Mayberry Mondays #31: “Millie, the Model” (10/20/69, prod. no. 0203)

First off, I want to thank everyone out there in YesteryearLand for all the comments, e-mails, Facebook messages and “tweets” welcoming back what I am still flabbergasted is the most popular regular feature here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  (It may all seem fun and games now, but when we get to this four-part Palm Springs story arc I don’t want to hear any whining in the back seat or I will turn this blog around and we will go right back straight home.)

When I first started doing Mayberry Mondays, there were only two episodes of the show available on YouTube…but a casual glance at the site t’other day would seem to indicate that those installments bred like rabbits—someone with almost as much free time as I has posted quite a few of these babies, including today’s episode, which I have embedded here for your enjoyment:

I do this as a public service for those interested TDOY readers who’d like to follow along with the snark…and if we’re lucky, Warner Home Video will get wind of this before the Palm Springs episodes start, sparing all of you a great deal of pain and agony.  As our visit to Mayberry opens today, we find ourselves not in town (just like last week) but in the neighboring burg of Mt. Pilot, where poor-but-honest dirt farmer Sam Jones (Ken Berry) and bakery shop doyenne Millie Swanson (Arlene Golonka) pull up in an automobile (and ever dutiful village idiot Goober Pyle [George Lindsey] rides in back, head out the “winder”).  Sam, Millie and the Goob are apparently in Mount P so that Millie can check out a bodacious sale at a nearby clothier’s.

SAM: Now…you…you want to go into that dress shop right there….

MILLIE: Right!

SAM: Okay…then Goob and I will go over to the hardware store (pointing across the street)…they carry some things we can’t get in Mayberry…

MILLIE (disappointed): Oh, Sam!

GOOBER: We’ll pick you up on the way back…

MILLIE: Oh, no—you come in, too!  I want you to like the dresses I buy…

SAM: Oh, Millie—go in there?

“I could catch girl cooties!”

SAM: Oh, you said they had a sale or something going on—it’s liable to be mobbed…

MILLIE: Oh…but it’s not a sale…it’s just a preview of all the fall fashions, right from New York!

GOOBER: Hey, I’ll go in there with ya, Millie…I got a real eye for ladies’ fashions…my favorite material is dark blue with white dots in it…

“And sometimes them ladies don’t even lock the changin’ room door!”  Millie keeps working on Sam to come into the store with her and he finally relents, though the expression on his face suggests he’d rather be doing manly guy things at the Mt. Pilot Home Depot.

This is the interior of the store…and I don’t know if it’s because the set designer didn’t have much imagination or they really had to watch the show’s budget this week but I’ve been inside Salvation Army thrift stores that had more pizzazz. 

MRS. WHITTAKER: Oh hello, Millie!  You got my card!

MILLIE: Yes, I did…and it sounds like you got some wonderful things!

MRS. WHITTAKER: Oh, I have!  (Pointing to another area of the store) There’s some over here, and some over there…

MILLIE (delighted): Oh!  Oh, by the way (introducing Sam and Goober)…this is Mr. Pyle, and Mr. Jones…

SAM/MRS. WHITTAKER: How do you do?

GOOBER: You got any dark blue dresses with white dots?

MRS. WHITTAKER: Uh…I’m afraid not…

GOOBER: Well, I like ‘em when they got bows, too…

Little hard to tell from the earlier screen capture but the woman playing Mrs. Whittaker, the store’s proprietor, is character actress Eve McVeagh, who played Harry Morgan’s character’s wife in High Noon (the scene where Gary Cooper comes to the door pleading for help and she makes up some story about Harry not being around).  Her other movie roles include The Glass Web (1953), The Cobweb (1955), Tight Spot (1955; as Ginger Rogers’ character’s sister) and Crime & Punishment, USA (1959).  She’s a familiar face in hundred of television roles from I Love Lucy to Simon & Simon, and among the radio shows she worked were Jeff Regan, Investigator (she made a few appearances on Jack Webb’s TV Dragnet), The Whistler, Suspense and Have Gun – Will Travel.

