Del Toro as Moe? Or George Lopez as talk host?

I’m trying to figure out which image I find to be more bizarre.

Comedian and actor George Lopez with his own late-night television talk show? Or actor Benicio del Toro (the same actor who won cinematic accolades for portraying Che Guevara) giving us that most “serious” of roles?

THAT’S RIGHT. DEL Toro could soon sign on to portray “Moe” in a full-length cinematic feature remake of “The Three Stooges.” We could soon be subjected to the sight of del Toro smacking around and eye poking Sean “Larry Fine” Penn and Jim Carrey as Jerome “Curly” Howard.

Now I don’t hold it against anyone in show business to take on less-than-serious roles. After all, these people all have to eat. They all have bills to pay.

After first catching my attention in the film “Traffic” (where he played a Mexican police officer trying to do an honest job up against constant hostility and violence from drug traffickers, for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), perhaps del Toro is entitled to do a little bit of fluff.

At least as Moe, del Toro will be the one who gets to smack people around and do that constant eye poke. But he’ll have to subject himself to an incredibly cheesy haircut if his mop is going to even come close to resembling that bowl cut the real Moe Howard wore during his decades of making cinematic shorts as part of the slapstick trio.

BUT I CAN’T help but wonder if “The Three Stooges” is one of those things from past decades that just won’t translate too well in the 21st Century.

I can remember as a kid when after-school television would include the old shorts of The Three Stooges and The Little Rascals (or the Our Gang kids, however you prefer to think of them).

In my mind, I associate the two shorts together.

But when they tried a few years ago to make a full-length film setting Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat (among others) in modern times, it just didn’t work.

PART OF IT was that the racial sensibility of the past was just too awkward for us to accept Buckwheat, Stymie and the other odd moments from the past.

Will people look at a full-length feature of the Stooges and think it ridiculous in today’s day and age that people ever found repeated humor in three Jewish guys who smack and insult each other at all times in such juvenile ways?

Could del Toro wind up regretting getting himself involved in what appears to be the latest attempt to revive some idea from the past (rather than come up with an original idea for a film or a character)?

I just don't comprehend the need to relive such moments as the following:

Curly: “I can’t see. I can’t see.”

Moe: “Why not.”

Curly: “I got my eyes closed.”

To which Moe responds by giving him the “peace sign” straight into the eyeballs.

DESPITE MY CONCERN that the Puerto Rico-born del Toro could wind up putting a blemish on his cinematic record (we need a “Three Stooges” film about as much as we needed “The Beverly Hillbillies” or any of those “Brady Bunch” films), the Latino moment in entertainment that truly catches my attention involves George Lopez.

I will be the first to admit to enjoying his standup comedy act, although his routines are fairly set and there reaches a point at which it becomes difficult to watch them again.

And for those of you who have never seen Lopez do his sketches about family life, from the perspective of dysfunctional Latinos, it doesn’t matter much.

There’s always a chance HBO or the Comedy Channel will re-run them in the near future, or you could just watch the reruns of the now-defunct sitcom The George Lopez Show. Many of that comedy’s episodes were based off of Lopez’ standup routines.

AND COME THIS autumn, Lopez will try to put his name in the public image alongside Conan O’Brien and David Letterman (nobody gets their name alongside Johnny Carson, he reached a level of celebrityhood on the late night talk circuit that no one will ever match).

TBS, that cable superstation from Atlanta that gives us repeated viewings of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “Friends” along with occasional Atlanta Braves baseball, wants to have its own talk show.

And they turned to Lopez, who says he will try to give a certain Latino perspective to late night talk, which is a noble concept. After all, we are a fast growing segment of the population (even though certain people would like to conduct the Census in such a way as to “hold back” our growth). It is about time that someone other than another white guy tries to entertain those people who don’t have to worry about getting up early to go to work during the week.

But “Celebrity Car Stripping?” That is a “segment” Lopez told reporter-types he’d like to include – having Hollywood cuties show how quickly they could strip the parts of a car so they could be resold. As though the idea of car theft and stripping is a universal part of the Latino experience.

THE IDEA OF a “Castro death watch clock” appearing on the corner of the television screen while the show airs? It might gain some ratings in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, but the rest of the Latino world has more important things to obsess about than Fidel – or little brother Raul.

Some people are going to argue I’m taking this too seriously. But it has the potential to come off as so trivial. And if he gets pigeonholed as the Latino talk show guy, it could do more harm than good.

Of course, there could be one beneficial cross tie to these two performers. Perhaps Lopez could have del Toro as a guest on his talk show.

Then, if Lopez starts getting a little too dippy with his routines, del Toro could smack him upside the head in that unique way that only somebody playing Moe could do.

-30-