There were the artist Sterling Ruby, whose soft sculptures, dripping threads, were echoed in the clothes and handbags at Calvin Klein; Nicki Minaj, wearing fringed boots and not much else in a selfie that went viral this summer; a renegade assortment of bikers and neo-hippies, resurrected in spirit at Alexander Wang and Anna Sui; and, not least, the romanticized saloon gals and cowpunchers of the great American West, who have moseyed their way into the collective fashion consciousness.
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Punchy Cowpunchers is a 1950 short subject directed by Edward Bernds starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard). It is the 120th entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.
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The Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers Association, organized in 1920, was open to those who had worked as cowboys on the ranches in the Cherokee Strip before 1893, the year the Strip was open for settlement. The association numbered about 400 members near the beginning. The wives of the members were eligible to join the Ladies Auxiliary. Joe Miller was elected perpetual president in 1921.
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Punchy Cowpunchers was filmed on February 7–10, 1949 at the Columbia Ranch on Stages X and W. It is one of the few entries in the Stooge canon to feature an extensive musical soundtrack. It also features all four of the core supporting actors who appeared in the majority of the team's films: Christine McIntyre, Kenneth MacDonald, Vernon Dent and Emil Sitka.
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Most of Mahoney's films of the late 1940s and early 1950s were produced by Columbia Pictures. Like many Columbia contract players, Mahoney worked in the studio's two-reel comedies. Beginning in 1947, writer-director Edward Bernds cast Mahoney in slapstick comedies starring the Three Stooges. Mahoney had large speaking roles in these films, and often played his scenes for laughs. Often cast alongside heroine Christine McIntyre, Mahoney appeared in the Stooge films Out West (1947), Squareheads of the Round Table (1948) (and its remake, Knutzy Knights (1954)), Fuelin' Around (1949), and Punchy Cowpunchers (1950).
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Cowboy Hill is an Oklahoma Historic Site located on a bluff overlooking the Salt Fork of the Arkansas river in Kay County, Oklahoma. Zack Miller, owner of the famed 101 Ranch gave the land to the Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers Association in 1930 for use as long as they needed it. In 1959 Zack Miller deeded Cowboy Hill to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Zack Miller and Jack Webb, one of the famous trick-shooters with the 101 Ranch Wild West Show, are buried in the Cowboy Hill Cemetery located on the site.
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In 1888, the Standard Cattle Company established the "101 Ranch" in the area, which moved more than 30,000 head of cattle every year from Wyoming to Fallon County (Carter County then being part of Fallon County) and then to Wibaux (a cattle shipping hub for the Northern Pacific Railroad).Federal Writers' Project, Montana: A State Guide Book, 1949, p. 365. Hundreds of cowboys worked the ranch, and many stayed—helping to "settle" the country for whites. Many of the cowpunchers carved their names or graffiti into the sandstone of Medicine Rocks.
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McRill, "Music in Oklahoma by the Billy McGinty Cowboy Band", pp. 66-67: "Youngblood was a town-promoter of no mean ability and talked with the group and came up with the idea of calling the band 'The Billy McGinty Cowboy Band.' This was a very natural conclusion since Billy McGinty was known nationwide as one of the very early cowboy of Oklahoma, Texas and Arizona." He served terms as president of the Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers Association and in 1954 he was elected life-time president of the Rough Riders Association.
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Rooster's musical skills are self-taught as well. He began learning to play the fiddle when he was a teenager. By the time he graduated from high school, he was playing fiddle for the historic Western Cowpunchers Association that was established in the 1880s in Amarillo, Texas. He has since been recorded by the Smithsonian Institution playing old-time fiddle music (album title, Ridin' Old Paint),Journal of Texas Music History recorded a CD of his original compositions (Picnic Tree), and taught himself how to play guitar, mandolin, and bass.
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The arrival of cowpunchers led to development, and by 1872, Sivells Bend had a post office. By 1900, the small community reported a population of 100 with various stores, physicians, cotton gins, and a small school, but its remote location, the growth of Gainesville, and the lack of a railroad or major highway hindered further development. Even the discovery of oil in the area could not abate the decline. The post office closed in 1973, but the small community retains two churches, several homes, and its independent school (though high school students are bused to nearby Muenster).
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With eighteen cowpunchers, they brought 2,000 head of cattle to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Over eight thousand Navajo had been interned at the Bosque Redondo reservation under the control of the fort, but due to the poor conditions on the reservation for agriculture and inadequate planning by the US authorities for provisions, there was an urgent demand for new food supplies. Goodnight and Loving received eight cents a pound for the steers in the herd, although they were unable to interest the government agent in 800 stocker cattle. Goodnight returned to Texas with approximately $12,000 in gold to buy more cattle.
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Mercer and his wife were driving across the USA en route to Savannah after having apparently failed to succeed in Hollywood. Mercer was amused by the sight of cowboys, with spurs and ten- gallon hats, driving cars and trucks instead of riding horses. Singing cowboys were popular in films and on the radio then, and within 15 minutes, writing on the back of an envelope, Mercer transferred the image he was seeing into a song whose satirical lyrics vented some of his own bitter frustration with Hollywood. The lyrics, about a 20th-century cowboy who has little in common with cowpunchers of old, have been included in some anthologies of light verse.
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Wessel was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, One of his first film parts was a bit in a Laurel and Hardy feature film, Bonnie Scotland (1935), but modern viewers will remember Wessel for his appearances in the Three Stooges short subjects Punchy Cowpunchers (1950) and Fright Night (1947), the latter in which he played Chopper Kane, and its remake Fling in the Ring (1955). From 1959 to 1961, Wessel co-starred as Carney Kohler in all forty-two episodes of Darren McGavin's NBC western television series, Riverboat, set along the Mississippi River prior to the American Civil War. In 1959, he appeared as police captain Bob Rattigan in the episode "Rattigan and the Cat" of the syndicated Border Patrol series, starring Richard Webb. He also appeared in the John Bromfield syndicated crime drama, Sheriff of Cochise.
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Curly remained ill until his death of a cerebral hemorrhage from additional strokes on January 18, 1952. Shemp appeared with the Stooges in 76 shorts and a low-budget Western comedy feature titled Gold Raiders (1951) in which the screen time was evenly divided with B-picture cowboy hero George O'Brien. Shemp's return improved the quality of the films, as the previous few had been marred by Curly's sluggish performances. Entries such as Out West (1947), Squareheads of the Round Table (1948) and Punchy Cowpunchers (1950) proved that Shemp could hold his own. New director Edward Bernds, who joined the team in 1945 when Curly was failing, sensed that routines and plotlines that worked well with Curly as the comic focus did not fit Shemp's persona, and allowed the comedian to develop his own Stooge character.
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