The film opens in 1959 with an aging Moe Howard running errands for his former agent Harry Romm on the studio lot at Columbia Pictures.

The film then flashes back to 1925, when comedian Ted Healy hires the Howard brothers for his vaudeville act.

Comical sound effects are added to accent physical acts such as a slap in the face, a punch in the stomach, a pull on the nose and a hammer to the head.

Healy, having parted with the team earlier in a bitter way, reappears later to shake hands with the group and announce that he is going to be a father.

Babe is injured and humiliated in a hotel lobby when some young adult fans recognize him as Curly and deliver a real poke to his eyes and a punch to his face.

That same year, Moe & Larry report to work on the studio lot but are denied entry after learning that Harry Cohn has died of a heart attack and the short film department has been shut down.

To their surprise, they find new success with younger viewers through television and become one of the highest paid comedy acts in the country.

But it also chooses information over insight, exegesis over drama, never making a case along the way for what made the Stooges such a lasting phenomenon.