Check out the dress on the wall there on the right.  Apparently Carrie White was shopping here earlier.  Millie starts grabbing things off the Size 8 rack and trying them on, and even though I might be a tad biased because I love Millie like the Devil loves sin, girl can work an outfit, y’all…

Here’s what has me somewhat perplexed…that outfit hanging near the changing room is the same one Millie came into the store with—but if we go back to the scene where Millie holds up the outfit in the mirror…

…it’s there as well.  (Freaky!)  Told by Mrs. W that the outfit “is darling on you,” Millie asks Sam for his approval.  “Oh yeah, i-i-it’s real…darling,” he replies, staring at the floor.  (Burt Styler, the scribe responsible for this episode, is going to regret he didn’t write in a part for pedantic county clerk Howard Sprague [Jack Dodson].  This fashion-centered outing would be right up his alley.)

MILLIE (still admiring herself in the mirror): Oh, the style…and it fits so well…oh, I-I-I just love it, I really do…

MRS. WHITTAKER: Why don’t you tell the person who’d really appreciate hearing that…Miss Rogers?  Millie Swanson…

A woman rises from the chair in which she was seated and walks over to introduce herself to Millie.  The actress playing Miss Rogers is June Vincent, who was a Universal Studio starlet in the 1940s and appeared in favorites like The Climax (1944), Can’t Help Singing (1944), Here Come the Co-Eds (1945) and perhaps her best-known film, Black Angel (1946).  She left Universal afterward and ended up in Columbia appearing in B-flicks and programmers like Trapped by Boston Blackie (1948) and The Lone Wolf and His Lady (1949), then continued to appear in low-budget flicks (including a 1953 Bowery Boys romp, Clipped Wings) while supplementing those with guest appearances in TV shows like M Squad and Perry Mason.  TV Guide once called her “Television’s Favorite Homewrecker” because it was even money the characters she played were either trying to tempt a husband or boyfriend.  (Don’t panic…she has no designs on Samuel Jones…she’s not that desperate.)

MRS. WHITTAKER: Miss Rogers designed the whole line!

MILLIE: Oh!  (Walking over to the clothes rack) Well, I-I-I think they’re all gorgeous!

MISS ROGERS: All I know is they’re perfect on you…

MILLIE: Oh, Sam… (She walks over to where he’s seated, holding a dress) Sam, look at these colors…

SAM (feigning enthusiasm): Yeah…it’s great…

MILLIE: Oh, stand up for a moment…

SAM: Stand up?

MILLIE: H-Hold it up…

SAM: Aw, Millie…I…

Any husband or boyfriend who’s ever had to “watch a purse” will sympathize with what Sam is going through right now.  Goober looks at him and remarks, “Cute.”  Millie continues to try on outfits like a high school girl with a charge card, and is so overwhelmed by the finery she announces: “Oh, Miss Rogers…I-I-I just don’t know which one to pick!

MISS ROGERS: You have a very attractive quality…a certain freshness…

Hokey smoke—forget what I said about her having designs on Sam…it’s Millie she’s after!

MISS ROGERS (to Mrs. Whittaker): You know, if people saw her in that ad for a dress, they’d say that’s the kind of woman who would really wear that dress…not the typical model type…Miss Swanson?

MILLIE: Yes?

MISS ROGERS: Well, I’m usually not this impulsive, but…I’ve been wondering…

Sam!  You and Goober need to get her out of there!  Give Goob the car keys while you toss Millie over one shoulder like a bag of seed and amscray usterbay!

MISS ROGERS: Would you come to New York and model this line?

(Sam and Goober exchange incredulous looks)

MILLIE (practically speechless): M-Me???

MRS. WHITTAKER: Oh, Millie!

MISS ROGERS: You see, this is sort of a preview …a…a test around the country…to get women’s reactions to the line, and…we haven’t even started our national publicity yet…

Okay—from the looks of things, this Miss Rogers is some hoity-toity fashion designer…and while that’s not difficult to swallow, the fact that she’s testing the product in a place like Mt. Pilot seems awfully suspicious to me.  (Unless she’s got her own line of clothing at K-Mart, like Jaclyn Smith or Martha Stewart or any of those other former TV sex symbols.)

MISS ROGERS: It would be quite a good salary for a month’s work, and…uh…well, it would be posing for fashion magazines mostly…

MILLIE: Oh, well….I…I don’t know what to say…oh, I’m no model…

MISS ROGERS: But that’s exactly the point…you’re attractive, and pretty…and you don’t have that typical hollow-cheeked look that models have…you have exactly what these clothes need…

I’m sorry, Mill…this whole deal has the unmistakable trappings of a scenario where your new phone number is going to be BUtterfield 8.

