"Vic and Sade" was the most unique radio program ever, (1932 - 1944), written by the most-underrated writer of the 20th Century, Paul Rhymer.
SADE: [Reads] "Dear Uncle Fletcher. Just received your lovely letter. We are all fine an' well. About the bull-dogs I guess maybe you hadn't better send them." That too blunt?
VIC: It's not blunt enough. Why don't ya start right out, "No bull-dogs." "No bull-dogs, no bull-dogs, no bull-dogs."As is the telephone call to Fletcher...
SADE: Yeah, everybody be still. [To phone] Hello? Hello, Uncle Fletcher? Hello? Uncle Fletcher? Hello, Uncle Fletcher this is Sadie, Uncle Fletcher. Yes. Uncle Fletcher, don't send any bull-dogs. I say don't send any bull-dogs. Bull-dogs. [Almost in a panic] Don't send any bull-dogs, Uncle Fletcher.
Nicer Scott has been over at the Gook house and notices that Rush uses a small set of eating utensils; something like a small child would use. The utensils even have an angel on them.MIS' CROWE SAYS:
Nicer Scott is at it again. He has discovered a dirty secret about Rush and is spreading it all over town.
I love what this episode says about families, and the way that each family has its own unique quirks that no one ever mentions because they’ve always done something a certain way. It can be either eye-opening or embarrassing to have the outside world come into your private family sphere and look with fresh eyes at the way you do things. It never even occurred to Rush that his little knife and fork were unusual, until someone else called attention to it.
What did you find out was weird about your family later in life? I learned that most families don’t put weird-tasting dead bacteria on their popcorn, that animal skulls are not as widely-used in home decor as I thought, and that cars that don’t work anymore usually go to the junkyard, not just the backyard.
[Rush] is in a rage at the neighbor boy, who has passed the word among his friends that Rush eats with a baby knife and fork. As it turns out, Rush DOES eat with baby silverware, because that's what Sade has always put by his plate, and he didn't want to make a fuss about it. His struggle is the struggle we all face, or that remind us of what our children are confronting.
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| Freedom From Want |
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| 1941 US Postage stamp |
Even though this episode took place about three months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor (and thus the Declaration of War against the Japanese), the United States began selling Defense Savings Stamps in May of 1941 to help support the production of military equipment, most of it for the British Allies and the Lend-Lease deal.
The photograph on the left shows that less a week after this episode aired it was, "Defense Week." |
| From 41-08-26 Uncle Fletcher the Protector |
MIS' CROWE SAYS:SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
A carnival atmosphere descends upon Virginia Avenue as Rush and his friends await free snacks at midnight. Vic is disturbed by the turn of events.
This is an old favorite of mine, as I love anything involving Rush’s goofy friends, and Vic’s reaction to the situation lets us see him much more jumpy and on-edge than he usually is. As in “The Davises are Asleep Upstairs,” Vic proves himself to be a little helpless against Rush and his friends when Sade is not around. He is highly flustered by all these people skulking in his yard in the darkness, but he also can’t bring himself to ruin Rush’s summer vacation fun. I doubt he believes himself capable of going up against 12 teenagers anyway.
I wonder what the scene was like at Mr. and Mis’ Husher’s when all 12 boys barged into their kitchen in the middle of the night…
MIS' CROWE SAYS:SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
Mr. Donahue’s fancy new job as traveling inspector of locomotives isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it turns out.
Climbing the ladder sounds great, and it’s part of the American dream to rise above your initial station in life, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds to make that change. Paul Rhymer explores that part of American culture that we like to think doesn’t exist — class. Certainly class isn’t as present in American lives as it is in other countries, but it’s there — just in subtle ways. One of Mr. Donahue’s biggest problems with his new job is that he has risen in class — and, as a result, he’s been forcibly separated from his friends.
SADE: Mr. Donahue loses out on jolly fellowship with his friends.It’s not that he has a higher salary — it’s that he’s an authority figure, and in that kind of job structure, you can’t be equal to everyone else. Class has to rear its ugly head. Mr. Donahue cares about friendship and happiness more than he cares about money or prestige. He’s just not cut out to be a boss. Wonder what Rhymer would have thought of Jon Ronson’s research on sociopathy and CEOs…
VIC: How so?
SADE: Well, mainly because he’s the boss.
VIC: Mmm.
SADE: Take it when he makes a trip to St. Louis, for instance.
VIC: Uh?
SADE: At the end of the run, the fireman and the engineer go to a restaurant patronized by railroad men.
VIC: Uh-huh.
SADE: Well, Mr. Donahue, of course, goes along. All right. They go inside the eatin’ place, and the other two fellas sit at the counter. But Mr. Donahue ain’t supposed to sit at the counter. He’s travelin’ inspector of locomotives. Dignity, see.
VIC: Mmm.
SADE: He has to take a table. All by himself. Counter is crowded with brakemen and engineers and firemen and flagmen and so on, all laughin’ and talkin’ and havin’ a high old time. All friends of Mr. Donahue, too. He’d love to join ‘em. But he can’t. He has to sit at his table with the white cover on it and watch everybody enjoy theirself.
VIC: Huh.
SADE: Day after day, that business. St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, Joliet, Alton, Peoria…every place.
VIC: Uh.
SADE: Well, Mis’ Donahue told me it almost breaks his heart.
MIS' CROWE SAYS:SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
Once a mama’s boy, always a mama’s boy.
