41-11-05 Vic's Christmas Gift List Too Long

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY AND BERNARDINE FLYNN

Vic accidentally left his Christmas gift list lying around and Sade saw it.  Immediately, she begins to question Vic, just as she did in an earlier episode about Vic's Christmas card list.

Kangaroo?

The questioning is relentless.  Sade doesn't seem to understand that Vic's confederates need a little axle grease come Christmas time.

By the end of the episode, Vic is beaten and wore down.  Sade, the harping nagger, is victorious.

WHAT MIS' CROWE SAYS:

Vic must send gifts and grease palms; the ever-frugal Sade doesn’t understand why he has to grease so MANY. She ought to disdainfully label it “guy stuff.” She really won’t leave him alone or accept any answers without question, so much so that Vic shuts down and goes into a kind of weary state of serenity.  I especially love his little “Gus Fuss give me a necktie” fugue state.

Sade wonders what kind of Christmas present Vic could possibly get for fifty cents, and I wondered, too, because that sounds like a fair amount of money in 1941 dollars. So I looked it up. DollarTimes says fifty cents was worth about $8.45 in 1940, which would be easily enough for the kind of trinkets you get your work buddies – a small box of chocolates or a Starbucks gift card (not that they had those, but whatever the equivalent would have been) or a nice pen or something like that. A Hershey bar only cost five cents, so think of the kind of luxury chocolate you could get for 50! A model plane was only 23 cents – I don’t think Vic would have been getting model planes for his business associates, but just an example of the kind of lovely merchandise you could get for 50 cents in 1940. I think Vic could have kept them very happy for 50 cents or even less. 

SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)

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Rush (not in this episode) is at the YMCA watching the fat men play handball, so other than Sade complaining about the gift list, there's not a whole lot going on.

One of the more interesting things though is that Rooster Davis talks to Vic on the telephone! To top it off, Vic is nice to him. You'd figure he'd say something to Rooster that would show his disdain for calling, but that certainly doesn't happen!

Trivia:

+ Sade mentions Miller Park Lake. We now know that Miller Park has a zoo, a picnic area and lake.

+ Gus Fuss was on Vic's Christmas gift list.  He's from Consolidated Kitchenware Plant Number 17 in Dubuque, Iowa. He sometimes wears ear muffs.

+ L. Wylie Phapp was on Vic's Christmas gift list.  He is also from Plant Number 17.  When Vic visited the plant in Dubuque, Phapp bought him a chocolate bar.

+ U.F. Beakley is an Exalted Big Dipper of the Purple Prairie Popinjay chapter of the Sacred Stars of the Milky Way, in Moline, Illinois.

+ Other people on Vic's gift list include: T.W. Weatherwax, Howard S. Montgomery,  I. Edson Box,  Sam Shout and Percy X. Snoot.

+ Robert Price and his wife Laura Stein-Price are mentioned by Sade as people she wants to buy a Christmas gift for.

+ Chuck and Dottie Brainfeeble (two people who play much bigger parts in episodes ahead) were mentioned for the first time and are also on Sade's gift list.

+ Sade also mentions the following people as those she'd like to purchase a Christmas gift for: Bess and Walter (Helfer), Fred and Ruthie Stembottom, Mr. and Mis' Donahue, Uncle Fletcher, Mis' Harris, Vic and Rush.

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