Search This Blog

Showing posts with label C and A Shop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C and A Shop. Show all posts

44-05-31 The Fascinating Allen McClutch

STARRING: BERNARDINE FLYNN AND RUSSELL MILLER
Russell plans to study algebra with Allen McClutch. Allen is the most fascinating character that Russell ever met.
___________________
Allen can make his elbows touch behind his back, he's had his tonsils out twice, he's never been to a dentist, has never tasted strawberries, uses a whole teaspoonful of stickum on his hair on Sundays. Also, a chunk of ice in his mouth don't make his teeth ache, and he's got a grandmother with a black mustache. (Lives at 1218-1/2 West Oakland Avenue, way out past the railroad tracks - if you stroll under the Olive Street viaduct and glance at the concrete abutment you'll see printed in letters 3 feet high in bright red paint the name "Allen McClutch.") In all probability he'll be wearing a bandage on his head, which he does to mystify the public. His father's a machinist at the C & A shops. His family moved from Sanderson, Minnesota. He swallows ice cream without either leaving it melt in his mouth or chewing it. When he uses the telephone in public he holds the transmitter to his ear and talks into the receiver to further mystify people. He enjoys annoying people by poking them in the stomach and saying, "How's the old breadbasket?"

Russell: "Allen McClutch wouldn't any more lower himself to use the back door than a rabbit." - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason

41-04-xx Mis' Keller's Birthday

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN, BILL IDELSON AND CLARENCE HARTZELL
Happy Birthday, Mis' Keller!

Uncle Fletcher wants to surprise his landlady with an almost  quarter ton present; a piece of railroad to be used as a heavy door stop!

SEE THE SCRIPT
___________________
This absurd idea by Fletcher will pop up over and over again and be expanded upon in other episodes.  It's typical of Paul Rhymer to take an absurd idea (especially by Uncle Fletcher) and by repeating it many times, gets the listener used to the idea.  After a while, Fletcher's absurd idea of a 400+ pound object as a door stop no longer seems absurd but almost normal.

In this episode, Mis' Keller is said to be named, 'Geraldine Laura Keller.'  In 1944, she was known as Leiota KellerIn another episode she was known as Annabel.

Rush makes reference to being at the YMCA to watch the fat men play handball.

33-09-15 Thimble Club Inspection Trip

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON
It's a typical morning, or is it?: Rush gets ready for school. Vic gets ready for Consolidated Kitchenware. Sade gets ready to go to the C and A Shops.

SEE SOME DIALOGUE AND THE SYNOPSIS
_____________________
A 1940's postcard of the C and A Shops
This "sounds" like the family we know and it might be about now that writer Paul Rhymer was getting in the swing of things - molding the Gooks into the family we look back on now and know and love.

Sade fans may not like this but the Thimble Club has just been introduced in 'Vic and Sade' and we can see that it's an educational experience. During these early years, it's quite likely Mis' Appelrot was the President of the club. She set the bar high for the ladies, hoping to educate them by taking them on tours of local factories and having special guest speakers come to talk to them.

However, when Sade took over the reigns of leadership, the club seemed to pretty much turn into a gossip pit.

Sade's prodding of Rush to eat his egg yellows "sounds" like Sade more than anything else we have read about in the early days of the program.

Trivia:

+ I'm fairly certain this is the only evidence we have in any episode where "breakfast" is mentioned.

+ In the script, it appears that 'Yamilton' is misspelled as 'Hamilton'. It could be a different store, but I doubt it.

+ The show's ending - about the Johnson baby being a surprise (which Sade seems to dance around) might have been Paul Rhymer writing on the social edge - or maybe not. It's just impossible from the notes we have to know if that's the case. However, there's something socially sketchy (for the year, 1933) going on at the end of the episode, for sure.

44-09-29 Farewell Show

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN, DAVID WHITEHOUSE AND CLARENCE HARTZELL

Russell, Vic, Uncle Fletcher and Sade are all at the house but all are getting ready to leave, each going a different direction.
________________________
The episode is a metaphor of the entire series, Vic and Sade, which ended after this show. It had been on the air for 13 consecutive years.

The show would come back to the air in about a year's time but the show would change and would sadly begat some real actors playing parts that we have only imagined in the past.

This final episode to the original 13 year run has a special ending which I have kept as part of the original program. The ending sounds like this: {{{HEAR}}}

Trivia:

+ Russell is all dressed up to go watch the fat men play handball at the YMCA. One wonders why.