MILLIE (embarrassed): I-I’m very flattered…gee…all the way to New York…oh…uh. Sam—w-w-what do you think…isn’t it crazy?

SAM: Well…

MILLIE: W-W-What should I do?

SAM: Well…do you want to?

MILLIE (positively squealing) Oh!

SAM: Huh?

MILLIE: Yes!!!

SAM: Well, then…why not, huh?  Go to New York, and…get your picture in all the magazines…good pay, huh?

Okay, Sam…but if it turns out you’ve just given your approval to some white slavery ring, let it be on your head!  There is a dissolve to Sam, Goober, resident fix-it savant Emmett Clark (Paul Hartman) and the diabolically wicked Beatrice “Aunt Bee” Taylor (Frances Bavier) carrying Millie’s suitcases and accompanying her to Mayberry’s bus stop.  Now, I would have thought that Aunt Bee would have seen through this charade right from the get-go, seeing as how she used to run a cathouse before coming to Mayberry.  But she is getting on in years, and doesn’t always remember things the way she used to…so she’s clucking over Millie like a barnyard hen:

AUNT BEE: Now remember, Millie…the best place to stay is at the Y…

GOOBER: Make sure that’s the YW… (He gives out with a braying laugh, and is joined by Emmett)

AUNT BEE: The accommodations are very nice there, and they’ll take care of your evenings, too…

MILLIE: Oh?

AUNT BEE: Yes…and I remember…five years ago, when I was there…the girls all gathered in…in the main room, and they played Scrabble, and they exchanged recipes and did their own hair…oh, it was just a regular beehive!

“Aunt Bee…you’re all mixed up again…that was that nursing home in Bessemer City that caught up with us and made us take you back!”

MILLIE: Sounds wonderful…

EMMETT: The main thing you gotta remember, Millie…is to be wary of strangers…

Emmett is free to speak of his experiences in the Big Apple, seeing as how he made a pilgrimage there in Episode #6, “The Panel Show”—one of my all-time favorite R.F.D. episodes and prima facie proof that Howard’s absence from this episode means we will all suffer.

EMMETT: You’ll be standin’ around the Astor Hotel lobby, like everybody does in New York…the first thing you know some guy’s gonna sidle up to you and say: “How would you like to get into a little friendly game of poker?”  Don’t…

“Poker?  I hardly even knew her!”  (Apparently there are very few jokes to which I won’t resort.)  Millie assures Emmett that she will avoid any and all poker games…which should be easy enough as she is not a rube.

MILLIE (giving him a friendly punch on the arm): Well…you going to miss me, Sam?

SAM: Oh, sure!  Of course I am!  I mean, if I have time…

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

SAM: …the girls are already calling me like crazy…

MILLIE (giving him another punch) Oh, you!

AUNT BEE: Who’s going to take your place at Mrs. Boysinger’s bakery?

MILLIE: Her niece Gertrude…it works out just fine!

SAM: Oh, here he comes…

Sam has just spotted the bus pulling in, and though it’s a little difficult to read in this screen cap the sign above reads “Raleigh”—a nice little nostalgic nod to a time when we actually had a formidable mass transit system in this country.  Millie hugs and goodbyes everyone, and climbs aboard promising to write as soon as she gets there…if she hasn’t already been knocked unconscious and tied up in the hold of a ship bound for the Middle East by then, I mean.  “Look out, New York…here she comes!” hollers Emmett the Rube as the bus pulls away.

AUNT BEE: Oh my goodness!  I forgot to remind her to take a good pair of walking shoes!

GOOBER: Well, I don’t think Millie’ll be doing much walkin’…

She will if she expects to make rent that month, pump jockey…

GOOBER: …she’ll be ridin’ around in limousines!

EMMETT: Yeah, with that jet set!  (Both of them laugh) You know, Sam—by the time she gets back, you’re really gonna have to shape up!  That is, if she comes back…

Oh, tactful move there, Mr. Clark.  As Emmett and Goober guffaw like baboons, Sam is at the ready with a devastating riposte: “You know, Emmett…I don’t know why you waste your time in the fix-it shop…you ought to be a comedian!”  Then, as to sort of distract the audience from pondering the knowledge that every male over the age of thirty pisses away the better part of a day at Emmett’s, he pulls Emmett’s cap down over his eyes in a symbolic visual pun.

