37-xx-xx Harold "Rotten" Davis Takes up the Tobacco Habit

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON  

Twenty year-old Rotten Davis, who is a bit of a showoff, has taken up the habit of smoking cigars and chewing tobacco.

He's got his pockets loaded with tobacco and he wants to come over and smoke with Vic.

But before he ever makes it over to the Gook house, he gets sick from consumption of his various tobacco products and must be sent home via ambulance!

SEE THE SCRIPT

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I think it's pretty safe to assume that this episode introduced Rotten Davis.  His later hijinx would astound the listening audience.

He's a bit larger-than-life, almost a cartoon character.

Laurastine Price's child once broke the Gook's cuspidor.  That sounds like it could be messy.

Rotten told everyone his girlfriend was actress Queentena Quarles but Sade read in the newspaper that her beau was movie star Wilbert Willison.

Rotten was caught drawing mustaches on photos on books in the library.  When threatened with arrest, he claimed he owned the library.  (Paul Rhymer seemed to have a thing for drawing mustaches on people.)

44-08-10 Sade Struggles with a Letter

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND DAVID WHITEHOUSE

Sade has a hard time finding the right words to inform Laurastine and Robert that the Gooks cannot attend a Thanksgiving dinner invitation to Washington D.C.

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The letter plot is mostly a backdrop for Russell to talk about Smelly Clark's new high-dollar lifestyle.

Trivia:

+ It's revealed that Sade begins her letters to her sister Bess Helfer the same way Bess writes to the Gooks: "Dear Sister and All."

+ Laurastine is a former teacher of English and Sade says, "She loves to criticize."

+ Robert got a government job and so that's why they moved to D.C.

+ Sade's first letter draft to Laurastine asks how she liked the Democrat and Republican conventions (Sade, hates anything to do with the government - wonder why she would even bother to ask...)  Harry Truman was the Democratic nominee and Thomas Dewey was the Republican.

+ Smelly Clark bought Russell a banana split. By August of 1944 (the month of this episode) ice cream production in the U.S. was cut to 75% of what would be normal production. Milk solids in ice cream would also be cut 65%, meaning the ice cream would be taking on more ice than cream.

+ Sade says: '''til who owned the cat.''

+ Smelly is still working at his uncle's barbershop in Towanda. He is 15 years old now. His sideburns are being groomed to "cut across his cheekbones." He's got a fancy vest made of silk and embroidered below the watch pocket and it is "hot stuff." He's wearing pointed shoes that are 3 sizes too large in order to look older. He's also purchased a derby hat but the kids in his neighborhood tease him about it. His own father threw the hat on the house roof.

+ Sade signed her letter to Laurastine with "Sadie."

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41-11-05 Vic's Christmas Gift List Too Long

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY AND BERNARDINE FLYNN

Vic accidentally left his Christmas gift list lying around and Sade saw it.  Immediately, she begins to question Vic, just as she did in an earlier episode about Vic's Christmas card list.

Kangaroo?

The questioning is relentless.  Sade doesn't seem to understand that Vic's confederates need a little axle grease come Christmas time.

By the end of the episode, Vic is beaten and wore down.  Sade, the harping nagger, is victorious.

WHAT MIS' CROWE SAYS:

Vic must send gifts and grease palms; the ever-frugal Sade doesn’t understand why he has to grease so MANY. She ought to disdainfully label it “guy stuff.” She really won’t leave him alone or accept any answers without question, so much so that Vic shuts down and goes into a kind of weary state of serenity.  I especially love his little “Gus Fuss give me a necktie” fugue state.

Sade wonders what kind of Christmas present Vic could possibly get for fifty cents, and I wondered, too, because that sounds like a fair amount of money in 1941 dollars. So I looked it up. DollarTimes says fifty cents was worth about $8.45 in 1940, which would be easily enough for the kind of trinkets you get your work buddies – a small box of chocolates or a Starbucks gift card (not that they had those, but whatever the equivalent would have been) or a nice pen or something like that. A Hershey bar only cost five cents, so think of the kind of luxury chocolate you could get for 50! A model plane was only 23 cents – I don’t think Vic would have been getting model planes for his business associates, but just an example of the kind of lovely merchandise you could get for 50 cents in 1940. I think Vic could have kept them very happy for 50 cents or even less. 

SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)

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Rush (not in this episode) is at the YMCA watching the fat men play handball, so other than Sade complaining about the gift list, there's not a whole lot going on.

One of the more interesting things though is that Rooster Davis talks to Vic on the telephone! To top it off, Vic is nice to him. You'd figure he'd say something to Rooster that would show his disdain for calling, but that certainly doesn't happen!

Trivia:

+ Sade mentions Miller Park Lake. We now know that Miller Park has a zoo, a picnic area and lake.

+ Gus Fuss was on Vic's Christmas gift list.  He's from Consolidated Kitchenware Plant Number 17 in Dubuque, Iowa. He sometimes wears ear muffs.

+ L. Wylie Phapp was on Vic's Christmas gift list.  He is also from Plant Number 17.  When Vic visited the plant in Dubuque, Phapp bought him a chocolate bar.

+ U.F. Beakley is an Exalted Big Dipper of the Purple Prairie Popinjay chapter of the Sacred Stars of the Milky Way, in Moline, Illinois.

+ Other people on Vic's gift list include: T.W. Weatherwax, Howard S. Montgomery,  I. Edson Box,  Sam Shout and Percy X. Snoot.

+ Robert Price and his wife Laura Stein-Price are mentioned by Sade as people she wants to buy a Christmas gift for.

+ Chuck and Dottie Brainfeeble (two people who play much bigger parts in episodes ahead) were mentioned for the first time and are also on Sade's gift list.

