36-xx-xx Caramels on a Hot Day

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

While Rush is playing with his caramels (rolling them into balls, patting them back into squares, etc.) on a hot day, Vic and Sade show up and the family talks about going out to eat and to a movie (Burning Stars of Love.)

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There's really not much going on here but there seldom is on Vic and Sade.  But that's the point. A hot day, caramels and a 10-11 year old boy who is bored.  He starts playing with his candy.  It's not funny but it's realistic.

And the caramels are not in any way that important; they only provide the backdrop to Rush and his father having a benign conversation - then there is the appearance of Sade and the family's conversation turns.  None of it really important.

Writer Paul Rhymer takes an everyday situation and makes it alive.  "But who thinks to write a fifteen minute drama to be broadcast to millions out of that dynamic situation?", as Eugene B. Bergman once wrote.

In the early days of the radio show, the Bijou was not all about the two-noted stars, Gloria Golden and Four-Fisted Frank Fuddleman.  As a matter of fact, the Bijou was more than a movie house as it provided travelouges and even live speeches (Mr. Ruebush even gave a speech one night at the Bijou.)  The theater used to show a variety of films, almost each of them starring actors and actresses whose first and last initials are the same.  I never have exactly figured out why this is, but by my count, 14 of the 15 thespians mentioned on the show follow this rule.  The theater would also have shorts and cartoons.  For some reason, we are never told of these added features in the episodes we have on audio.

READ THE SCRIPT

41-01-16 Rush – Hot Soup Delivery Boy

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• Vic and Sade discuss Rush's need for new clothes.
• Rush arrives and announces he has a problem – he's got a job: deliver a bowl of hot soup to a sick lady way out on Armstrong Avenue.  How does he get it there without spilling it?  Mis' Harris is paying him a dime to deliver the soup to Mis' Weekley at 1926 West Armstrong Avenue.
• Rush ponders possible delivery methods, and Sade reminds him the soup's getting cold.  She suggests using the street car.  Rush says he'd still have to walk eleven blocks to get to and from the street-car.  Also, the street-car costs seven cents, which would cut his profit to three cents.
• Vic suggests having Mis' Weekley meet him halfway – bring a napkin and spoon to the corner of Morris Avenue and Jefferson Street.  
• Rush regrets having accepted the job.  Usually, Mis' Harris' roomers do the deliveries, but only Mr. Breep was home, and she doesn't trust him – thinks he'll just put the soup in his auto radiator.
• Vic recalls a fella in Dixon that used to put hot soup on his mustache to make it look rich and glossy: "the girls admired his silky mustache to such an extent that several of ‘em committed suicide and…"
• Vic suggests Rush pour the soup over his clothes, speed over on his bike, wring out his clothes in a bowl, and present the soup to Mis' Weekley with his "best compliments and the sincere hope that she enjoys a rapid recovery."
• Sade suggests taking it to Mis' Childers in that neighborhood and have her re-heat the soup.  Rush says it'll still take too long – and all for a doggone dime.
• Vic suggests dumping the soup. Wash the bowl, fasten it to the bike, ride out to the west side, buy a can of soup at the grocery, have Mis' Childers heat it, pour it in the bowl, and saunter around the corner to Mis' Weekley.  Rush focuses on the cut into his profits. Sade says: put the soup in her tin bucket with the tight-fitting lid, wash the bowl, ride to Mis' Childers', have it re-heated and deliver it.  Everyone agrees that's the best solution. - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason

SEE THE PARTIAL DIALOGUE AND SYNOPSIS

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This seems like a job for the Thermos. The Thermos bottle was invented in 1892 but it appears that the Gooks either haven't heard of these or don't have one. Seems like it's the perfect solution.

36-07-22 Rush's Dog-Walkin' Job

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

Rush comes home and announces he's got a job walking a dog.  He then uses his brains to get another fellow to  do the job for him and still get a dime free and clear everyday.

SCRIPT (part 1) (part 2) 

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Trivia:
 
+  There is a strong suspicion that Freda Call and Mr. Chinbunny are are about to wed.

