STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BILL IDELSON AND CLARENCE HARTZELL
We find out the way Vic "fixes" the clocks is by opening them up with a little hammer!He tries to bribe Rush into taking the blame and even though Rush knows that his mom will certainly catch on as to what happened, he agrees to go ahead with the plan. I'm sure his mom did catch on although we never know since she never makes it into the episode.
Meanwhile, to make sure the episode flows along smoothly, Uncle Fletcher is there, pretty much ignored by Vic and Rush. He tells a classic story, watches and then kills a fly and does other "Uncle Fletcher stuff."
MIS CROWE SAYS:SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
An excellent Halloween episode of Vic and Sade in the spirit of a crime thriller. Vic plays the role of the crime boss, convincing the patsy to take the fall – he’s young, he doesn’t have a prior record, he’ll get out of jail soon enough whereas Vic would be put away for life. Fletcher plays the innocent witness. How much of the conversation is he picking up on? It’s hard to say, but if you pretend they’re trying to cover up a murder rather than a broken clock, their efforts to convince Uncle Fletcher to stick around at the end of the episode become a good deal more sinister. You know what happens to witnesses, after all. At the very end of the episode, Vic reveals himself to be an uncontrollable monster who can’t stop himself from killing again.
We don’t know what happens after the ending of this episode, but it’s hard to see how this cockamamie story would hold up under Sade’s scrutiny. She’d rip it to shreds just as she does with Vic’s various hat-buying schemes. Apart from anything else, why were both the alarm clocks on Rush’s dresser in the first place? Rush says himself that one of the alarm clocks is in his room and one of them is somewhere else. What were they doing in the same place? A person doesn’t need two alarm clocks in his room.
Truly a classic – essential listening for any new Vic & Sade listener.
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A very fun and memorable episode. Vic's lack of prowess with clocks is well documented and one wonders why he would use a hammer to open them when he could use a screw driver. |
| George Williams, YMCA Founder |
+ This episode aired on Halloween.
+ Rush mentions he was at the YMCA, not to watch the fat men play handball, but instead to help celebrate what would have been the 120th birthday of YMCA founder George Williams, who was born October 11, 1821. (A little late in celebrating, but...)
+ Uncle Flecther tells the story of Art Gummer and his "fish stretcher." After catching a fish, you could go by Art's place and he'd stretch your fish so that the fish would be longer, therefore giving you more bragging rights. The fish stretcher was such a unique idea that Gummer thought he would eventually make $40,000 with it. As a matter of fact, he was so confident that he would make that kind of money, he bought a horse and buggy, got married and sent a brother to barber college. But in the end, the invention did not produce a dime.
Art had a brother named Rollie and a sister named Florence.
+ This episode contains one of my all-time favorite sequence of lines when Vic tells Rush: "You have an alarm clock record that is absolutely spotless. You never broke an alarm clock in your life. I, on the other hand, have been most unfortunate." Here's the audio: {{{HEAR}}}
+ When Uncle Fletcher finally does kill the fly, it sounds like the crack of the bat at a baseball game: {{{HEAR}}}
+ Rush knows whatever scheme Vic comes up with isn't going to fool his mother: {{{HEAR}}}
Download the complete commercial-free, sound-improved episode!
I think Bill Idelson's superb acting ability is on full display in this episode. His distressed "Gov"s at the end of the episode are perfect.
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