There’s a scene dissolve, and Aunt Bee is in the kitchen, doing what she does best—looking sad and concerned.  George Felton (Norman Leavitt), Mayberry’s up-at-the-butt-crack-of-dawn postman, has just been by with the mail…and there was nothing from Millie, which is not sounding at all positive.

AUNT BEE: Still no mail from Millie…and it’s a week now…

SAM: Well, she’s probably been real busy…she went there to work, remember?

AUNT BEE: Well, not even a postcard to let us know she’s well?

SAM: Well, now…don’t worry, Aunt Bee…

AUNT BEE: Dear all alone in that big city with its traps and its temptations…

If Millie turns up in the next scene wearing that outfit that Diana Rigg wore in that “A Touch of Brimstone” episode of The Avengers—this will be the best R.F.D. episode ever.

AUNT BEE: ...oh, I just hope nothing happens to her like what happened to Madeleine…

SAM: Madeleine?

AUNT BEE: Heroine of a novel I just finished…first day she was in Paris she met a sculptor…

Hey, I used to read those books when I was a kid…the little French schoolgirl created by Ludwig Bemelmans…

AUNT BEE: Deep hypnotic eyes…burning with evil fire…his name was Boris…

SAM: Gave her a bad time, huh?

AUNT BEE: Oh, frightful…she fell under his spell and soon had no will of her own!  That a terrible thing for a girl…

Wait a minute…I don’t remember reading that particular Madeleine book…unless the nuns at St. Francis ripped a few pages out of Madeleine and the Bad Hat…

Sam assures Aunt Bee that Millie “won’t be running with that kind of a crowd,” just in time for early bird Felton to make an appearance by the back door.  Apparently a postcard from Millie got mixed up with the Johnson’s’ mail (I’m assuming they are the nearest thing Sam has to neighbors):

AUNT BEE: Oh, at last!

SAM: There…you see?  (He holds out his hand for the postcard)

FELTON: Oh, she’s been busy, but she’s fine…

SAM (still holding out his hand): Oh, good…

FELTON (glancing at the postcard): This is a great picture…it’s one of them big iron statues in front of one of them new skyscrapers…and she says she met this sculptor…

AUNT BEE (hand to breast): Oh, good heavens!

SAM: Uh…if you don’t need the card anymore, you might just leave it here…

FELTON: Oh…sure!  See ya, folks…

Felton turns to leave but then gets in the last word: “You know, the Johnsons can’t understand why she hasn’t written before this…”  He’s a pistol!

AUNT BEE: One postcard…and she’s met a sculptor…Sam, I don’t like it…I don’t like it one bit…

SAM: Aunt Bee, would you relax?  I’m not worried about Millie, so why should you be?

AUNT BEE: Very well…I won’t say another word…

She won’t have to, because she then gives Sam what’s known at my house as The Look.  (My mother has a black belt in this, by the way.)  There is a scene dissolve, and we find Lonely Sam walking the streets of Mayberry—and it’s fortunate for him that Sheriff Andy Taylor left this burg a long time back or he’d be run in for loitering.  His reverie is interrupted by Goober, who arrives on the scene with a…yeah, I found it hard to believe, too…a girl!

GOOBER: What are you doin’ here?

SAM: Oh, I was just…killin’ time…

“Not like I have to run a farm or anything…”  Anyway, the girl with Goob is Hilda, played by actress Linda Meiklejohn in the first of her three R.F.D. appearances as the woman who obviously hasn’t been clued into the fact that she’s dating an idiot.  Meiklejohn actually appears in four episodes—but in her last R.F.D. she’s credited as “Waitress” and I can’t remember if she’s actually Hilda in that or not.  (We will address Hilda’s employment history in the next episode she’s in, “The Farmer Exchange Project,” two weeks from now.)  Meiklejohn might be a familiar face to M*A*S*H fans in that she played Lt. Leslie Scorch on that show’s first season; her film credits include The Ballad of Josie (1967) and R.P.M. (1970).

