Mayberry Mondays #29: “Howard the Poet” (10/06/69, prod. no. 0202)

In addition to being Mayberry’s pedantic county clerk, Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson) also functions as the town’s poet laureate—a role we saw him perform in an early first season episode, “The Panel Show”, when he came out of the closet on national TV and then had to write a few verses in apologia.  (Okay, I’m joking about that—but that outfit he was wearing really did make him look gay.)  On this week’s Mayberry Mondays, Howard gets a chance to connect with his inner bard (oh, it only sounds dirty), as we will learn via an announcement at Mayberry’s Literary Club meeting…presided over by Beatrice “Aunt Bee” Taylor (Frances Bavier).  (Note: I know the screen caps in these write-ups have really been sucky of late but I think the video quality of this installment is definitely one of the worst.  I just wanted to apologize in advance.)

AUNT BEE: Ladies…ladies and gentlemen…now…I realize tonight that our meeting of the Literary Club was to be a discussion devoted to Thoreau’s Walden…but… (Noticing a hand up) Yes, Emmett?

EMMETT: I read it…

AUNT BEE: Fine…but tonight…

EMMETT: …and you can have it!

Those of you who follow this weekly feature may remember another earlier R.F.D. outing, “New Couple in Town”, in which Mayberry’s resident fix-it savant Emmett Clark (Paul Hartman) crabbed indeterminately about having to read Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea at a club meeting.  Which begs the question: why the hell haven’t the other members chucked him out by now?  You’ll also notice that the Literary Club has inducted its first member of color, token black resident Ralph Barton (Charles Lampkin).  These are progressive strides for the sleepy little North Carolina hamlet.  It won’t be long before Ralph gets to sit at the counter in the town’s diner.

AUNT BEE: Yes…well, we’ll take that up later…

EMMETT: It’s got no plot…

AUNT BEE: Well, Emmett it isn’t a novel…

EMMETT: Boy, you can say that again… (To Ralph) Did you read it?

RALPH: Well, Emmett, I was…

EMMETT: It’s about this nut who couldn’t get along with anybody, so he goes out in the woods…and that’s where…

AUNT BEE: Emmett, please…

EMMETT: I was just making a literary comment…

Aunt Bee, in her courtly Southern fashion, tells Emmett to shut his bloody gob because she has an important letter to read that concerns one of the club members “who is much too modest to read it himself.”

Yeah, you pretty much guessed it….unless you came in late and missing the opening paragraph.

AUNT BEE: …and I feel that this may be a major turning point in his literary career…and I also feel it might benefit the whole club just to be associated with him…and it comes from our state literary magazine, The Carolina Pen and Quill…

Is that a fact?  Well, curl my pinkie and dunk me a crumpet…

AUNT BEE (reading out loud): “Next month our magazine is initiating a new poetry section devoted exclusively to the work of native Carolina poets…”

(At this point in the reading, the front door opens and in walks city council head/poor-but-honest dirt farmer Sam Jones [Ken Berry], who does his darndest not to disturb these proceedings)

AUNT BEE: “…on the basis of several poems of yours, which we have observed in the Valleydale Glow bulletin, we’d like to commission you… (She turns toward Howard, who is seated to her right) Commission you, Mr. Sprague, to write an original poem to inaugurate our new poetry page…”

(The members break out in applause)

RALPH: How ‘bout that, Sam?  The Carolina Pen and Quill wants Howard to write a poem…

SAM: Hey, that’s great, Howard!

HOWARD (trying to remain modest): I really don’t deserve this honor…

Well, no…you really don’t.  But since you have a lot of free time at that hive of activity known as the county clerk’s office, you were the most likely candidate.

SAM: Oh, now don’t be so modest—those were darn good poems you wrote…

RALPH: Of course they were…otherwise they wouldn’t have asked you…

EMMETT: Well, Howard…I guess this calls for a little speech…

You’ll note that Emmett quantified that with “little”…but since this is Howard we’re talking about I hope nobody in this club had to have a babysitter for this evening; this could run into some money.

