32-07-30 Rush Runs Away

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

Nine year-old monster?

Rush has been bad for week - what are Vic and Sade to do?

The fact of the matter is, young Rush hasn't really been bad at all.  Syndey Call is having a party; Rush was invited to go, but his friend Link (who happens to be a different color), wasn't invited.

Rush obviously doesn't want to go unless Link can go.  He puts perfume on Link, hoping the smell will make a better impression.

When Rush comes home, Vic and Sade obviously don't understand what's going on and punish Rush by sending him to bed.  Meanwhile, he runs away from home.  This is Part One of a two-parter, in a very special episode of Vic and Sade.

SEE SOME DIALOGUE AND THE SYNOPSIS 

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It seems Rush feels compassion for his friend Link and the fact that he wasn't invited to Sidney's party.  There are definitely racial overtones in the script: Link is black and wasn't invited to the party being the most obvious one.  Just another in the many soapy episodes of 1932. Race and class played well on radio it seems in the early days.  The farther writer Paul Rhymer got away from this, the better his writing became, at least as far as Vic and Sade was concerned.

I guess it's in every boy to run away at least once, especially when they feel they haven't been treated fairly.

32-12-10 Locks of Sidney's Hair as Party Favors

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

Rush comes home with a shaved head... his parents are upset and feel bad for him until they find out the true purpose behind the deed.

SEE SOME DIALOGUE AND THE SYNOPSIS

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Again, we see how tough times were in 1932 that the party favors were locks of hair! I wonder what kids would say today if they went to a party and were given hair? "Where's my iTunes gift card?"
literally

This episode reminds me, that for some reason after 1934, all of

Rush's friends disappeared and were replaced with the gang we know today: Smelly, Cracky, Heinie, Rooster, Bluetooth, Vernon Peggles, Milton and the bunch. You could assume they all moved away or that Rush changed schools and lost his friends, but then you wonder whatever happened to...

• Sidney Call? Sister of Heinie and Freda Chinbunny. She was much older than Rush (8 years) and it appears he had a crush on her.  She was cool with this and was sweet to him.  The Call family lived right there near the Gooks.  Did she die or get married or... 
• Elton Keefer is the son of the Brickmush Man.  Where did Elton run off to?  
• Bulldog was Rush's "great enemy".  The Drummonds did not move because Mrs. Drummond is seen in the alley in an episode that Russell is in.  The Drummonds live on University Blvd./Street (yes, both), the same street that Mis' Harris lived on - in other words, Bulldog lived nearly right across the alley, but apparently, became a hermit - or died.
• Link?  Link was Rush's best pal.  They spent hours together.  But Link and his whole family aren't ever mentioned again that we know about after 1934.

What was so 'magical' about 1935 that suddenly made Paul Rhymer change Rush's friends, wholesale. And I do mean wholesale. You won't find his '32-'34 friends in his post-1934 world, or vice versa!

All of the friends on the list (above right) are important people in Rush's life (look 'em up on the character website if you don't believe me).

Trivia:

 + The phrase "given the mitten" is explained in detail, here.

 + When Vic sees Rush's baldish head, he tells him he "looks like a peeled onion" - the exact phrase Sade uses when she talks about Vic's choice of hats.

32-07-23 Miss Keno and Kid Gook

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• Rush wants to enter Sade in the Miss Keno beauty pageant.  The pageant was a combined idea of Rush and his new friend, Link Lincoln-Washington.
• Sade thinks she'll look a silly old woman next to all the pretty young girls.  Vic tells her she'll be as, "Pretty as Vernilla, the colored candidate."
• They assure her she's prettier than Marcella Noonan, 17, Sidney Call, 17, Sissy Cooper, 18, and Vernilla Lincoln-Washington, 16, sister of Link.
• Rush thinks Sade is about 20 years old.  Sade tells him she's 33 years old and it would be foolish to enter such a contest. She suggests he ought to back Sidney Call in the pageant.
• Vic rushes in, furious because Rush has posted his picture all over  town, and it's labeled "Kid Gook, the Wild Tiger of the Ring will box all comers  at the grand opening of the Happy Hour lemonade stand at the corner of Franklin and Virginia Avenues."  
• Rush tells Vic he's trying to arrange for him to fight Mike Towers, the railroad bully. Vic's relieved Mike didn't accept, but then Mike phones and says he's going to "get" Vic. Rush saw him breaking coal with his bare hands and bragged about Vic's skills.  That changed Mike's mind. Vic groans.  - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason

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This was probably a very funny episode, it's a shame we can't hear this one.

It's not explained what Keno is.  After much research, I have found that Keno was often a game played between features at the movie theater.  Therefore, we can assume the beauty contest took place at the theater between films.  (That seems like a lot of trouble to go to for kids to arrange...)

Franklin Avenue isn't mentioned in the episodes we have audio for.

According to Barbara Schwarz, this episode ran on a Saturday.