41-xx-xx Sade and Ruthie Mail Each Other Five Dollars

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY AND BERNARDINE FLYNN 

There's deep confusion between Sade and Ruthie Stembottom over their recent muddled shopping money.

Ruthie, feeling bad about the whole thing and in order to set confusion aside and make things right between the ladies, mails Sade a five dollar bill.  She spends the episode explaining the money confusion to Vic (who acts like he cares but we know he could really care less) and explaining to him that she also sent Ruthie five dollars in the mail.

SEE THE SCRIPT

___________________

Vic has the solution for the ladies but they never take his advice: use your own money to pay for your own items.  As simple as this sounds, the ladies simply cannot resist doing otherwise.

The ladies (plus Mis' Trogle) bought gum drops, a spool of thread and weighed themselves on the penny weighing machine.

+ Rush is at the YMCA watching the fat men play handball.

+ Raymond Belcher Beirman is mentioned again here but Vic uses his name as a figure of speech rather than referring to a real person.  Beirman must be a very mystical figure if we take him literally.

43-12-07 Uncle Fletcher – Veteran Man-hole Man

STARRING: DAVID WHITEHOUSE AND CLARENCE HARTZELL

• Russell has been having a dull chat on the phone with Oyster Krecker:  "I've had a good many dull telephone conversations during the course of my career, but I believe this one takes the cake for being the dullest. Yeah. Beg pardon?  Repeat that dull remark, please, Oyster, I didn't quite catch it. It looked like rain yesterday?  Say, I believe that's the dullest remark you've made yet.  Let's hang up, Oyster.  Huh?  Draw a merciful curtain over this dull, sick telephone call."
• Fletcher: I expect you know what and where Detroit, Michigan are.
• Fletcher cautions Russell not to play with the telephone because he might get electrocuted.  "A little lad about your age living in Detroit, Michigan succumbed to temptation one afternoon when his mama was away from home, and he commenced to play with the telephone and what do you think happened?  Russell: (bluntly) "He got electrocuted".  Fletcher: (gently) "Yes. And all they ever found of him was one of his little patent leather booties with the tosil singed at the bottom."
• Fletcher mentions he's due at the corner of Main and Washington Streets at 4:30.
• He's carrying a red flag under his arm.  Russell thinks he's got the job of substituting for the watchman on the street gang.  Russell has jumped to an incorrect conclusion.
• Fletcher: "Art McWhinniman is going to be working in a man-hole at Washington and Main and I will serve as man-hole guard."  
• When city hall asked Fletcher to do the job, he wanted to know who'd be in the man-hole. That's important because of the need for teamwork.  He begins to explain using the example of a horse standing in the road.  
• He and Russell bicker a little over the horse's name.  Phone rings.  Fletcher insists on answering it. Russell: "Yeah, I guess you better.  I certainly don't want to get electrocuted."  Russell recognizes the voice on the phone is that of Mis' Trogle. But Fletcher, as he's inexplicably prone to do, tells her she's got the wrong number and hangs up, goes back to talking about his man-hole job, explaining he's an old hand at this business.  Why put a rookie on the job? "I'll be as cool-headed at Washington and Main as I'd be at the corner of Virginia and Kelsey in this quiet neighborhood." - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason
  

___________________

It appears that Russell was snarky on the telephone.  As I've mentioned before, it's my opinion that Russell is as his best when he's being a jerk.

It's a known fact that people can get electrocuted through the telephone during a lightning storm; although on average, only one person is killed this way each year.

Why is it that Uncle Fletcher hangs up the phone of Sade's lady friends when they call?  You wonder if he ever answers the phone at his landlady's house and if so, does he do the same thing there to her lady friends?

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) 

_________________

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 

____________________

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.

35-01-01 New Year's Day - Rush Has Three Jobs

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

It's New Year's Day and though there are big doin's at the Bijou (see below), Rush has three different and distinct jobs that will pay him money.

One job involves taking care of Mis' Harris' son, Gerald.  He's got another job wheeling around Grandpa Snyder (you may remember that he is confined to a wheelchair.)  And he has yet another job, walking Mis' Crane's dog around the park.

The time he is to meet these people and carry out his jobs all take place nearly at the same time.

He devises a scheme where he can do all three jobs.

SEE THE SCRIPT

____________________

• At the Bijou: Donna Dreamerson and Conway Clayton in the film, True Hearts and Red Balloons; with added attractions Fatty Frisco and Dimples Duffy in the film, Look Out Below, and a special New Year’s presentation by the management showing pictures of local points of interest, together with short talks by various leading citizens (including Mr. Ruebush) and a Colorful Travelogue Depicting The Lovely Scenes in the Vicinity of Mont Blanc, with running comments by Dr. Benton J. Blatz, noted lecturer and explorer.
• The Newspaper says: Miss Mable Coomer, until recently a student of The Commonwealth-Proctor Music Academy in Chicago to sing: “Red Bird Dying”, “Why Is Life So Short and Sweet?” “Into The Gloomy Grave Gladly Shall I Go” an’ “Heaven, Thou Art Very Near To Me”.

Imagine how little there was to do on a New Year's Day in 1935 if you didn't enjoy listening to football on the radio...

What to do? Head to the Bijou where an extravaganza of stuff is going on! Slides shows! A singer! A few movies!  They'd probably stop the show when Amos 'n' Andy came on the radio and pipe in the sound, as several movie theaters did just that in 1935.

They probably gave away a bicycle for the kiddies and dishes for the gals - pop might win a whole box of cigars, even if they weren't his favorite brand.

34-01-25 Sade Reads Poetry

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

Vic, who hates the movies, wants to go see a film at the Bijou about how tires are made; Sade gushes over Ruthie Stembottom's brother Vernon, who has written some books on poetry.

SEE THE SYNOPSIS

___________________

That's some terrible poetry and just what you'd expect from Ruthie's brother from Chicago (not to mention, Paul Rhymer, author of so many terrible Christmas cards)!

 TRIVIA:

+ R.J. Kidneyscorch and Carl Hammersweet were in an auto accident.   I am assuming Carl is the father of Vic's work secretary.

+ "Buck Peggles in The Dip of Death" is the feature film at the Bijou.