AUNT BEE: Yes! Yes!  From Mayberry’s poet laureate…

HOWARD: Oh, no…really…I… (He gets to his feet) Well…I only want to say that I appreciate what a great honor this is, and…I really think that part of the credit should go to the club as a whole…after all, you people encouraged me and inspired me…well, personally I regard it as a team victory…

Woo-hoo!!!  Everybody out on the lawn for a series of victory laps!  Howard gets a nice hand of applause, and he assures those assembled that he “won’t let the club down…nor the town of Mayberry.”  (Well, that simply won’t do…what is this week’s plot going to be about if Howard demonstrates confidence and competence?)

The scene then dissolves to Sam’s town council office, where we find Mayberry’s village idiot, Goober Pyle (George Lindsey), pleased at the news of Howard’s literary triumphs:

GOOBER: Boy, I sure wish I could have been there last night and seen ol’ Howard’s face…

“But with that Dukes of Hazzard marathon on CMT, I sorta lost track of time…”

GOOBER: Was he excited?

SAM: Yeah…

EMMETT: Of course he was…that’s a big honor…

SAM: Yeah…I guess Howard’s the first real literary light we’ve ever had in Mayberry…

GOOBER: Hey, tell me…is it true what I heard?  That they might make him a lariat?

EMMETT: Make him a what?

GOOBER: A poet lariat…

EMMETT: La…laureate…laureate…

GOOBER: Oh…

And somewhere right now in the world, Jane Goodall is planning an itinerary for Mayberry.

GOOBER: Hey—wouldn’t it be somethin’ if sometimes his house was one of them shrines where tourists pay to go through it?  Like Ralph Wadlow Emerson’s house?

EMMETT: That’s Waldoo…

GOOBER: Is it, Sam?

SAM: Well, it’s close…close…

“I’m sorry, Ms. Goodall—but Trailways is the only bus with stops and connections in Mayberry…”

GOOBER: Well, I’ll say this for Howard…no matter how famous he gets, he’ll never change…

EMMETT: No…not ol’ Howard…

Wait for it…

Howard comes into the office smoking a pipe and wearing an outfit that suggests he’s a supporter of West Ham United…

HOWARD: Hi, fellahs!

GOOBER: Hey, Howard…you got a cold?

HOWARD: A cold?

GOOBER: Well, yeah—you’re all muffled up…

EMMETT: Since when are you smokin’ a pipe?

HOWARD: Aw, come on you guys—can’t anybody do anything different in this town without everybody making a big fuss over it?

“We’re sorry, Howard…up the Hammers!”

SAM: Uh…how’s the poem coming along, Howard?

HOWARD: Well…it’s still in the incubator, you might say…I got a few embryos rollin’ around in the old brain…

There’s a picture I didn’t need burned onto my retinas.

GOOBER: Does that mean he ain’t done nothin’ yet?

SAM: Well…he’s just getting started…

EMMETT: Well, when you get underway, Howard—just let me know…I’ll report to the club… (He heads out the office door)

HOWARD: Right…

GOOBER: Yeah…

EMMETT: See ya, Howard…

SAM: Thanks again, guys…

(Goober follows Emmett out but turns before he completely exits)

GOOBER (to Howard): Take care of that cold…

As Howard strikes a match to light his new pipe, he grouses to Sam that Emmett and Goober fail to grasp that “you don’t turn out poetry like you turn out sausages.”  As he goes into detail about the method he uses to be inspired by the poetic muse, he has difficult lighting the pipe until Sam finally says to him: “You got a block there someplace.”