In introducing Hilda to Sam, Goober explains that they’ve been going steady for two days, and since they’re about to strap on the ol’ feedbag at the Mayberry Diner (Motto: “Now with 20% more cockroaches!”) they invite Sam to come along.

SAM: Oh…no thanks, Goob…I think I’ll just run on home and grab a sandwich and hit the sack…

GOOBER: But Sam…you gotta go with us—this ain’t no time for you to be alone… (To Hilda) His girlfriend’s whooping it up in New York…

HILDA: Ohhh… (She laughs)

So Sam gets roped into going to the diner with Goob and Hild, and to say he’s miserable would be the understatement to end all understatements.  It’s not because he’s missing Millie…it’s because he’s forced to sit opposite Goober and watch him eat a piece of pie.

HILDA: When’s your girlfriend due back?

SAM: Oh, in another couple of weeks…

GOOBER: You know, Hilda was just tellin’ me she was in New York summer before last…ain’t that right, Hilda?

HILDA:  My cousin Jean invited me up there for two weeks…what a time!  It’s got to be the most exciting place in the whole world!

SAM: Yeah, I imagine it is…

HILDA: Oh, the nightclubs…and the parties…and the fellas—wow!!!

GOOBER: What d’ya mean, “wow”?

HILDA: Well, they’re different!

GOOBER: Different from me?

Yes, Goober.  They walk erect and have invented fire.  When Hilda points out to her true love that New York men are “sophisticated,” Goober takes offense.  “Oh well, look—I could be that way if I wanted to…I know all that stuff about openin’ car doors for girls and givin’ ‘em change when they go to the powder room…it’s just that I prefer to be myself.”  (They should put up a sign at the service station: “Bumpkin in his natural habitat.”)

“There’s something sure different about them,” Hilda reiterates.  “Wow!”

Goober asks Sam for the time and when he gets a glance at Sam’s watch he realizes he has to motor.  “Oh, hey…I’d better get you home,” he tells Hilda.  “I don’t want your daddy yellin’ at me like he did last night when I gotcha in at eleven-thirty.”  (Methinks Mr. Hilda was more upset about the caliber of the boyfriend his daughter’s dating rather than the lateness of the hour.)  Goober then shovels the rest of his pie into his gob and rising from the table, clumsily helps drape Hilda’s sweater around her shoulders.

“See—I can be sophisticated, too when I want to,” he grins in his usual stupid fashion.  But this experience with Goober and Hilda has made Sam a little reflective…and whenever he needs advice, he goes to the wisest man he knows in Mayberry.

Oh, that’s right…he bailed out a couple of years back.  Well, send in the B team:

EMMETT: Wall Street?  What do you mean, Wall Street?

SAM: Well, I-I-I’m going up there because I…I put a little money aside, see, and…I’m going to invest it…

EMMETT: But we got a very good brokerage firm right over in Mt. Pilot…

Right next to the Stride-Rite!

SAM: Well, no…no, Emmett…I’m going to go right to the top…to right actually where the stock market is…

EMMETT: New York, huh?

SAM: Yeah…right to the top…

EMMETT (the penny drops): Oh…I see…

SAM: Yeah, I’ll…I’ll get that morning bus to Raleigh, and catch a plane out of there…

EMMETT: Well, while you’re there I don’t suppose you’ll have time to see Millie…

SAM: Oh…well, I’ll…I’ll make time…

“There’s no point in being in New York and not see Millie,” Sam explains in a blatantly transparent fashion.  This exchange prompts this shit-eating grin reaction from Emmett:

“You old dog…”  Back from the General Foods break, the scene shifts to New York; Sam has a brief phone conversation with his gal, who invites him over to the studio where she’s doing the modeling thing:  There’s a scene dissolve, and Millie is voguing:

Strike a pose, girlfriend!  Sam enters the studio quietly and says a silent “howdy” to Miss Rogers, who is seated by the door.  Millie, upon seeing Sam, excitedly shouts his name and runs over to give him a bear hug.

MILLIE: Oh, it’s so wonderful to see you!

SAM: It’s wonderful to see you, too, Millie…see, the reason why I had to make this trip to New York…

MILLIE: Oh, Sam—you remember darling Miss Rogers!

MISS ROGERS (shaking Sam’s hand): How do you do?

