The Stooge

The Stooge follows Bill Miller, a Broadway performer whose act is going nowhere until his managers suggest adding a stooge: Ted Rogers, a plant in the audience who serves as the target of Bill's jokes. The gimmick works, and the pair becomes a hit, but Ted's growing share of the laughter unsettles Bill, who treats him as a subordinate rather than a partner. Bill's girlfriend and his friends push him to give Ted equal billing, while Bill's pride makes that hard to accept.

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis star as Bill and Ted, with Polly Bergen as Mary Turner, Marion Marshall, Eddie Mayehoff and Richard Erdman in supporting roles, in a credited cast of 41. Norman Taurog directed from a screenplay by Fred F. Finklehoffe and Martin Rackin, with Hal B. Wallis producing for Paramount and Wallis-Hazen Inc. The film runs 100 minutes and was released in November 1951. It is the seventh of 14 films Taurog directed in chronological order, between The Beginning or the End and Jumping Jacks.

On IMDb it holds a 6.7 rating from around 1,800 votes, and on TMDB a 6.6 from 36 votes, indicating a modest but settled level of approval. The story of a comedian whose onstage foil quietly outshines him drew on the real dynamic of the Martin and Lewis partnership, which had already produced a string of hits together by this point.