HOWARD: You know, this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me…this could open up a whole new world to me…

SAM: Yeah…yeah, it could at that…

HOWARD: As county clerk, I sit around the office all day and stamp bike licenses and marriage licenses…what is that?  But now…I’m really going someplace…this one poem could do it all for me…

Ah, yes…I remember when we had to read Howard’s magnum opus, “An Untitled Poem,” in high school—the man’s talents as a wordsmith were phenomenal!  As you may have guessed, our hero is having a little trouble getting some inspiration—and I’m sure those faggy accessories he’s taking to sporting aren’t helping much, either.  He sits and thinks…and thinks and sits…and sits and thinks…

Well, since I always like to keep faithful TDOY readers riveted let’s get a change of scenery by seeing what’s happening on the street.  Ralph strolls up to where Emmett is seated outside his fix-it shop, and because he apparently doesn’t have any farm work to do that day asks Emmett what’s going on…

RALPH: What’s the problem?

EMMETT: Hah?  Oh…it’s Howard’s lamp…the wiring is all shot…he says he needs more light when he’s working…

RALPH (concerned): Don’t…don’t…don’t short it there…

EMMETT: Ralph…I’m the fix-it man, remember?

Ralph shrugs his shoulders in resignation as Emmett gets up from his bench and walks into the shop…you know, you’re probably expecting some cheap laugh right now where Emmett plugs in the lamp and then turns it on, shorting it in the process…

…so I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you.  Emmett licks his fingers in pain, and angrily tosses the lamp into a trash can.  Whistling, he makes his way back out to where Ralph is seated, now perusing the newspaper.

RALPH: Work all right?

EMMETT: Perfect, perfect…you through with the sports?

RALPH: Oh…oh, sure…

EMMETT: You had any late reports on Howard’s coming with the poem?

RALPH: No…I guess he’s pounding away at it…

EMMETT: Well, this could mean a great deal to Howard…might change his whole life…

RALPH: No question about it…big feather in the cap of the Literary Club, too…

EMMETT: And Mayberry—did you ever stop to think what this could mean for Mayberry?

RALPH: No, I don’t believe I have…

EMMETT: Could put it on the map—look what Shakespeare did for Stratford on the Avon!

RALPH: Hey…hey…yeah…he really shot that town right up there, didn’t he?

EMMETT: Sure did…what about Jack London and the Klondike?

RALPH: Well…now there I don’t go along with you…

EMMETT: What’s wrong with the Klondike?

RALPH: Now, I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it…but I haven’t heard of many people beatin’ a path to the Klondike…

EMMETT: Look, Ralph…just because you haven’t heard of it don’t mean they ain’t goin’ there…

RALPH: Ah, you could be right…

EMMETT: Anyway—I guarantee that once Howard comes through with this poem, Mayberry’s going to be a lot more important than just a place to gas up…

And if you’re thinking that not nearly enough time has flown by in this episode, here comes the brains of the think tank to put in his two cents…

EMMETT: Ah, Sam—lemme ask you a question…

SAM: Oh, look…I gotta get over to Howard’s…

EMMETT: Now, listen…listen…how many people a year would you say go to the Klondike?

SAM: What?

EMMETT: How many people a year go to the Klondike?  Take a stab at it…

SAM (after a pause): Four?

RALPH (laughing, as he gets up and gathers his paper): See ya, Emmett…see ya, Sam…

EMMETT: Gotta be at least eight…

Sam informs Emmett that he’s going over to Howard’s office to remind him of the poem’s deadline per Aunt Bee.  As he heads off in that direction, Emmett stops him to say: “Tell Howard his lamp is too shot to fix…and no charge…he might do me a favor sometime…”

Back at Poetry Central, Howard’s not making much headway…but at least his pencil is well-sharpened.  He gets up from his desk, stares out the window…and after a few moments, picks up his typewriter and carries it over to another desk where he proceeds to put the machine in its case.  Sam has arrived by this time and innocently asks Howard how things are coming along, and is met with a testy response:

HOWARD:  I just wish everyone would quit asking me how it’s going…

SAM: Oh…I’m sorry…

HOWARD: …just don’t seem to realize that you just don’t turn out poetry like you turn out…

SAM: Sausages?

HOWARD: Yeah…sausages…

SAM: Well, anyway—the reason I stopped by was Aunt Bee wanted me to remind you about the deadline on the poem…the seventeenth?