I probably spend more time than I ought to thinking about the psychology of Mr. Sludge. I think he’s such an intriguing character, not just for the way he acts but for how others respond to him. I think we see Sade at her moral best when she is interacting with childish characters like Mr. Sludge and Ruthie Stembottom. She’s not always terribly kind and forgiving to her own family (who should know better than to act so foolish), but she has a soft spot for lost souls on the outside.
SADE: It’s not your place to make fun! Remember, you’re just a little boy, and Mr. Sludge is a grown man.I notice that she approaches Mr. Sludge in the same way she approaches Ruthie. She acknowledges that yes, perhaps what they are upset about might seem childish and foolish to us — but people’s feelings are their feelings and they can’t help what they feel and it’s our job to help them without judging them. Sade has no patience with people who are disingenuous and deceptive, like the oily Mr. Erickson, or flaky and manipulative, like Hank Gutstop — but any innocent who gets battered by the meanness of the world has a place under her wing. She’s always had an overwhelming maternal instinct, and it’s not just Rush who falls under her protection.
SADE: It’s not smart to laugh at people. Not the least bit smart.
VIC: [chuckling] No, but a guy forty-three years old…
SADE: I guess a guy forty-three years old can have feelins! […]
SADE: […] All his life he’s been babied and coddled. His mother and sister idolized him. Why, up until he was twenty years old, nobody’d ever said a mean word to him. It was a shock to learn there was meanness in the world. That’s why he cries. […]
SADE: I don’t think it’s our place to criticize. He can’t help the way he feels. I’m sorry for him and glad to do all the favors I can. It’s cruel to laugh at a poor fella that’s blue and miserable.
We find out a little more about Sludge’s background in this episode, like the following:
SADE: He got peachy marks in school, I know. Mis’ Harris’ was tellin’ me he’s got all his report cards stuck in the mirror of his dresser. Wonderful marks. Arithmetic a hundred, geography a hundred, history a hundred…everything a hundred. Shows he’s no ninny.This is an old trope, the idea that kids who do well in school never make it in the real world. The truth is a lot more complicated than that, and in fact, good marks in school are still a predictor of later success — but Mr. Sludge is a fictional example of a real phenomenon taken to the extreme. Recent research shows that gifted children who are routinely given praise and feedback that focuses on how smart they are (rather than how hard-working they are or how they never give up) often suffer from low self-esteem and low perceptions of self-efficacy. They are more likely to give up when something is difficult — their self-worth is hung up on adults telling them they’re smart, and they don’t want to risk losing that status as a “smart kid.” Sometimes the wake-up call doesn’t come until they take difficult classes in college, or enter the workforce, but a childhood of everything being easy for you in school can lead to a rude awakening later on. This must be at least part of Sludge’s problem, although I’m sure he has social anxiety, too. The guy’s obviously got a lot of issues, and I have to agree with Sade that Vic’s being kind of a jerk about him. But it’s not Vic’s fault, really — he’s probably got some emotional repression himself…
MIS' CROWE SAYS:SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
Rush is on his way to Anabel Hemstreet’s house to assist her with algebra study. Of course, his friends are not going to let this go easily.
Rush and Anabel have an interesting relationship. Anabel doesn’t think Rush is so terrible-lookin’, remember, and Rush works pretty hard to make sure that the whole world knows that Anabel has said this. Later on, in the episode Freedom — Last Day of School, Sade informs Rush that there’s a girl on the phone for him. Rush, with a pleased air, says “Well, well, well…Anabel Hemstreet!” and then seems disappointed when it’s only Eunice Raypole. Still, Rush claims not to be interested in her. I’m pretty sure that he is, but finds it hard to admit this to himself. After all, in his circle of acquaintances, people don’t have girls.
Poor Rush gets an awful burden sprung on him with this telltale bucket of candy, but he’s obviously so distressed that he’s not thinking straight. PUT THE BUCKET OF CANDY IN A BAG, MAN. Problem solved.
MIS' CROWE SAYS:SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
Y.Y. Flirch wins a contest and Vic is stuck writing a short, breezy article about it.
Occasionally we are treated to a glimpse into the true nature of Vic’s Lodge friends. Usually, we have to rely on Vic’s appraisal of them, which is usually wholly positive. When we actually get to see them interacting with the characters, or when we find out information about their personal lives, we see that a lot of them are, frankly, fatheads. This time, Flirch’s antics become so irritating that Vic is forced to tell Flirch off in front of Sade (not before reciting the official lodge greeting, though, of course). This doubtless confirms all of her worst suspicions about “them Lodge fellas.”
Flirch has been given the honor of “best-looking man on the west side of Lester, Nebraska.” Sade cannot stop herself from expressing her own opinion of Y.Y. Flirch’s looks. Vic politely refrains from responding to any of this, however.
I’m uncertain whether Y.Y.’s hometown is Lester, Nebraska (which would be a fictional town) or Leicester, Nebraska (a real town, which as of 2000 had a population of around 400). If it’s the latter, it’s hard to say how big the town would have been in 1940, since so many small Midwestern towns have shrunk drastically since the days of the railroads and steamboats. But it adds to my enjoyment of the episode to think of Y.Y. being voted best-looking man on the west side of a town of 400 people…)
Download the complete commercial-free, sound-improved episode!FLIRCH MAY REALLY BE A HALFWITDespite the fact that Flirch is a big muckity-muck in the lodge and is the best-looking man in the Western side of Lester, Nebraska, we find out in a later episode that he lives in a tent in a parking lot. - Jimbo
