44-05-17 Hyena Grease Needs Deodorizing

STARRING: BERNARDINE FLYNN AND CLARENCE HARTZELL

Pelter Unbleet, hired by Roy Dejectedly, is busy trying to remove the odor from Hyena Grease. The public objects to the odor; (Fletcher: "You can't expect it to smell of violets.") Unbleat needs a workshop and Fletcher suggests Sade's fruit cellar.

SCRIPT (page 1) (page 2)

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Hyena Grease, "the finest preparation for smearing on your shoes there is in the Entire Civilized World," includes, among its ingredients, turpentine, creosote, lampblack and tractor oil. These substances add materially to its potency, but, as one can imagine, they also add to its pungency! Hyena Grease may be a boon to the shoes of humanity, it is no friend to the NOSES of humanity. Pelter Unbleet's aspiration to develop a deodorized version of the concoction is laudable.

However, it was doomed to failure from the start, if for no other reason than Sade has always shown herself more interested in her household's welfare than in that of the civilized world's footwear. She is never comfortable with strangers in the house (as we see when her dear friends the Brainfeebles come to visit), and her basement is already crowded (as we learn when Mr. Gumpox offers her storage space in his stable). Besides, no sensible housewife willingly endures that piquant fragrance. Even the long-suffering Mis' Keller once threw out Uncle Fletcher's stash when he left it on her sideboard (46-07-18 Midsummer Madness.) As the date of that last program indicates, Pelter Unbleet never did find a way to make the stuff fit for the drawing room. But he never adulterated the quality, either In spite of its odor, Hyena Grease remained "The Finest Preparation for Smearing on Your Shoes There Is in the Entire. . .Civilized. . .World!"

Years later, radio comedians Bob and Ray parodied the preparations available for "grunging" up one's appearance by advertising a substance called "Grit." It was intended for white-collar workers who wanted to make their soft, clean hands look as dirty as if they were grease monkeys. It was such an effective product, though, that another product was necessary to remove it; and then another product to counteract the odor of the "Grit"-remover. In the end, bookkeepers who used "Grit" to look tough, also had to buy "Smurge" to get off the "Grit," and "Whiff" to get rid of the "Smurge." Instead of making do in the Gook fruit cellar, perhaps Mr. Umbleet should have offered his services to the better-equipped Bob and Ray Laboratories. Considering Bob and Ray's cast of characters, he would have fit right in! - SARAH COLE

TRIVIA:

+ Fletcher mentions the vest was invented in Sheboygan, Wisconsin by Bob Murphy, younger brother of Pat Murphy, who came from North Dakota where Bob lost all his hair in a windstorm in nineteen-aught-four.

+ Bob Murphy married a woman nineteen years old, chopped up, chewed and swallowed a violincello to win a bet, and finally sat in his bedroom all day long counting his money.