Doris Day(s) #9: “The Librarian” (12/03/68, prod. no #8510)

The last time Thrilling Days of Yesteryear paid a pilgrimage to The Doris Day Show (back in the second week of August, for those of you keeping strict accounts) I made a joke along the lines of “like sands through the hourglass, so are the Doris Day(s) of our lives.”  Well, with this week’s episode…it’s more like sand in a bathing suit.  Nine episodes into this project, and already I’ve found an episode that…well, in keeping with the fact that last Thursday was Thanksgivukkah, this one is a real leftover turkey.

So if this post is a bit shorter than previous Doris entries, it’s because I lost interest in this installment very quickly.  As our show opens, we find ourselves at the breakfast table in the House of Webb—the Laird and Master, Buckley Webb (Denver Pyle), is having his gi-normous coffee cup filled by housekeeper Aggie Thompson (Fran Ryan)…while his farmhand lackey, Leroy B. Semple Simpson (James Hampton), has just polished off one hell of a breakfast.

LEROY: Them was the best buckwheat cakes ever made by the hand of man…

AGGIE: Oh! Well, thank you!

BUCK: Are you sure you had enough?

LEROY: Well…

AGGIE: You had twelve already…

BUCK: Fourteen!  But who’s counting…?

AGGIE (leaving the table, as does Leroy): Now…he’s still a growing boy…

BUCK: True…but do we want him growing sideways or up and down?

I’ve eaten a buckwheat pancake a time or two (the city of Kingwood in my home state of West-By-God-Virginia holds a Buckwheat Festival every year) and to be frank…they’re kind of an acquired taste.  So if Leroy can polish off fourteen of those muthas, more power to him.  At this point in the narrative, the Widow Martin (Doris Day) enters the kitchen, greeting her family in that trademark sunshiny fashion of hers.  She asks Leroy if he’s planning on going into town and since he is, she requests a favor.

For some unexplained reason, as she crosses over to the breakfront to grab a mug and saucer she trips over something on the floor.  I don’t think this was planned—but I like how she covers by asking “Aggie, what is that?” with Ryan’s character ad-libbing “Sorry, honey.”  Not a gut-buster by any means, but I did kind of chuckle because when Dodo tripped I cracked “Somebody’s started early.”

DORIS: Anyway—I don’t think I’ll get into town…so…I’d appreciate it if you’d take them back for me…would you?

LEROY: To the library?

AGGIE: Well, you don’t take books back to a meat market…

LEROY: Well, libraries make me uncomfortable…

“All that readin’ and knowledge and stuff…”

AGGIE: Now how many times have you been in one?

LEROY: Once…

“And that was just to use the restroom.”

DORIS: Why don’t you try again, Leroy?  I mean, really take the bull by the horns…

LEROY: Okay…but I’d rather take the bull by the horns…

Doris sits down at the table and greets her father as Aggie asks her if she’d care for some scrambled eggs.  “Eggs?  I thought I smelled hotcakes cooking here,” she observes.

Aggie informs her that all that’s left: the smell…which prompts Dodo to give her pa this look that I thought was worth a snicker:

“Not me,” explains Buck as he nods his head in the direction where Leroy skedaddled.  “The growing boy.”  The scene then changes to a shot of Buck chopping wood and scolding nearby chickens to “get out of the way” or they’re going to be guests for Sunday dinner at Webb Estates.  Aggie wanders out, looking for Leroy, and is told by Buck he’s not back from town yet.

AGGIE: You suppose something could have happened?

BUCK: Sure something happened!  He got lost!

AGGIE: Oh, come on…he’s made that trip three hundred times…

BUCK: That boy could get lost twixt here and that front porch there…

Haha, because Leroy is a moron.  We then hear the beeping of a horn, which indicates that Leroy has finally come home from his uneventful trip to town.  As he exits his vehicle, the audience sees two large stacks of books on the front seat of the truck, which he removes with some difficulty because they are two large stacks of books.  “He stuck up the library!” comments Aggie.

BUCK: Where’d you get all them books?

LEROY: From my library card…

AGGIE: Your what?

LEROY: My library card!

AGGIE: Oh…

BUCK: Since when have you had a library card?

LEROY: Since this mornin’…they’re free, you know…

“For a fella who started out hatin’ libraries, you sure converted awful quick,” responds Buck.  He and Aggie then ask Leroy if they can take inventory of the tomes he borrowed from the Cotina Public Library…

BUCK (reading): “History of Greek Philosophy Since Plato”…since when are you interested in Greek philosophy?

