad, and you know, had
my career, but I still hadn't gotten in the stooge
thing until I went to my first Stooge convention. And
these conventions were going on for a long time, and
they were usually in Pennsylvania and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, which
(11:42):
is about thirty minutes from Philadelphia. And I went to
my first Stooge convention and I bet the fans, you know,
and the fans are so endearing and amazing. They love
the Stooges to this day. They mean everything to them.
And I would hear the stories of how the Stooges
(12:03):
change their lives and how much the Stooges mean to them.
I want a piece of turkey too, Oh, so you
want a piece of turkey, give it me now, you
got it. And then other Stuge family members were at
these events, so I started building relationships with them and
that was great, and so I would continue. It was
(12:26):
about every year we would go to these Stuge events.
I'd go with my brother, and then later I would
go by myself, and then I'd bring my daughter, and
she got exposed to being part of it, and she
she loved it, you know, for a while. You know,
as she got older, she was like, I don't want
to go to these things anymore. But it really was special,
and really all the fans out there, of the three Stooges,
(12:46):
are fans in general of comedy. If you're in the
Philadelphia area, there's the largest Stooge museum, maybe the only
Stuge museum, but it is three stories of the largest
and great Stuge museum in the world. It's called the
Stougium and it's in Ambler, Pennsylvania, which there again isn't
too far from Philadelphia, and I strongly recommend that you
(13:09):
go there. It's it's a muss for any Stooge fan
that can go. It's it's it's it's truly amazing. And
a couple of things that come with, you know, the
singing and the the other talents and be able to
play music. Was out of the three of us, I
call us the grand Stooges. Was I was able to
(13:30):
go up this in my register and topic this, and
it was it was like, what what is that? I'm
a victim a circumstance were quiet, but it was like WHOA.
I didn't even know that I could do that. All
these years later, I was like, well, I guess that
was something that was you know, God given curly gave
(13:52):
me that that I had this kind of high pitched
voice slightly. So continue to go to the Stooge event,
and of course social media was happening on Big Ben
and was on Facebook, and I was reaching out to
the fans and going back and forth listening to their stories, telling,
you know, commenting them, telling you know, there again, the
(14:13):
Stooges brought a lot of these people out of their
darkest times, and it meant so much for me to
be able to give back and tell them thank you
and how much I appreciate them, and just kind of
just building off that. But in twenty twelve, you know,
something that I thought that would never happen was the
Stooges were going to be on the big screen, the
(14:34):
Three Stooges movie. So what else happened in twenty twelve?
I on social media met a friend who now is
my business partner, who is the gentleman that is extremely
talented named Andy Pagana. And Andy found me shortly after
(14:55):
the Stooges movie came out, and he actually tried out
for the role of Curly and came in third place,
and he sent me his audition video. So I was like, wow,
I met this guy that tried out for Curly. He
wound up having he had such a love not only
for the Three Stooges, but had such a background in
(15:15):
the comedy trios and duos of that genre. He was
you know, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx brothers and
all of them. And we became extremely good friends. And
he was a writer. He was a producer. He was producing,
he wrote screenplays. He was a great photographer with filming stuff.
(15:39):
So it was like he was like, Brad, you got
to make videos. I mean, he was doing some videos,
but it was like, the fans need to see you.
I was like, I guess, I mean, I loved I
loved the camera, right, I experienced that. So we started
filming videos. In the first video that I think I
remember doing that, it was going to be my grandfather's
(16:00):
one hundred and thirteenth birthday, and I thought that we
should do a tribute birthday, you know, or tribute for
his birthday, right, So so we came up with why
not get hit by one hundred and thirteen pies. So
we spent the day going throughout Hollywood and the day
and night and we went to different places and some
people were celebrities, some people were just people off the street.
(16:22):
Most of them were people off the street. And for
the whole day and night, I just got pelted with
one hundred and thirteen pies. And I was like honored,
I was beat. I was so tired I was. I mean,
it was it was hard, But I'm like, wait a second.
The Three Stooges did this for years and took so
much punishment, and my grandfather took so much punishment. The
(16:43):
least I can do is take one hundred and thirteen
pies in one day. And that video can be seen
on YouTube on my YouTube channel with Early's grandson. But
it came out great and the fans loved it, right,
and so ninety nine percent of the comments, which is
hard to find these days, we're all very positive. They
loved it, they laughed, they enjoyed it, so Andy and
(17:07):
a couple of my other buddies that are extremely talented,
we started doing video content. So we built the Curly's
Grandson channel and Andy Bagana's got his own channel and
it's just it's slapstick type comedy and I just am myself.
I'm Brad Serverer, that funny guy, but I used my
high pitch voice. But it's just naturally in my nature
(17:30):
that I look a little bit like him, which is
a blessing because he's a very handsome man. We all
know that. But something else came up, and it was
a challenge that I didn't think that I would ever encounter,
and that was a live performance. We're going to be
putting on the Three Stooges live and it's going to
tour the US, and we want you to be the
(17:51):
fifth man, which is basically a supporting actor and all
the little skits and what about it? Do you want
to be in the show? And I was like, of course,
because we didn't know where the Stooge is still going
to be relevant? Was our show going to be relevant?
And it was? And it was. It was really after
the shows where the fans stayed for we did Q
(18:13):
and A's and they stood in lines for hours to
take pictures with us and to say thank you so
much for bringing us back in time, you know, when
things were so much simpler and so much better. I mean,
today has so much muck muck and so much stuff
going on that going to see a Three Stooges show,
a Matt and A or an eating show and they
(18:34):
absolutely loved it. You know, There's some things that happened
that I don't have all the answers to that I'm
going to work on. And I just want to continue
to bring laughter to the fans. I want to continue
to be in front of the camera. I want to
have people go to my channel, Curly's Grandson on YouTube
(18:56):
and find me on Instagram, and find me on Facebook
and interact and I do my best to try to
reach out to them. And Curly G there again short
for Curly's Grandson. Build that brand. You know, it represents
my grandfather. I'm representing his legacy. So I want to
continue to do that. And I just want to thank
(19:19):
you for allowing me to be on your show.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh and thank you Brad Curly G for coming on
our show. And thanks to Greg Hangler for the great
production on the piece. And my goodness, my favorite part
of this story is when he went to his first
Stooge convention and we are heading the show is heading
to a stage convention, we promise you. And there he
met the fans who told him how much the Stooges
(19:41):
had changed their lives and how much the Stooges meant
to them. And then it led to, of course, three
Stooges live and touring the country, the story of Brad
Server in the end, the story of a family bond
between he and his grandfather Curly, of the three Stooges.
Here on our American story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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