SAM: Oh, yes…how do you do…

(A stern-looking man walks over to where Millie and Sam are standing)

MILLIE: And this is our fantastic photographer…Thornton Avery…

SAM: Oh…

MILLIE (to Thornton): This is Sam Jones from Mayberry…

AVERY (coldly): How do you do?

Mr. Avery is not amused.  He’s also played by the late Laurie Main (who passed away this February 8), a voice artist and character actor with a lengthy list of credits including guest appearances on TV shows such as Maverick, That Girl, Hogan’s Heroes and Daniel Boone.  (I recognized him as Inspector Gregson in 1979’s Time After Time.)  He’s also an astute judge of character, realizing that Sam serves no redeeming purpose with his presence there and that he should take the first bus back to Raleigh posthaste.

Millie invites Sam to have a seat beside Miss Rogers, seeing that “we won’t be much longer today.”  Avery then gives her a cold stare and says huffily “All right, Millie—let’s just see if we can recapture the mood.”  (Miss Rogers explains to Sam in an aside that “all artists are temperamental”…but apparently they’re also complete douchebags.)

So Millie goes through a few fashion model poses—I like the last one the best, with the carousel pony (“Hey, little schoolgirl…I’m a little schoolboy, too!”) and especially Avery’s instructions: “Wide-eyed…trusting…innocent…and with just a slight touch of evil lurking beneath it…exactly!”  So now it’s Miller time!

MILLIE: Well, that does it for today…

SAM: Oh, great…great!

MISS ROGERS: Very good, dear…

MILLIE: Thank you…

SAM: Now…why don’t we go some place where we can talk?

Before they can make plans, this gentleman in the yellow turtleneck makes his entrance—he’s identified as Barry, and apparently he’s in charge of finalizing the photographs taken by the frosty Avery.  Little hard to tell from the screen cap but the actor playing Bar is Quinn Redeker, a soap opera veteran (Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless) and co-screenwriter of 1978’s The Deer Hunter.  Around Castle Yesteryear, however, he’s remembered as Schuyler Davis, the geek who muscles up and takes on “the world’s mightiest mortal” in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962).  So before you start rolling your eyes and thinking, “Oh…there he goes with the Stooge trivia again”—this is very important, because I will be coming back to it.

Sam repeats his request for a quiet place to talk...it should be obvious that Sam wants to get down to business, if you know what I mean…and I think you do.  But Millie has a social obligation—she has a swanky party she needs to attend, and so she invites Sam to come along.

Sam and Millie arrive at the apartment of Austin Harlowe…and though this sort of looks like Jack Cassidy gone to seed, it’s actually veteran character actor George N. Neise—whose radio resume includes shows like The Lux Radio Theatre, The Whistler and The Great Gildersleeve (he played the sponging brother of one of Gildy’s girlfriends in the show’s 1952-53 run) and voluminous TV output involves a multitude of guest appearances…but he also had a recurring role as the town doctor on Wichita Town, a TV oater I mentioned in a post last December.  Most of the time in movies he played bad guys, including a plum role as the villain in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules…ah, you see it now—it’s Old Home Week for George and Quinn!  (Neise also played one of the aliens in the Stooges film The Three Stooges in Orbit [1962].)

AUSTIN: Millie!  Millie, so good of you to come!

MILLIE: Thank you!  Austin, this is Sam Jones…

AUSTIN: Ah, Mr. Jones…how do you do?

SAM (shaking Harlowe’s hand): How do you do?

AUSTIN: Are you in the theater, or the arts, or…uh…

SAM: No, no…I’m…I’m a farmer, that’s what I am…

AUSTIN: A gentleman farmer!  Well, that…that must be fun!

SAM: Well…not exactly, it’s my living…

If you can call it living.  “I thought they had machines to do that sort of thing nowadays,” says Harlowe, slightly perplexed.  Well, something must get the work done at Sam’s…he doesn’t spend too much time farming on this show, that’s for certain.  Austin then excuses himself, as he has more interesting guests to talk to.  So Sam and Millie begin to mingle, and as Sam passes Thornton Avery, who’s chatting it up with Barry and a couple of other guests, you hear Avery cry out: “Well, talk of the Devil—he’s the one!”  (I have to admit I laughed out loud at that.)

