and perspective Over 60 years since their last short film was released, the Three Stooges remain popular. Their films have never left American television since first appearing in 1958. They were a hard-working group of comedians who were never critics' favorites; a durable act that endured several personnel changes in careers that would have permanently sidelined a less persistent act. They would not have lasted as long as they did as a unit without Moe Howard's guiding hand. Ted Okuda's and Edward Watz's book The Columbia Comedy Shorts puts the Stooges' legacy in critical perspective: Beginning in the 1980s, the Stooges finally began to receive critical recognition. The release of nearly all their films on DVD by 2010 allowed critics of Joe Besser and Joe DeRita—often the recipients of significant fan backlash—to appreciate both men's unique styles of comedy. The DVD market has also allowed fans to view the entire Stooge film corpus as distinct periods in their long career, rather than unfairly comparing one Stooge to another (the Curly vs. Shemp debate continues to this day, with Joe Besser not even mentioned in the same breath). The team appeared in 220 films, but it is the durability of the 190 short films they made at Columbia Pictures that is their enduring legacy. In 1984, American television personality Steve Allen said, "Although they never achieved widespread critical acclaim, they did succeed in accomplishing what they had always intended to do: They made people laugh." Social commentary, satire, and use of language Although the Three Stooges' slapstick comedy was primarily arranged around basic plots dealing with mundane issues of daily life, a number of their shorts featured social commentary or satire. They were often anti-heroical commentators on class divisions and economic hardships of the Great Depression in the United States. They were usually under- or unemployed and sometimes homeless or living in shanty towns. The language used by the Three Stooges was more slang-laden than that of typical feature films of the period and deliberately affected a lower class status with use of crude terms, ethnic mannerisms and inside jokes. An example is the use of the initials A.K. for big shots and pretentious people. A.K. was an inside joke which stood for Alte Kocker (Lit: elderly person who is defecating), a Yiddish idiom which means an old man or woman of diminished capacity who can no longer do things they