HOWARD (angry): I’m aware of it, Sam…

SAM: Okay...okay…I did my duty…

Heh heh heh…he said “duty.”  A frustrated Howard announces that he’s going home because he can’t create in the office: “It’s too impersonal…cold…sterile…poetry needs an atmosphere of warmth…and…and books…and human things.”  As he prepares to go out the door, Sam calls it back and hands him his scarf.

After General Foods pays some bills, we’re back in the office…and surrounded by wadded up piles of paper, it would seem Howard is still dealing with his writer’s block.  The office door opens, and in strolls Aunt Bee with a hamper big enough to choke a rhinoceros.

AUNT BEE: I brought you something to eat…

HOWARD: Oh now, look, Aunt Bee…I’m not hungry…

AUNT BEE: Howard, nobody can create on an empty stomach…oh my heavens, what a mess!  (She starts to tidy his desk) My goodness…

HOWARD: No, no, Aunt Bee…I like it messy…

AUNT BEE: Oh, nonsense…nonsense…a clear desk means a clear mind…

Aunt Bee tiptoes to and fro from the desk to where she sat the basket down, serving Howard his lunch…and the effect is not unlike watching her doing a seductive dance with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and all the fixin’s.  And now that I’ve ruined any of you from every stepping foot inside KFC again…

AUNT BEE: You just think think think…it’ll come…it’ll come…just let your mind flow free and unfettered…

HOWARD: Aunt Bee…

AUNT BEE (shushing him): I’m not here…remember?

After raising the blinds in his office (“Good light is so important”) she waltzes over to the calendar on the wall…

AUNT BEE: Oh my…oh, yes—we have to worry about this, don’t we…the deadline…it’s getting kind of close, isn’t it? 

HOWARD: Yes…yes, it is…isn’t it…getting close…

AUNT BEE: You just think and eat…and I’ll come back later with the dishes…

As Aunt Bee heads for the doorway, she passes by Emmett, who is coming in with a light bulb in his hand.  They whisper greetings to one another and then Emmett begins to tiptoe his way over to where Howard is sitting.  “Don’t tiptoe!” Howard shouts at him, exasperated…causing Emmett to drop the bulb and it shatters on the floor.  There is a dissolve to the outside of Emmett’s storefront…

GOOBER: Asked you to leave, huh?

EMMETT: Asked me?  He ordered me to leave…I thought poets were supposed to be nice people…we got a rough one…

GOOBER: Well, I just can’t believe that ol’ Howard’s freezin’ up…

EMMETT: I don’t think he’s written a line yet…

GOOBER: The thing is due pretty soon, ain’t it?

EMMETT: Well, of course it’s kinda natural… (He and Goober enter the fix-it shop) Put too much pressure on a guy…it’s easy to choke up…

GOOBER: Heck yes—it’s even happened to me…

EMMETT: You?

GOOBER (sitting down): Yeah…

EMMETT: Get off my stool…

GOOBER (standing up again): Listen…one time…this English feller in a big Rolls-Royce drove into the gas station…well, you know how expensive them cars are…

EMMETT: Oh, yeah…you can’t touch one of them for under…oh…five or six thou…

GOOBER: Right…well, all he needed was a carburetor adjustment—why, I can fix one of them with my eyes shut…

EMMETT: Yeah, I know…that’s how you fixed mine the last time…

GOOBER: Emmett…anyway, there was somethin’ about that shiny motor…and the way he was leanin’ over my shoulder watchin’ me…well, I started sweatin’…my hands started twitchin’…and I couldn’t even hold a screwdriver steady…first thing I knew, I broke a wire in there…

EMMETT: Ah, you were just out of your class…

GOOBER: No, I choked…the harder I tried, the worse I did…finally he took the screwdriver out of my hands and fixed it himself…you talk about being embarrassed…

