Search This Blog

43-04-12 Dottie's New Dress

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN, RUTH PERROT AND CARL KROENKE

{{{HEAR}}}
Previously, Dottie Brainfeeble had gotten a new spring outfit and Vic went overboard on the compliments, giving Dottie some confidence. She took that much-needed confidence and bought a new dress.  Sade wants Vic to go next door with her so that Vic can gush over her again, giving Dottie another needed confidence boost.

Once over at the Brainfeeble's house, Vic finds that Chuck has a pair of pearl-handled dueling pistols, a cowboy hat, leather chaps and gauntlet gloves. Vic cannot resist dressing up in the gear and shooting every imaginable problem a cowboy in the Old West could possibly encounter and dangerously pointing the guns at everyone in the house.

Meanwhile, he completely disses and ignores Dottie and her new dress, embarrasses Sade and becomes engrossed in the imagined world he has created.  Dottie runs off crying and Vic could care less (bang bang bang!)
________________________
A surprising, certified gem that comes out of the terrible Brainfeeble episodes, this one has to rank somewhere in the Top 15 best epsiodes.

A tour-de-force for actor Art Van Harvey as he takes the "Vic taking things too far" element to the limit.

Vic is surprisingly child-like the entire episode and is so much fun to listen to! He's mesmerized by the cowboy outfit and makes you wonder if the wide-brimmed hats he wants to buy are not somehow related to this fetish he seems to have with Old West gear. He even seems more hellbent for that stuff than he does the lodge!

{{{HEAR}}}

Trivia:

+ Listen to an edit of Vic with the cowboy gear on...he's nuts! {{{HEAR}}}

+ Chuck calls Dottie, "Dot."

Fawn color
 + Vic describes the color of Dottie's dress as yellow but she says it's "fawn."

+ This is the last surviving episode with the Brainfeebles, even though they live next door.

+ Even though the guns aren't dangerous, you get the feeling that Sade isn't happy about Vic toting them around. Sarah Cole examines the subject of Sade Gook and guns here.

Vic is pretty darn happy about his newspaper: {{{HEAR}}}

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

5 comments:

  1. Definitely one of my top favorites. Love the way Vic's childish nature kicks into top gear. If that's his responce to cowboy related items, no wonder Sade is bent on banning him from wide brimmed hats.

    I could have sworn Sade said the could keep an eye on "robbers", but I'd have to listen to it again. Which I will.

    The color thing is just a typical reaction. Men categorize colors, women name the myriad of shades. Fawn is a yellowish tannish, beigish color that falls in the general category of yellow. Can't blame Vic for that one, but it's just one more straw to add to his insensitivity that is polar opposite to the incident Sade mentions at the start of the show.

    If Vic's behavior was so terrible, it might just be the wedge that drove the
    Brainfeebles from further mention on the show.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah..."robbers!" Very well could be. Now I will have to listen again as well.

    That's the disadvantage of doing this, one set of ears is not enough. Thanks for the heads up.

    re colors: Yeah, one shade is as good as the next!

    re: Brainfeebles - I didn't even think of that angle! Chuck did seem to be "concerned" about Vic as if Vic had gone off the deep end.

    Perhaps there are missing episodes where the Gooks went over to the Brainfeebles only to find Vic doing similar things with other items in other boxes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Freddie the LoaderJuly 20, 2012 at 9:05 PM

    I kind of had a different interpretation of this episode. I thought Vic was putting on an act over the cowboy stuff. Vic complimented Dottie on a dress previously, so when Dottie got another new dress, she (and Sade) insisted that he come over to see it and gush over it. I kind of figured Vic thought "If I don't do something to put a stop to this, every time Dottie gets something new, I'm gonna be dragged over there to gush over it", so when he got to the house he made a big deal over the pistols and the cowboy hat and ignored Dottie as a way of nipping the whole thing in the bud, making sure next time Dottie got a new dress (or new anything) he wouldn't be dragged over to see it. So he put on the whole thing about the cowboy stuff and the pistols.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your comment, Freddie.

    It could be taken that way but Vic is just a bit off - I do believe what you are saying but it's just as likely that the little kid inside Vic chooses to come out at the most unlikely of times.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Today they call it "cringe comedy," but MAN, this episode is a tribute to Rhymer's writing skills...by the time Vic's behavior has totally run off the rails, sending Dottie off crying and totally flummoxing Sade, I'm feeling sad and embarrassed for everyone involved. One of the most unhappy endings ever in V & S, but wow, what a writing tour-de-force.

    ReplyDelete