September 20, 2006
Brakes on a Train
First aired: October 31, 1955 on CBS
Recently aired: September 10, 2006 on TV Land
Written by: Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, Bob Carroll, jr., Bob Schiller, and Bob Weiskopf
Directed by: James V. Kern
The Hollywood story arc wraps up with a mediocre episode (with the exception of one line that never fails to make me laugh. More on that later). Most of the episode features a lot of square pegs being shoved in to round plot holes in order to work in the comedy.
Lucy, Ricky, Fred, Ethel, Lucy's mom and Little Ricky are all aboard the the train they call the City of Los Angeles heading home to New York. Lucy wastes no time getting all the foreshadowing and exposition out of the way. This is Lucy's first time on a train, so she jokingly asks which car the spies are on. Then she asks what the emergency brake is for. Basil Exposition couldn't have done it any better.
The running gag here is that Lucy keeps pulling the emergency brake to stop the train. The first time she does it is to stop the train for Ricky, who has run back to the station to get Lucy's purse, which holds their train tickets. In real life, this would be the end of the emergency brake hijinks, but this is the Land of Lucy, a magical land where chocolate candies go faster and faster on a conveyer belt, and giant loaves of bread come out of normal-sized ovens. We're just gettin' warmed up.
The first time, however, is the charm. Frank Nelson, playing the conductor, taps Lucy on the shoulder and asks, "did you stop this train?" There's no way to describe here how funny he reads that line, but since he became famous on Jack Benny's radio and television show for getting a laugh with just one word, "Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s?", it's no wonder he nailed it.
Later, Lucy mistakes a jewelry salesman for a jewel thief. An easy mistake to make, since the jewelry salesman DRAWS HIS GUN ON HER! Lucy's peeking in to his compartment, and the guy says "Hold on a minute, Miss. I want to talk to you." Dude! You probably could have saved every one a lot of confusion if you had kept your weapon holstered. Then, in the lounge car, Lucy tells Ethel what happened. And guess who's sitting next to them. . .that's right - the real jewel thief. Because we all know that jewel thieves on the run from the law never stay in their compartment. They hang out in the lounge car.
A few cases of mistaken identity and tugs on the emergency brake later, the curtain finally falls on an episode that took five writers to paste together. Props to Frank Nelson for saving it.
Random Notes:It looks like they did a location shot (maybe at Union Station) of Fred and Ethel boarding an actual train. It also looks like they shot an interior of an actual lounge car for an establishing shot, and the set designers matched it for the rest of the scene.
As a kid, I thought it was really cool to hear the cast mention my home town of Riverside.
Until I looked at the I Love Lucy Episode guide, I never realized that the Hollywood story arc spanned two seasons: from February '55 ("L.A. at Last") to October '55 ("The Great Train Robbery"). That means that the Ricardos and Mertzes spent about eight real-time months in Hollywood, and no one ever suggested (after July 17 anyway) that they go to that new amusement park down the road in Anaheim.
September 05, 2006
Mr. October 31st
First aired: April 8, 1965 on CBS
Recently aired: August 30, 2006 on TV Land
Teleplay by Joe Connelly & Bob Mosher
Story by Dick Conway
Directed by Jerry Paris
I would have loved to have sat in on the pitch meeting for The Munsters. "It's like this: Frankenstein's monster is married to Count Dracula's daughter. They think they're normal, but everyone else thinks their freaks! The monster is really effeminate, and get this - he works at a funeral parlor!" "Great idea!. . .hey, what's that sound?" "It's just Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker spinning in their respective graves. Pay no attention." "Cool. Anyway, I love it! Let's do it!"
And television history is born. I'm guessing the folks at CBS were so enamored of their big hit, The Beverly Hillbillies, that they were sure the "fish-out-of-water" concept would transfer to the world of monsters. So we've got Frankenstein's Monster, aka Herman, Count Dracula, and the Count's ghoul-like daughter Lily, who is married to Herman. Who else do we need to round out the cast? First, there's Herman and Lily's son Eddie, a wolf-boy. Somebody explain that one to me: A science experiment gone wrong and a ghoul get truly freaky with each other (I once made a list of the TV couples who were the hardest to imagine having sex - Herman and Lily came in second, right behind Barney and Betty Rubble), and nine months later, she gives birth to some lupine/human hybrid. Then there's the Munsters' niece, Marilyn, who is totally hot. So why doesn't she realize that her family is a bunch of freaks? As a kid, I got really frustrated watching gentleman callers show up at 1313 Mockingbird Lane to pick up Marilyn for a date, take one look at Herman, and then get the hell out there. And then Marilyn would blame HERSELF for not being able to attract a man. Babe, take a look around! You live in a haunted house with monsters!