Especially if you happened to walk in on the part where Goober describes the customer looking over his shoulder and how Goob starts a-sweating (shudder).  Goober empathizes with Howard’s situation and tells Emmett he’s going over to his office to give him a pep talk—but Emmett counters that Howard isn’t there; he’s out in the woods seeking inspiration…

HOWARD: Stump stump stump…ah…there sat the…old… (Writing this down) …gnarled…stump…stump chump rump lump…lump!  Like…there sat the old gnarled stump…like a wizened ancient lump…that’s no good…

(Howard sees a rabbit run by)

HOWARD: Rabbit!  Rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit…rabbit habit…grab it…grab the rabbit…uh…it’s a habit…grab it…it’s a habit…oh…

Goober, peeking from behind a tree, is not nearly so stupid that even he knows Howard has gone bye-bye.  So in his endearing country bumpkin way, he offers a few simple words of encouragement to his chum:

GOOBER: Oh, well—don’t worry…I know how it is…been through it myself…it’s just…well, it’s just in your mind…you just think you’ve blown it; that you’re a miserable failure and let everybody down and all you can do is hide out here…why, that inspiration you’re graspin’ for could be…could be…could be right here any place, like that ol’ stump here…lots of good rhymes there…chump, lump, stump…

At this point in the conversation, Howard could conveniently dispatch Goober to the great self-serve in the sky with the help of a large tree limb and not only would anyone care but it would end up being the best R.F.D. episode ever.  Unfortunately, all Howard can do is shoo him away in his Sprague-like fashion and bemoan the fact that the sands in the hourglass are slowly running out and he’s yet to create a masterwork of poetry.

There’s a dissolve to a shot of Howard hunched over his typewriter in his office, and a nice bit of nonverbal comedy as he pecks on the keys, advances the carriage upward to remove the paper in the machine and he smiles at what he has typed…

…he then folds the paper neatly…and then folds it again…and again…and again, then frustratingly throws it in the wastebasket…he then steps back and then stares at the trash…another inspired look crawls across his face and he reaches over to where his typewriter is on the desk.  Picking the machine up, he walks over to the wastebasket and throws the typewriter on top.  Since we’re just about out of show, I guess it’s time for Sam to make an appearance and to say the right Andy Griffith-like thing.

SAM: I saw your light still on…

(Sam stares down at the typewriter in the trash basket)

HOWARD: Yeah—Tom Edison invented that…

SAM: It’s getting a little late, Howard—don’t you think you ought to go home and…get some sleep?

HOWARD (shrugs): Why not?

SAM: Yeah…come on, I’ll give you a lift…

HOWARD: Sam, don’t you think it was considerate of Tom Edison to invent the incandescent light bulb so that I could sit here and watch my life go right down the drain?

SAM (grabbing Howard’s coat off a chair): It’s, uh…getting a little chilly out…maybe you…better put your jacket on…

HOWARD (after a pause): Sam…you’re looking at a failure…a complete…total…dismal failure…

“And in other news…space is infinite.”

HOWARD: Well, maybe you don’t understand…I failed…I mean, I can’t write two lines—I can’t even write two words…I’m a failure!

SAM: All right, so…you’re a failure…come on…come on…put your jacket on…

HOWARD: What kind of a person are you?!!  I mean, here I am—a man at the end of his rope…his whole life blasted away, and all you’re worried about is getting my coat on…

That’s what results from spending too much time around Aunt Bee.  I’m not going to go in too deep detail with this roundelay: Howard bemoans the fact that he’s blown his big opportunity and that he’s let the entire town down; Sam is trying to tell him in the politest way possible to man up and stop acting like a big poetry-spouting pansy.  But the habits of a lifetime are hard to break…and as such, Howard has found his muse:

Though we walk on the wind

Our courage turns frail

At a small gnawing fear

“What if I fail?”

The sweet smell of success

Falls painfully stale

When that dread thought intrudes

“What if I fail?”

Though we’re destiny’s child

Our paths studded and starred

Just one little failure

And forever we’re scarred

Do you believe that, my friend?