As Millie and Sam are attempting to make their way across the wall-to-wall humanity that is the Harlowe party, a careless man gesticulates so wildly that he manages to spill his drink on Sam, drenching his shirt and prompting a sort of Oliver Hardy-like reaction from him.  It turns out that he and Millie are acquainted (she calls him “Evans”) and Sam then mutters “Well, aren’t you going to kiss her?”  (I laughed out loud at that, too.)  Millie is then approached by the party’s hostess (Margaret Muse, who played Mrs. Greeley on TDOY fave My World and Welcome to It):

MRS. HARLOWE: Millie!

MILLIE: Oh, hi Mrs. Harlowe!  I want you to meet…

MRS. HARLOWE: I’ve been waiting for you to get here…I’ve been dying for you to meet George and Cynthia Bell…she does the most beautiful oils!

MILLIE (she’s been led away by Mrs. Harlowe): Sam, you speak to Evans here…he’s on Wall Street…he knows all about the stocks!

I forgot to identify the actor playing “Evans Biddleton”—though Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. fans will know him right off the bat.  Forrest Compton played Colonel Gray on that sitcom, and later went on to the soap opera circuit with roles on The Edge of Night, As the World Turns, Another World, One Life to Live, etc.

BIDDLETON: Stocks, eh?  The firm name is Biddleton, Morrissey and Glenn…I’m Biddleton…with the market down from the top, there are a number of stocks that I can recommend…growth situations, particularly…

Run, Sam!  It’s a member of the 1%!

SAM: Growth, huh?  Well, I-I-I’m not sure…I mean…stocks are a good thing, aren’t they?

BIDDLETON: Would you repeat that question?  (Laughing) Aw, you’re putting me on!

SAM: No, no…no, I’m not—I’m asking if… if stocks are good…as an investment…

BIDDLETON (after a pause): I have a splendid idea…when you make up your mind what you want…just call my company…oh, you don’t have to ask for me—anyone can help you…

And with that, Biddleton sprints the length of the room in order to get away from our hero.  Sam simply doesn’t have the social gadabout skills that gifted Millie, though I think this might have a lot to do with the fact that he spends most of his free time hanging out in a fix-it shop with three bozos who couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel.  Even Miss Rogers, Millie’s madam, gives Sam the snub (she says to him “You must be getting a bit homesick by now” before realizing that there are more interesting people to talk to on the other side of the apartment)…and that’s when Millie sizes up the situation:  She leads Sam into a room off to the side, away from the party throng:

MILLIE: Well?

SAM (sighing): Well, that’s…quite a group!

MILLIE (rubbing her neck): They are crazy…but fun…

SAM: Yeah…i-is your neck bothering you?

MILLIE: Oh, yeah…it’s from posing all day…

SAM: Oh…oh…well, here…sit down and let me get the kinks out of it…

Yeah, I know…you’re thinking that Sam and Millie are going to move on from the neck rub to something that involve the people in the other room…the neighbors will start to complain…the cops will show up…and a banner headline in the Mayberry Gazette reading “Hometown Sweethearts Caught in N.Y. Sex Orgy!”  As you are well aware by now…we’re never that lucky.

SAM: I…uh…I suppose…uh…living up here would be fun for…a little while…but…i-i-it’s not the kind of atmosphere that you could take on a long term basis…

MILLIE: Oh, you’re so right…

SAM (surprised): Oh?

MILLIE: I’ve had a wonderful time up here these past few weeks but believe me, I’m ready to go home…

SAM (pleased): Oh…y-yeah…yeah, well…uh…I mean, for your…plain everyday living, nothing beats good ol’ Mayberry, huh?

MILLIE (smiling): Absolutely…

SAM: I mean, these New Yorkers…they’re…they’re like they’re on a big merry-go-round…

MILLIE: Ah, you can say that again…

SAM: Who needs that, huh?

MILLIE: Right!

Having established that you can take the girl out of the country but the country never strays far from the girl, Sam suggests they flee the Big Apple like mad…and Millie is in agreement, though she will have to say a few goodbyes first “because these people have been so nice to me.”  Knowing that he won’t have to kiss up to these phonies for much longer, Sam circulates toward the front door (and I like the cinema verité technique they used, following him) and finds himself a chair to plop down in.  And that’s when things get interesting…

SAM (standing up in a gentlemanly fashion as two women approach him): Hi!

