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Showing posts with label Homer Heck (Oklahoma). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homer Heck (Oklahoma). Show all posts

44-08-14 Uncle Fletcher - Rest Extended

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

Maudlin Uncle Fletcher needs more time to rest up from staying the two weeks in the bridal suite.
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A worthy candidate for one of the funniest of all Vic and Sade episodes, Uncle Fletcher is in top form. He tells two ridiculous stories (something he hadn't done for a very long stretch of the program) and they are some of his very best.

Trivia:

+ The Summer of 1944 had Vic wearing a straw hat to and from work.

+ Mis' Keller's rooming house is three blocks away from the Gook house - however, we aren't told the street nor direction. I've always assumed it was to the south of the Vic house.

+ Instead of saying "pow wow" (as in a meeting,) Uncle Fletcher says, "pow pow."

+ One time, Uncle Fletcher calls Vic, "Vickie honey."  It will be the first of many times he will use this phrase over the next  dozen or so episodes.

+ Vic tries numerous times to tell Sade something about Ike Kneesuffer and the Thimble Club but we never find out what that is. A clever trick by writer Paul Rhymer; connecting two unlikely partners together with some important information - yet never divulging what's actually going on, instead, teasing us over and over again.

+ Uncle Fletcher tells the story of Ray Baltgraw, from Norman Oklahoma. He learned to ride a tricycle at age 24. At age 30, he tackled the two wheeler. At age 48, he tackled the unicycle. At age 63, he attempted to ride a bicycle without any wheels!

In perhaps the funniest of all Uncle Fletcher stories, he tells the story of Baltgraw's friend, Art McFropp, who once mistook a saucer of dynamite for breakfast food and lost his sense of hearing.

+ In this episode (and the previous one,) Uncle Fletcher wants to make popcorn. Making popcorn involves building a fire, something quite unlikely in the hot month of August.

Art McFropp... {{{HEAR}}}

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44-08-01 Rotten Old Overshoes

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND DAVID WHITEHOUSE

Russell is about to go meet up with friends and help redecorate his Sunday School. However, it's very wet outside and Russell has no overshoes since his others were thrown away because they had fallen apart.

Never fear, Vic's old overshoes are available. Once Russell spies them though, he realizes he'd be made the butt of "universal derision" and chooses instead to spend his money on a taxi cab and bum a ride home afterwards.
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A rather unusual story for Vic and Sade as few crazy things are happening or talked about. Yet who hasn't been in a similar situation?

Hand-me-downs can be embarrassing and Russell is at the age where "universal derision" can be scarring and harmful to one's pride.  (It must be noted however that in 1944, few people were getting new clothes.  This is why Vic shows no sympathy for Rush in an early episode when he complains about his mother picking out school clothes for him at various stores; very few children found themsleves lucky enough to have new anythings during the war.)

Trivia:

+ Vic looks at the breakfast table and notices there's no sugar and Sade gets it and puts it on the table.

While sugar was indeed rationed, you could still buy 5 pounds of sugar every 4 months with your rationing book in 1944. By this time, the Axis submarines in the Caribbean (the main cause of sugar having to be rationed) was easing quite a bit. Another reason to ration, of course, was so the United States could continue to provide a great deal of sugar to the Allies overseas.

+ The Gooks have a 'fruit room.' A fruit room is simply a room that is meant to hold fruits and vegetables, mostly preserves (canned fresh fruits and vegetables.)  We know all of their bedrooms are upstairs and that they have a cellar where the washing machine resides - meaning the main floor of the house consists of a kitchen, a living room and a fruit room. It's never been revealed that they ever ate in a dining room but many times we know they ate at the kitchen table.

+ The Gooks had oatmeal for breakfast this day.
1944 ad

+ Sade talks of Mis' McDrash from Dixon. She's a lady Sade knew who was always in a better humor when it rained. Sade's sister Bess Helfer said is was because "it eased her rheumatism." Bess read where a "big, pelting rain [did wonders for rheumatism.]" Yet we know (and they knew then) that wet weather generally has the opposite effect on people.

+ Russell says the taxi cab ride to his Sunday School will cost 25 cents. The initial starting taxicab fare in 2012 ranges anywhere from 8 to 13 times that amount.

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44-07-28 Garbage Box Mystery

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND DAVID WHITEHOUSE

Sade notices a monstrous, big chunk of the garbage box is missing. She, Vic and Russell play detective to find out what happened.
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Average episode with few memorable moments but still fine listening fare.

Trivia:

+ Blue Tooth Johnson told Russell that some fellow swallowed an alarm clock and it still kept time. They know this because they x-rayed his stomach.

+ Russell (who obviously reads the newspaper a great deal) read in the news that a fellow trained his adam's apple to keep the beat of music!

+ While doing their detective work, Vic sits down on the grass six different times.

+ We're not sure where, but the Husher family lives very near the Gooks.

+ A four year old girl named Dorthy is mentioned as staying with her grandparents on University Avenue. According to Sade, she pulled up a handful of flowers from Sade's garden at one time and Sade considers her a suspect in the garbage box mystery.

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44-07-14 Sade Short-changed

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND DAVID WHITEHOUSE

Sade goes shopping at Croucher's grocery market and thinks the clerk at the store has short-changed her. She comes home and tries to get Vic to help her sort it out but doesn't know how much money she took with her to begin with.
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Spending money and Sade are a deadly mix.

