Ants in the Pantry


Ants in the Pantry is a 1936 short subject directed by Preston Black starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. It is the 12th entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.

Plot

The Stooges are employed as pest exterminators. Driven by a chronic lack of clientele, they implement an unconventional service wherein they both introduce the infestation and subsequently address it. They target and surreptitiously enter an affluent mansion hosting a high society dinner party, whereupon they orchestrate a calculated release of various vermin, including mice, moths, and ants, with deliberate malice. Their machinations result in their inevitable hiring to rectify the very chaos they have orchestrated, all while discreetly masquerading as guests so as not to disrupt the soirée.
Things go according to plan until a sequence of events precipitated by Larry and Curly's ill-conceived scheme to conceal mice-seeking cats within an upright piano unravels the facade of order during a recital of Johann Strauss II's "Blue Danube Waltz." The ensuing chaos, exacerbated by the intrusion of a mouse into the piano, incites a cacophony of feline agitation, culminating in the destruction of the instrument and the revelation of the Stooges' ruse. However, in a surprising turn of events, the social decorum of the gathering is preserved as the hostess and her guests interpret the Stooges' antics as entertainment, thereby averting potential embarrassment.
Invited to partake in a fox hunt as further amusement, the Stooges experience a final misadventure when Curly lures a skunk he has mistaken for a fox into a sack and then brandishes it in front of Moe Larry, and a horse, all of whom succumb to the skunk's malodorous emissions.

Production notes

Ants in the Pantry was filmed on December 11–14, 1935; the film title is a pun on the phrase "ants in the pants." Moe Howard later recalled that a nest of ants actually worked their way into his pants:
Veteran voice actor Clarence Nash, most famous for doing Donald Duck, did the sounds of the cats in the piano.
Vesey O'Davoren appeared as Gawkins.
Ants in the Pantry was remade with Shemp Howard in 1951 as Pest Man Wins.