+ Sade is going to the Bijou with Mis' Kilgore and Mis' Trogle. Recall that Mis' Kilgore lives near the Stembottoms.

+ It is mentioned for the first time that Vic's lodge meetings are held at the Unity building, downtown.

+ Uncle Fletcher mentions Martin Jordle and notes he is from Sycamore, Illinois. He helped bury Anderson L. McFlutcher, who had got caught between two cyclones.

+ Uncle Fletcher has plans to spend the evening with "jumpy" Mr. Feedburn, who was obviously not so "lost" after all. They plan to: fool with the peanut machine in the inter-urban station (Uncle Fletcher is half-owner), hang around the Butler House Hotel lobby and listen to the drummers talk politics and go down to Chicgao-Alton depot and watch the fast meat train to Kansas City go through.

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

41-06-09 Letter-writing Plot

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON
Vic: Linked together by a chain of loathsome correspondence...

Neither Rush or his cousin Euncie Helfer seem to enjoy being forced to write letters to each other. Euncie, either sensing this or prodded by Rush - seems to have devised a plot that will not only benefit herself but Rush also. She has written four rather mundane letters to Sade, including one via Special Delivery. In the meantime, Rush prods Sade along to answer the letters, much in the way she had prodded him along in the past to do the same.

Sade finally gives up and tells Rush she doesn't care any longer if he answers letters from Euncie or not.
________________________
I'm thinking that it was Rush who provided the letter "bombardment" idea to Euncie. Since all the letters were virtually the same, it does indeed seem like a plot.

Rush reveals to Vic that it's Euncie's idea but I truly wonder...

Trivia:

+ Euncie refers to Vic as "Uncle Victor".

+ Mis' Hettles had been over at the Gook house earlier in the day.

+ Sade refers to Blue Tooth Johnson as, "That Blue Tooth Johnson kid."

+ The Scrawler family has moved in the 700 block of Monroe Street, near Mr. and Mis' Hettles. Mr. Scrawler works in the C and A Shop. You may recall that's the place where Uncle Fletcher was to have the doorstops cut into 400 pound pieces.

+ In none of the letters from Euncie did she mention her father's kneecap twinges.

🎙 Hear the Vic and Sadecast: Vic and Sadecast 080 – The Letter-writing Plot (11/19/17)

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

41-05-16 Uncle Fletcher's Door Stop Plan

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON
Uncle Fletcher has an idea: use 4 foot pieces of railroad track as doorstops.

Though they will weigh 440 pounds each, they will be covered with velvet and have an embroidered saying on it:
I'm only a piece of heavy steel,
A product of the forge.
I'll hold your door either open or closed,
Step up and call me 'George.'
MIS' CROWE SAYS:
Uncle Fletcher has an idea for a unique one-of-a-kind gift and Sade wants to put a stop to it.
I love this episode, especially Sade’s horror, and Rush’s/Vic’s/Paul Rhymer’s bizarre idea of what constitutes a bright saying that might be embroidered on a pillow. It makes sense that Fletcher would have this notion, since he used to be a railroad worker and still spends quite a lot of time hanging around railroad stations. I wonder if he had permission to make off with these railroad tracks in the first place. 

I don’t have much else to say about this episode except that if I knew how to get four-foot lengths of railroad tracks, this would be a great handmade gag gift for some people in my family. I wonder if my Mazda can carry 440 pounds…

SEE THE SCRIPT (transcription by Lydia Crowe)
____________________
Though Sade worries that such a gift would create a problem for the four families he plans on distributing the rails to, Vic seems to think it won't be a problem because there will be no way of him ever moving the 4 rails (a combined weight of 1760 pounds).

Though spoken of a lot in this episode, Uncle Fletcher isn't in the episode at all!

Trivia:

 + Rush mentions bright sayings found on pillows:
  • Welcome to Galena, Illinois 
  • Conductor, get off of my foot! 
  • Stop making them goo-goo eyes 
  • Every cloud has a silver lining 
  • Ouch! Your dog-gone dog bit me on the leg again!
+ Vic mentions other witty sayings that perhaps could be embroidered on the door stops:
    Your cousin is a halfwit,
    Your brother is a slob.
    I think I'll quit the section gang
    And get another job. 
    and
    The night is dark and stormy,
    The rain is comin' down.
    I'll button up my....
    + Rush quotes Uncle Fletcher: {{{HEAR}}}

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