+ Sade also mentions the following people as those she'd like to purchase a Christmas gift for: Bess and Walter (Helfer), Fred and Ruthie Stembottom, Mr. and Mis' Donahue, Uncle Fletcher, Mis' Harris, Vic and Rush.

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41-11-04 Send the Slippers Back

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

 Robert and Laurastine send Sade a Christmas present of a pair of easy slippers. They don't fit and a chain that holds the shoes together is far too short.

Sade implores Vic to write them and let them know the problems with the shoes. Of course, this is something he doesn't want to do...

WHAT MIS' CROWE SAYS:

Sade receives a bizarre gift that needs a little tweaking, and implores Vic to help her. 

This is an old holiday favorite. Vic is SO upset at having to do an incredibly simple task that Sade has already basically done for him. The slippers are so bizarre that Vic seems personally offended by them. Sade’s “Ha ha ha ha ha ha.”  Rush’s gentle mockery of both of them. And all for that most Midwestern of goals – EMBARRASSMENT AVOIDANCE.

As I’ve said before, Sade’s “lady stuff” is no more involved than Vic and his Christmas cards and Christmas presents for work, and Vic only gets a pass (from himself) because business is involved. Grow up, Vic!  

SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)

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This appears to be a reworking of the 41-10-08 Sade's Surprise Christmas Gift script, with a few notable changes. The secret present there was washrags, while the item in question here is easy slippers.

Trivia:

+ Robert and his wife Laurastine were mentioned for the first time. They live in Cairo, Illinois. Sade says they will probably be coming by for a visit after Christmas. It's never said if they are family or friends. From the way Vic reacts, it would seem that if they are family - as if they are his in-laws.


+ Sade believes that Robert made the easy slippers by hand. The shoes are decorated with a baby chick breaking out of an egg and also an Indian smoking the pipe of peace.

The shoes, oddly, have a chain connecting them, so they don't become lost/separated. Sade mentions that the chain is about 1/3rd the length that it should be. Rush, who tried them on, mentions how uncomfortable the shoes are. The shoes are also way too large for Sade.

+ Listen to Rush get carried away in the things that he thinks should be included in the letter Vic send to Laurastine: {{{HEAR}}}

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40-05-15 Vic's Picture Totally Mislabeled

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON 

Vic's Kitchenware Dealer's Quarterly has come and he knows his picture and a long, biographical sketch will be printed. However, thanks to the utter sloppiness of the editors of the magazine, the photo of Vic really isn't Vic at all.

MIS' CROWE SAYS:
The Kitchenware Dealers’ Quarterly completely misrepresents Vic.

click to enlarge

If Vic would only lighten up and have a sense of humor about this, if he would embrace his new image before the wisecracking crowd, he’d come off much more gracefully. You know Vic’s coworkers are only doing this because they know how much this editorial snafu is going to upset him. Vic’s image is everything to him, and even if most of the magazine’s readership will never meet Vic, this is a severe blow. It’s interesting how easily Vic is able to ignore his wife and son’s merriment at his predicament this time — maybe such domestic mirth seems trivial in the face of the embarrassment he feels in front of his colleagues. Although Sade and Rush laugh at the image, they’re unusually sensitive and sympathetic toward Vic here. Even smart-aleck Rush is tiptoeing around him toward the end.

This episode contains the first (surviving audio) mention of the mysterious Midwestern delicacy, beef punkles. I’ve always thought that beef punkles, whatever they are, sound delicious. I am not sure why this is. I’m not fond of beef and, in fact, haven’t eaten it regularly since I was a child. We know that beef punkles take a long time to “get tender” (four hours, in fact), which makes me think they come from either a very tough, stringy old cow or from some part of the cow we don’t normally eat (the word sounds like ''knuckles''). Depression-era Midwestern cuisine, in general, is not what you’d call ''delicious'' (is anything delicious after you boil it for four hours?). All evidence suggests that beef punkles are probably terrible. Still, I have an urge to try a beef punkle. Leave it to Paul Rhymer to put together a bunch of nonsense phonemes that sound delicious.

SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)

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This is the first of many episodes where both the Kitchenware Dealer's Quarterly and the lodge quarterly will absolutely butcher Vic's photo and/or biographical sketch.  Personally, I think it's one of the funniest running jokes in the series - and this is one of the funnier episodes.  (For some reason, it's always fun to laugh at Vic's woes!)

Vic is a proud man and lousing up his photo is no joke to him (although funny to his family and us listening at home.)   It's just Paul Rhymer's way of keeping Vic down a bit.

Trivia:

+ This is the first surviving episode that mentions beef punkles. They aren't done and Vic always makes a bit of fuss when he comes home noon and the meat's not done.

+ We find out that Mr. Chestbutter's first name is 'Steve.'

+ The biographical sketch of Vic lists him as living in Grovelman, South Carolina and that he is about to go swimming in the Pacific Ocean. (See graphic up top.)

+ Vic had planned on ordering a dozen copies of the Quarterly and sending them to friends and relatives

+ Ike Kneesuffer, Mr. Ruebush and Stan Turpin all call Vic and talk about his picture in the Quarterly.  This is the first time Stan Turpin has been mentioned.

Vic gets a phone call from Ike Kneesuffer: {{{HEAR}}}

+ Mr. Ruebush, Vic's boss at the plant, calls and says he recognizes the man in the photo as Chalmers Zest Hadee, who works in the Boxing Department of Consolidated Kitchenware Plant Number 8, Shockersly, Oregon.

What does Vic think of the Quarterly?: {{{HEAR}}}

Just a bit upset... (((HEAR)))

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