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41-05-12 Exalted Big Dipper Day

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON
Vic knows that in a few days, it will be Exalted Big Dipper Day. According to the Volume 7 of Vic's lodge library, there is a ritual that must be attended to in the home if no formal celebration is held at the lodge.

The ritual for Vic is elaborate and a barefooted Sade is needed to help perform it correctly. So Vic has Rush read the ritual out of the book.

Somehow, Vic manages to talk Sade into helping him with it. She doesn't even put up a fight.

WHAT MIS' CROWE SAYS:
A very important celebration draws near.
A hilarious episode and, as with all the episodes that deal with the Lodge, a commentary on the nature of ritual. What is a somber, serious, awe-inspiring display to one person is a ridiculous, “heathenish” joke to another. But we all have to put our reactions and our derision off to one side and treat it with respect, especially if we live in the same house with the first person. Sade is giggly at first, but she manages to corral her amusement and come through for Vic. Rush, of course, treats it with delighted amusement the entire time.
My favorite part:
RUSH: “If convenient, station several persons in an adjoining room and instruct them to maintain a low moaning and wailing during the course of the meal.”
SADE: I’m afraid that won’t be convenient.
VIC: No…it won’t.
RUSH: [excitedly] Leland Richards and Vernon Peggles and Bluetooth Johnson and Smelly Clark’d be only too delighted–
VIC: Read.
RUSH: Huh?
VIC: Read!
RUSH: Leland Richards can slop out more low moaning and wailing than any–
VIC: Read.
RUSH: [disappointed] Oh…
Vic would have made Rush’s day if he’d allowed that – and completed the eerie atmosphere necessary for his ceremony – but he can’t stomach Rush’s amusement. Knowing Rush and his friends it wouldn’t have been long before the low moaning and wailing dissolved into uncontrollable giggling, anyway.

SEE THE SCRIPT (transcription by Lydia Crowe)
________________________
One of my favorite episodes. The ritual is silly enough to make you laugh on it's own. Surprisingly, Sade goes along with it without much of a fuss at all!

Trivia:

+ Letters from the lodge come in yellow envelopes.

+ Here is the ritual from Volume 7, page 118 of the lodge library:
The Exalted Big Dipper will seat himself at a small table at precisely 11 o'clock. The room will be illuminated by green lights so arranged that large shadows are cast on the wall opposite of the Exhalted Big Dipper.
The Exalted Big Dipper's wife will enter bare footed, carrying a plate of thin soup. This she will place on the table, bow twice to the Big Dipper without speaking, turn around and tip-toe away.

The Exalted Big Dipper's wife's face will be free of talcum powder and lip red. She will see that hands are clean and her hair neatly combed. If convenient, station several people in an adjoining room and instruct them to maintain a low moaning and wailing in the course of the meal.

After the Exalted Big Dipper has finished the thin soup he will be served a small bunch of white grapes. The white grapes will be followed by one ounce of rare beef, ungarnished by salt, pepper or any other condiments.
The beef will be followed by a single lettuce leaf and a sip of cold water.
At the conclusion of the meal, the Exalted Big Dipper will remain seated and ponder for two hours.

Our founder, R.J. Konk, instituted this procedure on the 19th day of December, 1881. He was in Topeka, Kansas at the time and in an address he delivered to the fire department in that city he said, "in hoc ey de burg gee spim spittle dum cluck no but am vip ad nauseum spinch gonk cornacopia division...
+ Rush volunteers the services of Smelly Clark, Blue Tooth Johnson, Leland Richards and Vernon Peggles to make moaning and wailing sounds but Vic declines.

Download the complete commercial-free, sound-improved episode!

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