In "Herman the Rookie," L.A. Dodger coach Leo Durocher and sportswriter Charlie Hodges are walking down the street when Durocher gets hit in the head with a baseball that was hit by Herman eight blocks away. Instead of going to the nearest hospital for an x-ray, Durocher wants to know who hit the ball. Durocher gets on the phone with Walt (Alston?) and tells him that the neighborhood kids told him about Herman Munster. Yes, I'm sure good ol' Herman is a big topic of conversation among the neighborhood kids. Hell, if he lived in my neighborhood, I'd find a way to charge admission to see him.
Herman shows up at the practice field in a non-Dodger uniform to practice with a bunch of non-Dodgers. What a disappointment. I guess the real Dodgers got teased by the other teams when Mr. Ed tried out for the team two years earlier ("Leo Durocher Meets Mr. Ed"). I was looking forward to seeing Koufax, Roseboro, Davis, and Skowron reprise their roles as themselves. The tryout does not go well. Herman wreaks all kinds of havoc: making a Herman-shaped hole in the outfield fence, causing a player to tumble backwards in fast-motion after catching a ball thrown by him, etc. Watching Herman on the ballfield demonstrating that he has absolutely no control over his own strength reinforces the problem of trying to imagine him having sex with Lily.
Sadly, Big League stardom for Herman is not to be. Dodger owner Mr. O'Malley says that it would cost seventy-five grand to repair the stadium every time he played. Not only that, but the other players refuse to play with him. Valid reasons, to be sure, but it would have been fun to see Herman in front of a Congressional committee denying that he ever took steroids.
Random stuff:
To bring the episode full-circle, Hodges walks down the street with Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, general manager of the Los Angeles Rams who, like Durocher, gets hit in the head with a football kicked by Herman eight blocks away. Unlike Durocher, however, Hirsch totally sucks at acting.
When Herman breaks his bat by tapping it on his cleats, the bat breaks before it makes contact.
Pat Priest, who played Marilyn, was in The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant in 1971. If I recall correctly, she was genuinely taken aback by the two-headed guy. Finally got a clue regarding freaks, I guess.
According to Durocher, the Dodgers need a long ball hitter (they traded away their one power hitter, Frank Howard, after the 1964 season). If they got a long ball hitter, they could win the pennant. Well, he was half right. The Dodgers not only won the pennant in 1965, they beat the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. But not because of a long ball hitter. Jim Lefebvre and Lou Johnson led the Dodgers in home runs with a measly twelve each. Their success was due mainly to the pitching of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, who won a combined 49 games.
One of the reasons I'm doing a post about The Munsters is to have an excuse to share a joke I wrote: What kind of screwdriver did Dr. Frankenstein use to build his monster? A flathead. You're a lovely audience. Good night.
September 03, 2006
Some disappointing news
September 02, 2006
Preamblin' Entertainment
First aired: November 18, 1963 on CBS
Recently aired: August 29, 2006 on TV Land
Written by John Whedon
Directed by Jeffrey Hayden
A couple of things happen here:
1. Don Knotts reveals himself to be one of television's best comedic actors.
2. Opie's teacher reveals herself to be totally incompetent.
Opie gets a report card with straight A's. Andy is proud. Opie is proud. Aunt Bee makes him a butterscotch pecan pie. All is well in Mayberry until his teacher, Miss Crump, calls him up to her desk the next day and tells him she made a mistake transcribing the grades, and she needs to change his report card, which includes a giant F, which stands for what Opie is when he tells his dad what happened. Then she has the audacity to tell him that he really could get straight A's if he tried. Wonderful sense of timing, Miss Crump.
So what could have caused Miss Crump to make such a mistake? Well, I noticed that in the TV movie Return to Mayberry (1986), she looked and talked as if she had been smoking two packs a day for most of her adult life. Perhaps the stress of report card time made her smoke even more cigarettes than usual, causing her to do an important task in a nicotine-induced haze. Opie just stands there at her desk with a hang-dog look on his face, instead of telling her that she could probably do everyone's report cards correctly if she dialed back her cigarette intake a little.
As Andy revels in his son's scholastic achievments, Barney brings in his old history book and brags to his boss that he can still remember the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. His facial expressions and frustration as Andy prompts him with every word and syllable are indescribably brilliant, so I won't try to describe them. Ranks right up there with Vitameatavegamin.
Random Notes:
Andy's patrol car is a Ford Galaxy
Andy Taylor, supportive father: "A report card? Bad news, huh? I hate to say I told you so, but I did, you know."
In the preamble scene, Barney's hair switches back and forth from neatly combed to messy several times.
LIfe in Mayberry, and America in general, sure was simple when this episode first aired. Four days later, it got substantially less so.