35-04-01 Lodge Robe Is Missing

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• Sade's on the phone, anxious and distressed.  Rush arrives home.  She swears him to secrecy – she lent out Vic's star-spangled lodge robe to Mr. Gumpox, who needed a costume for a masquerade party last Saturday night.  She gave it to him Saturday morning, never dreaming Vic would need it before the middle of the month.  Vic had phoned Sade to say he'd be home at about 4:45 to pick up his robe.  She's been trying, with no luck, to get Gumpox on the phone.
• Vic arrives home in a foul mood because on the way home he ran into Mr. Drummond ("the fathead!") who claims "a guy can hit harder with his arm than a guy can kick with his leg."
• Rush continues to try to connect with Mr. Gumpox while Vic rattles on about Drummond.
• Sade asks why the lodge fellas are dressing up tonight.  Vic says he told her last Wednesday – they're puttin' on the works for Clemmy Shoemaker and C.J. Ferris.
• Rush enters, telling Sade, "Everything's Jake."  Then he begins to tell Vic an anecdote about an event at the corner of Main and Jefferson Streets.  Vic goes off to look for his robe.  Rush tells Sade that Mr. Gumpox is coming by taxi, and he'll come to the back door and Sade will need to stall off Vic.
• Vic begins to get suspicious. The doorbell rings and Rush goes to answer it.  He calls to Sade that he found Vic's robe in the ice-box.
• Vic wants to know what it was doin' in the ice-box.  Sade makes a feeble excuse.  The robe is wrapped up, and inside it is a raspberry pie and a card.
• Vic reads: "Am sending you this pie to show my thanks.  The costume worked out fine, an' I was the funniest-looking man at the party."
• Vic wants an explanation.  Sade tries, but fails, to come up with a plausible reason.  Rush tries to help explain.  Vic cuts him off.
• Vic: "Sade, how come the doorbell rings an' Rush comes back with my lodge robe all wrapped up with a raspberry pie an' says they been in the ice-box?  How come there's a card in somebody else's handwritin' about a funny-lookin' costume?  How come this ice-box business?  How come this pie?  How come this card?  How come everybody been stallin' me off for twenty minutes?  How come… (fades out)"
  - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason 

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I wonder if writer Paul Rhymer realized what a gold mine he had opened up when he put Vic in the lodge?  There's no telling how many dozens or even hundreds of scripts were devoted to the lodge and lodge activities.

To date, all things that involve the lodge have gone wrong for Vic, save the fact that he was elected the "big muck-an-muck" (Exalted Big Dipper) and his friend Hank Gutstop was elected Little Dipper.

The shenanigans with the lodge started in 1934: he's had his picture in the paper and it was all blurred (and his name was wrong), he and his lodge brothers got thrown in jail for singing Christmas carols, when his Big Dipper robe arrived he had no place to wear it but a horse's funeral, he gets his sword in the mail and it's way too big and heavy to be of any use to him and now his robe has been borrowed and it's been found in the ice box.  (There was another episode in 1939 where all of Vic's lodge regalia - including his robe [but not his heavy sword] - was lent out. )

When Rush yells to Sade, "Everything's Jake!", he said this because Mr. Gumpox's first name happens to be 'Jake' - something that was never revealed in the audio episodes.

While Mr. Drummond is a source of irritation to Vic, I have found in the notes I have that his son 'Bulldog' is Rush's number one enemy.

Mr. Gumpox seems to enjoy wearing lodge regalia as he and Howard once wore Ike Kneesuffer's discarded regalia that he had picked up on his garbage route.

45-12-07 There's Going to be a Great Day

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND CLARENCE HARTZELL

The city the Gooks live in has been accepted to host the Sacred Stars of the Milky Way Convention in May of 1946 and Vic is to be Grand Marshal.

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A fun episode.

Trivia:

+ This episode marks the end of the surviving "Series 2."  The next series originally was a 30 minute series that had a live audience.

+ Mis' Harris is over visiting Sade (and Rush) and the three talk about the Donahue attic mystery.

+ Sade, for the first time in the entire series, refers to Mis' Donahue as "Mrs. Donahue."

+ Sade, who previously said she was going to confront Mis' Donahue about the attic goings-on changes her mind in this episode as she says, "Until she says something herself about this business, I'm certainly not going to."

+ Uncle Fletcher gives his two cents about the attic, saying he doubts there is a insane murderer or "hairy ape gnawing at his chains" crouching up there.

+ Being the Grand Marshal, Vic was given his choice of transportation: a horse, a motorcycle or a rickshaw. He chose all three!

+ During the convention, Vic has the duty of climbing up on his roof and shooting off a Roman candle at midnight. He'll also have to install 3 extra telephones in his house.

+ In passing, Vic mentions there will be dirigible balloon rides.

+ Uncle Fletcher mentions Ernie Spoocher from Belvidere, Illinois.

+ Vic feels so good about the news, he gives Mis' Harris a kiss.

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