Then more fool thou

You can’t let one failure

Color the whole cow

Some of the stimulating stanzas of this wretched poem are drowned out when Goober whispers to Sam; “Cow?  He’s gettin’ a little humor in it…”

With which you are blessed

Grab that small failure

And do not deplore it

If you take it in stride

You’re a better man for it

From the wise come these words

Let thee never more quail

At that Devil-wrought phrase

“Oh!  What if I fail?”

The members of the club break out in applause, though I suspect it’s probably because Aunt Bee has finished reading it as opposed to any literary merit.  (Seriously—how does a smell “fall painfully stale?”)  “That was really somethin’, Howard,” gushes Goober—summing up not only the club but my opinion of Mr. Sprague’s work…

GOOBER: …pretty good about the cow…

EMMETT: Great, Howard—I knew you could do it!  I never doubted you for one second…

What a kiss-ass.

HOWARD: Well, I wish I’d have been as sure about it as all you were…if it hadn’t been for Sam here…

SAM: Oh no no no…I didn’t do a thing…I couldn’t put two words together…no, you did it all, Howard—and it’s the best thing you ever did…

AUNT BEE: Indeed it is!  And who knows?  Mayberry may become the home of the poet laureate…

HOWARD: Oh…come on…me?  Nah…

But Aunt Bee insists that such an idiotic notion could happen, and as Howard tries to modestly dismiss such crazy ideas he nonchalantly sticks that pipe back in his mouth.  If you think that’s funny, wait till we get to the coda.

In the wrap-up, Sam pulls into Goober’s station to fill up and finds him hunched over the insides of an automobile, peering inside.  When Goober turns to Sam…

…he’s decked out in Howard’s poet regalia.

GOOBER: Oh…Howard give ‘em to me…said it didn’t exactly help the creative process none, just makes a fool out of ya…

SAM (giving him the once-over): He may be right…

GOOBER: I don’t know about that, Sam…seems to be workin’ for me…wanna hear somethin’?

SAM: Well…uh…

(Goober hands Sam his pipe and the gas cap, and reaches around to pull a notebook out of his pocket)

GOOBER: Now I know I ain’t never gonna become another Ralph Wadlow Emerson…but you listen to this…”Lo, the shades of night ‘twas…” ‘Twas, now that’s a word poets use…it means “it was”…’twas…

SAM: Yeah…I see…

GOOBER: How you like it so far?

SAM: Well…how’s the rest of it go?

GOOBER: Well, that’s as far as I got…I’m sorta waitin’ for inspiration to hit me…

SAM: Oh—well, while you’re waiting would you mind giving me some gas?

GOOBER: Well…  (He jams the gas hose nozzle into Sam’s tank) Lo, the shades of night ‘twas…fallin’…grawlin’…brawlin’…

(There are several “dings” to indicate Sam’s tank is full, and then the sound of gasoline spilling on the ground is heard)

SAM: It’s spilling!

GOOBER: No, that don’t rhyme…oh!!!

Goober then comically tries to remove the gas hose and ends up spilling petrol on himself, Sam and the notebook which has fallen to the ground.  Now, if I could ask a favor of any TDOY reader who eventually stumbles on to a method of time travel—would you mind going back to when I first came up with the idea of doing this R.F.D. project and talking me out of it?

Since Mayberry’s Literary Club simply won’t run itself, that means Aunt Bee is front and center in this week’s episode…and Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s patented Mayberry R.F.D. Bee-o-meter™ adds another notch to her belt, tallying a total of two appearances for the second season and fourteen in total for the series.  We are also blessed with the absence of Sam’s idiot son Mike (Buddy Foster) for a second week but we also lose an appearance from the only real reason to ever watch this series—Millie “Do you want jimmies on that cupcake?” Swanson, played by Facebook chum Arlene Golonka.  Next week on Mayberry Mondays, an episode that actually made me laugh out loud…well, parts of it, anyway.  Here’s hoping you’ll join me at that time for the wet-your-pants funny “Goober and the Telephone Girl.”