Stooges Eternal - A Quick Musing

Can something be both timeless and dated?  One would seem to contradict the other, right?  I started wondering this whilst watching a bunch of Three Stooges shorts lately (friendly advice by the way: when you are going through a shitty time watch the Three Stooges).  See, the original Three Stooges shorts ran all the way from the 30s to the 50s and a lot of the stuff in there is going to be obviously dated.  Beyond the obvious superficial differences between then and now (the cars, the fashions, the politics, no television in the thirties, etc)  there are some things that are almost alien to the modern viewer.  Many viewers today for example would wonder what the hell an "icebox" is and why Curly would have to haul a huge block of ice up three flights of steps to deliver it to one.  

I know what an icebox is because I study history and it is actually one of the easier ones to figure out... even I however had to look up what a letterpress is (definition: Three Stooges torture implement).

But you know what?  Even with all of the dated pop culture references and facets of everyday life no longer in existence - which fascinate me, actually, as a student of history - the Three Stooges are still timeless.  Not just because physical comedy itself is timeless but because of the themes and common human experiences inherent in the Stooges' scenarios.  The Stooges as doctors will always be funny and a little bit sad, because unfortunately incompetent physicians will always exist.  

There will always be courts and trials so the Three Stooges goofing off in a murder trial and wrecking a court room will always be funny.  The Stooges wrecking a snooty rich person's house will always be funny as long as there are rich people who look down on us proles... and it gets even funnier every time the economy takes a downturn.  Speaking of which, the Stooges as homeless and/or down-on-their-luck guys will always be relevant because so many of us are either or both of those things.  There will always be love, greed, hate and laughter. 

We don't get to solve our problems by poking a dude in the eyes or completely demolishing someone's house, so we will always look up to the Stooges as well as down on them.  Wish fulfillment is always timeless.  Oh, and until the day we invent water pills and laser toilets, the Stooges being plumbers will be really relevant... and really, really funny.

So the answer to my query is yes, something can be both dated and timeless.  The Three Stooges, The Odyssey, Jimi Hendrix, Star Trek... actually combining all those would make the most awesome show in existence.  Someone needs to do a Homeric, Jimi Hendrix scored Stooge Trek.