LEROY: Well, I thought it was about time I started getting into it… (Chuckles)

AGGIE (reading): “A Study of the Hatching Muscle of Some North American Ducks”…?

BUCK: It’s not what I’d call….uh…light readin’…

AGGIE: Or light carryin’ either…

Leroy excuses himself, as he’s preparing to carry his load o’books to the humble digs he calls his room and commence to readin’…so Buck reminds him that while he was out on his library spree, he took the initiative to perform some of Leroy’s chores, which is why we saw him chopping wood as this scene began.

BUCK: You don’t suppose you could find time to stack it between books?

LEROY: Stack it between books? (Interpreting Buck’s jokey double meaning) Stack it between books…that’s pretty good, Mr. Webb…

“He acts like he’s been brainwashed,” cracks Aggie as Leroy struggles to open the door to his room with two stacks of books in each arm.  “I hope not,” replies Buck.  “He can’t stand the shrinkage.”

There is a dissolve to what is apparently the following morning, and as Buck stands on the porch he does this little stretch maneuver that produces a cracking sound in his back…

…and with that bit o’physical comedy out of the way, Lord Nelson—the Martin’s faithful (if purloined) sheepdog—comes running up to Buck for a pet and a scratch behind the ears.  Buck, noticing that Leroy is carrying his books out to the truck in a similar manner as when he toted them in, grins mischievously and says to the dog: “There’s your ol’ buddy…give him a kiss!”

With a look of terror on his face, knowing he’s about to be knocked over by a dog the size of a Shetland pony, Leroy falls to the ground, scattering books everywhere.  (Funny.)  As Buck walks over to where his farmhand is sprawled out with books all around, he chuckles and calls off his dog.

BUCK: What’s the trouble?

LEROY (picking up books and taking them to the truck): Oh…dadgum Nelson…run into me and…the books fell…

BUCK: Looks to me like they exploded…

You can be a real dick when you want to be, Buckaroo.

BUCK: Where you headed?

LEROY: Out…

AGGIE (walking up to them): Wasn’t you plannin’ on havin’ breakfast?

LEROY: I already ate…

BUCK: Uh…you aimin’ to take those books back already?

LEROY: Well…yes, sir…

AGGIE: But you just took them out yesterday!

BUCK: Now do you mean to tell me that you read all of these books in, uh, one night?

He does not mean to tell you that.  (Simply because none of the books had pictures.)  “Well…I think I hit all the high points,” burbles Leroy.  He gets into the truck and explains that he needs to get the books back in a timely manner because people will probably be anxious to read them.  “I’ll bet ya that hatchin’ gang from North America are beatin’ down the door,” Buck tells him.  After then being asked by Buck if there are any chores of his he wants done while he’s in town, Leroy drives off.

“The way I look at it,” declares Aggie, “there’s one of two possibilities.  That boy is either in trouble or in love.”  A horrible realization comes over Buck.  “Leroy in love?”

Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.  For that is perzactly what has befallen our foolish young farmhand: he’s got it bad for one of the librarians, and that’s why we’ve been cursed with this episode.  Now, there’s a slightly amusing bit as Leroy enters the library: he’s wearing squeaky boots and as he makes his way toward the checkout desk in walking he annoys the other patrons.  He stops and starts a couple of times and finally winds up running to the desk, where the banality of this dialogue can continue with this young lovely playing the librarian, Winifred Proxmire:

This is actress Kelly Jean Peters, whom you might recognize from the Arthur Penn-directed western Little Big Man (1970), a longtime fave here in the House of Yesteryear.  Her other film credits include Any Wednesday (1966), Pocket Money (1972), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) and Witches’ Brew (1980).  She had semi-regular roles on such series as Hank and Cagney & Lacey, and her most infamous boob tube gig is the one she didn’t get: she was in the first All in the Family pilot, Justice for All, in the role that ultimately went to Sally Struthers.

LEROY: I was here yesterday…

WINIFRED: I know…

LEROY: You remember?

WINIFRED: Well, it’s hard to forget someone who took out so many books…

LEROY: What?

WINIFRED: It’s hard to forget someone who took out so many books…

LEROY: Yeah…

Since Leroy is too senseless to realize that the reason why Ms. Proxmire is using low tones (and therefore has to repeat herself) is because they’re in a freakin’ library, this “Huh? What?” gag is repeated a number of times…but sadly, does not become funnier with repetition.

