34-12-10 Lodge Brothers Go Christmas Caroling

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• Rush and Sade are playing the card game, Old Maid.
• Vic arrives home early from lodge meeting. At the lodge he met Hamilton W. Hunkermanlystoverdelmogintoshfer.  Vic correctly guessed his name but mistook him for another Hamilton W. Hunkermanlystoverdelmogintoshfer.
• He and some of the fellas are going to the hospital to sing Christmas Carols. Three lodge members are patients at the moment: Burt Wilson with a dislocated shoulder, John Lewis is getting treated for his stomach, and A. L. Freeley had his appendix removed this morning.  He sends Rush to get his overshoes.
• Vic tells Sade the five carolers will sing in the slushy alley in back of The hospital. Sade wonders if it won't bother the sick people. Ike Kneesuffer will pick Vic up shortly.  Sade and Rush agree Ike's a terrible singer.
• Vic: "Hot reception my idea gets around home.  Bet it was the same way with Thomas A. Edison when he invented the steamship.  People probably stuck their tongues in their cheek and …"
• T. V. Abrams will also sing.  Sade says he must be seventy-five years old. Vic reminds her that T.V. was once vocal soloist with the Jumbo Cross-Country Chautauqua  - prob'ly forty years abo. Vic admits the other two singers aren't so hot either – Hamilton Richards and Charley Clyde.
• Vic lists the songs he's chosen for the group to sing: "Cantique de Note, I imagine. Holy Night, Silent Night,  Three Shepherds Saw a Gleaming Star in the…"
• After Vic leaves, Rush tells Sade about Ike's singing: "He's absolutely the world's worst singer.  One time down in the barbershop some travelin' man was gettin' a shave, and he was tellin' about some animal he'd seen in the zoo that made a noise so terrible it set your teeth on edge an'…"  Sade: "I've heard this story a dozen times, son."  Rush: "Uh-huh… an' Joe the barber bet this guy a dollar he could produce a noise worse than any noise the guy ever heard before, and Joe got Mr. Kneesuffer that was gettin' a haircut to sing Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar.'" Sade: "The guy gave Joe a dollar."  Sade recalls the fun she had caroling as a young girl.
• The phone rings, Sade answers. It's Vic. He's in jail for "disturbing the peace, being a public nuisance, yelling outside the hospital, and scaring the patients half to death."  Rush: "Are all The guys in jail?"  Sade: "The whole five.  Say, son…"  Rush: "Yeah…"  Sade: "In a little envelope in my top dresser drawer get the ten dollar bill that's there. Gov's fine is nine dollars an' eight cents." - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason 

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The guy that Vic meets at the lodge - and guesses his very long and unusual name correctly - then realizes he is confusing him with another guy with the same name... hey now... that's funny, no matter who you are!  As far as comedy goes, it's genius and far ahead of it's time.  It's Fred Allen and Steve Allen-type humor all rolled into one - and it's name then was Paul Rhymer.

I've mentioned it before but I feel Rhymer's sense of humor is on par and very similar to some of the British comedy troupe's skits of Monty Python.  For instance, Rhymer's name gag reminds me of this sketch about Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm.  While the troupe probably takes it a bit too far (it's a sketch from their very first television show) I think it suggests Rhymer-type humor.

As far the caroling goes, there seems to have been a bit of demented Christmas humor in Rhymer, with the awful/twisted Christmas cards, the ravenous wolf-like Christmas card sellers in June every year, the crazy Christmas card company promotions and carolers who get sent to jail for singing to the sick folk.

The song "Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar" is a real song.  It's actually titled, "The Kashmiri Song".  There's some audio of the song here.  (Thanks to the always-impressive Sarah Cole for the info!)

34-07-04 But Mom, It's the Fourth of July!

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• It's the Fourth of July and Rush wakes Vic at 5 in the morning. Vic had said he wanted to get an early start so Rush is being helpful. His parents are horrified at the earliness of this wake-up call. Sade's furious and Rush tells her he only meant to wake Vic. Sade wants to know why. He wants to ask Vic how to light a Chinese Choker. It's got fuses on both ends.
• Sade's horrified that Rush intends to shoot off fireworks so early. She sends him back to bed. Vic insists he wanted to rise at seven. Rush said he doesn't remember that. Rush protests, saying that it's patriotic to celebrate early. 
• Sade mentions he'd likely wake up Mis' Fisher. Rush says you have to expect to get woke up early on the Fourth of July. 
• Vic's tired of listening to this debate. Sade tries to send Rush back to bed again. She warns: just don't shoot off any firecrackers. He wants to know what time he can start -- he then suggests 5:45 would be reasonable. Sade says he can start when the alarm clock goes off at seven. Rush intends to wait in the hall outside their bedroom so he's sure to hear the alarm.
• Sade's awake and muses aloud, wondering what Mis' Brighton will wear at the exhibition baseball game.  Vic's fed up and suggests he'll call Mis' Brighton at five a.m. to ask her. Rush returns to check the alarm clock.  
• Vic's disgusted, and Sade reminds him that when he was a boy he and Adolph Walters put a chunk of dynamite in a water-spout an' … Vic: "You can pick out one sin in everybody's life."  Sade: "How about the time you an' the farmer boy stood out behind the minister's house at midnight an' pounded on a tin washtub til the constable… or how about the Fourth of July you kids took the bunch of roman candles an' went up on the roof an' shot ‘em at…"
• Vic and Sade settle to return to sleep when Rush is heard from the other room: "Hi, Joe! Happy Fourth of July!"
  Sade: "He's talkin' to the milkman." Rush lists his fireworks inventory for Joe; the milkman leaves.
• Rush returns to check the time again.  Sade tells him not to holler anymore. Rush agrees to sleep on the floor outside their room so he'll hear the alarm.
• Sade raises an issue with Vic: whether Mis' Brighton will feel slighted being invited to eat at the park rather than at the Gooks' home.
• Sade points out Rush is asleep on the floor. She's afraid he'll get a crick in his back and be lame all day.
• Sade suggests they set the alarm off and shoot fireworks.
  She reminds Vic of "the time you and Herman McGillicuddy an' Wheeler Evans took a milk bottle full of gunpowder an' put it underneath…" Vic concedes. Sade sets the alarm off. Rush wakes: "Here's that doggone Chinese Choker! Got a match?!" - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason

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In a 1934 world where about the most fun a kid could have was to go to the movies or listen to the radio, imagine having a stock of fireworks for the Fourth of July!  It must have been like Christmas.