Trivia:

+ The entire episode takes place as Vic and Russell are between games of Gin Rummy. I feel one of the classic moments of the entire series exists here as when Russell loses, he starts digging through the deck to see how he could have won: {{{HEAR}}}

+ The "lunatic" (Sade's word) cashier at Croucher's was Guthrie Woeman. It's the first time he's been mentioned. He was talking to some girl on the telephone when Sade waited for him to wait on her.

+ Mis' Barbachoke was also mentioned for the first time. She lives on Kelsey Street. She had previously went to the movies with Sade and borrowed 40 cents from her. She paid back 35 cents this very day.

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44-07-07 Second Letter from Yellow Jump

STARRING: BERNARDINE FLYNN, DAVID WHITEHOUSE AND CLARENCE HARTZELL

Sade is in a terrible hurry for she has just been reminded of a shopping date with her lady friends downtown. About the time she is about to get ready to straighten the house a bit and get dressed to go, her Uncle Fletcher shows up.

In a story that she doesn't want to hear because she is busy, he tells her that his landlady (Mis' Keller) got a second letter this week from her beau in Yellow Jump, North Dakota. This news seems to assure him that he will have to move into another place and he again has his eye on the Bright Kentucky Hotel as a place to live. Again, Sade tells him this is against her wishes - however, she is in such a hurry that she pretty much gives into him - at least for this episode.
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Sade worries about how Uncle Fletcher will negotiate the railroad tracks and the "Kansas City freight drags creeping up on a person," near where the Bright Kentucky Hotel sits.

Trivia:

+ Sade sets up a meeting with her lady friends at the underwear department of Yamilton's department store - the frequent accidental meeting place for most every other episode.

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44-06-22 Gaggle of June Christmas Card Sellers

It's June and Sade is besieged by a bevy of people trying to sell her Christmas cards.

She comes up with the perfect solution to it all. She goes and gets her own set printed and will offer to sell those to her hounders!

SCRIPT (page 1) (page 2)
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 It's June - so you know what that's time for in the world of Vic and Sade!

*Great* ending in this one - one of the best.

Trivia:

+ Russell is writing Blue Tooth Johnson an insulting letter - for amusement.

+ Mis' Freely is mentioned for the first time. She is selling Christmas cards and Sade went shopping to avoid having to deal with her. However, she has added enticement when you buy cards from her: a free cup and saucer.

+ Sade's sister Bess Helfer is selling Christmas cards for her church again.

+ Mr. Erickson, Mis' Elders and Mis' Harris are all selling cards. Mis' Harris' enticement is your choice of a free lemonade stirrer or a map of Montana with each two dozen cards ordered.

+ The girls in Russell's Sunday School class made their own Christmas cards and are selling them.

+ Sade suspected Hank Gutstop of selling cards but we find out from Vic that wasn't the case.

+ Miller Printing Company is mentioned for the first time.

+ The original ending had the organist playing "Jingle Bells" (this is a June episode.).

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44-06-19 500 Bijou Tickets

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND DAVID WHITEHOUSE

A complex situation has arisen in the Gook household: Mr. Gumpox found a roll of 500 Bijou tickets in the trashcan of Mr. (Sam) Ferberman, who is the Bijou manager. He offers to sell them to Sade for a penny each.

Vic sees this as dishonest as does Sade but it takes a while to convince Russell of this as his eye are alight with taking the whole sophomore class to the theater as his guest and showing off.

In order not to hurt Mr. Gumpox (who is not dishonest) Sade finally decides she will give Mr. Gumpox five dollars and burn the tickets.
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You wonder if Mr. Gumpox maybe didn't decide himself that this was dishonest for we know from an earlier episode that he never misses a premier at the Bijou. So why would he not keep them for himself unless he knew it would be dishonest to use the tickets?

Trivia:

+ This is the second episode where Homer Heck is mentioned as being Uncle Fletcher's friend who lives in Oklahoma. There seems to be a mixup somewhere for just a few episodes back we learned that there was a Homer Heck who is Vic's friend and a member of the Drowsy Venus Chapter of the lodge. So now, at the Vic and Sade Character website, there are two different Homer Heck entries (local and Oklahoma.)

+ The discarded tickets are adult admission and are worth $125.00.

+ Sade again uses the word "spondulicks" when referring to money.

+ It seems apparent that the Bijou is run by both Sam and Milton Ferberman.

+ At the end of the episode, Sade suggests they play Rummy, a game she generally does not like to play.

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

44-03-20 Mysterious Skulkers

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

Sade notices three skulkers in the backyard. They turn out to be Uncle Fletcher and two of his friends.
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One of the rare Vic and Sade episodes that really goes nowhere; that's not to say it's a horrible episode as it's not but neither is it great. Very, very little going on in this one.

Trivia:

+ Roy Dejectedly and Pelter Unbleet both lived in Philadelphia in the year 1909 - yet they did not know each other.

+ It's inferred that Sade probably doesn't like Roy Dejectedly and she's never met Pelter Unbleet.

+ Unbleet is also a handyman along with his duties as the janitor for the Bright Kentucky Hotel.

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