MARI: Hi!  Haven’t seen you at one of these things before…

SAM: Yeah, it’s my first time…

(The blonde girl in white, Farrah, adjusts Sam’s tie)

FARRAH: Oh, your tie is crooked…

SAM: Oh…thank you…

MARI: You look…sort of outdoorish…

SAM: Well, I’m a…

Sam stops short and decides not to finish his sentence because he knows I’m just going to make fun of him.  (“That’s because I’m outside a lot,” he finally blurts out.)  The blonde in yellow isn’t really all that important—the actress is Mari Oliver, and the always reliable IMDb lists only four credits on her resume.  The other girl is a young Farrah Fawcett, in one of her first TV appearances.  Both girls are identified in the credits as “Show Girl #1” and “Show Girl #2,” which demonstrates the minds behind Mayberry R.F.D. do have a sense of humor…I went ahead and used their real names because in a minute, when the sh*t hits the fan, Sam does introduce Mari by her real first name (he gets interrupted before he can refer to the other as Farrah).  (Also—if these women are “show girls” then I’m George Clooney.)

Seated in his chair with the two lovelies beside him on each arm, Sam has suddenly become the life of the party—telling Mari “Don’t ride a bicycle for two weeks.”  (I have no idea what the hell that is supposed to mean, but that was the third and last time I laughed out loud.)  Farrah grabs a canapé from a passing tray and feeds it to King Sam…right in the eye line of Hurricane Millie:

MILLIE (pissed): If you’re ready to leave now…

SAM: Oh…hi, Mill—what’s the hurry?  Oh…this is…uh…Mari, and…uh…

MILLIE: I thought you were so anxious to go?

SAM: Well…well, wouldn’t that be impolite?  I mean…the…the Harlowes were nice enough to invite us here…with all these…interesting people…and…

MILLIE: Pardon us…

She yanks Sam out of his chair and begins to drag him toward the front door of the apartment, saying goodbye to the invited guests as well.  Harlowe says farewell to Millie as she and Sam exit, though he’s suddenly drawn a blank on Sam’s name.

Coda time!

Goober and Emmett are waiting patiently at the bus stop for Sam and Millie’s return.  As the bus pulls in, Emmett spots the two of them on the bus and grins widely.

EMMETT: Well, Millie—how’d ya like New York?

MILLIE: Oh, it was fabulous…simply fabulous!

EMMETT: How ‘bout you, Sam—how’d you like New York?

SAM: Oh fine, Emmett…a lot of attractions there…

MILLIE: Hmm…he had two of them sitting on his lap!

SAM (sharply): They were not sitting on my lap…

MILLIE: They were so!

SAM: They were sitting on the arms of the chair!

MILLIE: Ha!

SAM: Ha?  I was just trying to be sociable…

EMMETT: How was the Astor Hotel, Millie?

MILLIE: It’s not there anymore…

Sam and Millie continue with their argument down the street, bags in hand.  Emmett remains confused:

GOOBER: Ain’t true love wonderful…

EMMETT: I wonder if she was kiddin’ me…?

GOOBER: About what?

EMMETT: About the Astor Hotel…

GOOBER: Well, maybe they moved it…

EMMETT: How could they move a hotel that size???

GOOBER: Well, maybe they had a big truck…

Yes, sir…for your plain everyday living—nothing beats good ol’ Mayberry.  (I think I understand now why Sam and Millie never made it to the 1986 Return to Mayberry reunion.  She was probably still doing that stretch at Alderson after poisoning him fourteen years earlier.)

With the return of the wickedest woman in Mayberry, Aunt Bee Taylor, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s patented Bee-o-Meter™ edges the episode count to three show-ups for Season 2 of the sitcom (and fifteen appearances overall).  But I need to warn you Aunt Bee fans in advance…we’re coming up on a Bee dry spell—our favorite meddlesome housekeeper will not return to the series until the beginning of that dreadful Palm Springs story arc, so you might want to treat any symptoms of withdrawal with classic Bee in reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  We also got good news in that Sam’s cretinous son, Mike the Idiot Boy (Buddy Foster) was also a no-show this time around…but the bad news is that he will return in the next Mayberry Mondays, “Mike’s Birthday Party.”