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My Netflix copy of _The Three Stooges: Goofs on the Loose_ arrived today
and the colorized shorts are a mixed bag. Through the use of the angle
button on the remote, the Stooge episodes can be quickly switched
between color-tinted and black and white. The novelty of the
"ChromaChoice" effect quickly wears off because the so-called "color" is
nothing more than a pastel tint job -- at least as far as _Men in
Black_, _The Sitter Downers_ and _Playing the Ponies_ are concerned.
However, the color on _Punch Drunks_ looks better than the color on the
other three episodes and at times the color looks almost natural. This
might have something to do with the overall condition of the source
material because _Punch Drunks_ seems to have far less grain than the
other episodes.

There is a "ChromaChoice" featurette which details the extensive
research that went into accurately recreating the colors of the
original period set pieces. There is also an interesting discussion
which tells how the computer process achieves the ChromaChoice results.

My main objection to the colorized Stooge shorts is that there are only
8 of them on the initial 2-disk set and half of them have already been
released on DVD. Columbia TriStar should spend more time getting the
unavailable Stooge episodes released and less time colorizing. According
to the featurette, Columbia TriStar will be colorizing movies as well.
Scenes from _The War Lover_ are shown and this feature will soon be
released with black and white and colorized versions on the same DVD.
More such DVDs are sure to come.