As Leroy continues to babble, a stern-looking woman approaches Winifred’s station and gives him this look during his conversation…

…which did amuse me a little.  And now, let’s get back to Leroy being an idiot:

LEROY: Maybe I ought to introduce myself…

WINIFRED: I already know your name…Mr. Leroy B. Simpson…

LEROY: Well, how ‘bout that…you know my name!

WINIFRED: Well, don’t you remember?  I made out your library card yesterday…

LEROY: So you did…my, oh my…so you did…and you remember me all the way down to my “B”…

Because the “B” is a mnemonic device for “bonehead.”  Well, this little flirtation between the two of them goes on for what seems like an eternity (she tells him her name is “Winifred” but her friends call her “Winnie”; he responds that his favorite dog’s name was “Winnie”) before this guy arrives on the scene…

…he’s Dr. Travis Peabody, later described by Winnie as “one of the leading authorities on nineteenth century English poetry,” and played by actor Ryan MacDonald (also billed as Mac Donald), who’s had roles on such TV series as Mannix, Nanny and the Professor and Falcon Crest—with a concentration on daytime dramas like The Secret Storm, Days of Our Lives, Santa Barbara and The Young and the Restless.  (His movie resume includes JFK and Newsies.)  Since Peabody is checking out a book of poetry by Keats, Winnie gushes to the Prof about how much she loves J.K.’s work and he offers to show her a “special first edition” of Keats that he owns.  (Along with some etchings.)  Naturally, their innocent tête-a-tête makes Leroy the Simple a bit jealous, and so he commits the first cardinal sin of sitcoms while chatting intimately with his new friend as she puts books away in the library stacks:

LEROY: You know…I happen to love nineteenth century English poetry myself…

WINIFRED: Really?  How wonderful! Our poetry club is meeting right here this week…maybe you’d like to attend!

LEROY: I sure would!

WINIFRED: It would be nice if you could do a reading for us…

“I tried to pull him out of the quicksand, Officer…but that boy was just too stuck for me to reach him.”

LEROY: It sure would!

WINIFRED: You could pick your favorite nineteenth century poet!

LEROY: I sure could…

WINIFRED: And maybe afterwards…we could out and have a cup of coffee together…

LEROY: Just the two of us?

“Us?  I was talking about Professor Peabody!  It’s been my dream to have hot monkey sex with an academic…”

WINIFRED: Uh-huh…

LEROY: Well…it’s a date!  And I’m buyin’!

And then our dimwitted hired hand says to himself: “Leroy…you are in big trouble.”  But not nearly as much as we are, because we have to come back after this word from Ralston-Purina.

In Act Two of “Leroy is Horny,” we find Doris’ sweets-loving kids, Billy (Philip Brown) and Toby (Tod Starke), racing across the yard in a panic (accompanied by Lord Nelson) and causing chickens to scatter in the process.  They are in quite a kid panic, for they burst into the kitchen to tell their mother that “Leroy is going!”  (Note the pie next to Doris in the below screen capture—it must be close to suppertime.)

DORIS: Going where?

BILLY: We don’t know…he said he’s just going and never coming back!

TOBY: He’s packing his suitcase!  You gotta stop him, Mom!

BILLY: Yeah, hurry Mom!  You gotta stop him!

Now…while there are probably more than a few of us out there who do not look upon this development as necessarily a bad thing, the kids’ continual yammering prompts Doris to get up from her chair at the breakfast table and investigate.  Running out with the boys to Leroy’s bachelor digs in the barn, Doris soon learns that her innocent handyman has really cocked things up, plotwise, this week…

DORIS: Leroy…what on earth made you agree to do a recitation on nineteenth century English poetry?

“Well, Miz Martin…while it would be easy to blame the writer of this week’s script…it’s mostly the little head doin’ the thinkin’ of the big head…”

LEROY: I don’t know…she just kept talkin’…and I kept sayin’ ‘yes’…

DORIS: Then you just got to go back to Winifred and tell her the truth…

“That you can’t even read ‘Joe Palooka’ without your lips moving…”

LEROY: If I do that, she’ll never talk to me again!

DORIS: Well, yes…but if you don’t, she’s going to find out herself…and then what?

LEROY: Well…by then, I’m gonna be long gone… (He snaps shut a suitcase)

DORIS (after a pause): Where do you plan on going?

“The U.S. Army will take me…I heard there’s an opening at a fort in Kansas…” Okay, he really doesn’t say that—this is just a jokey shout-out to my pal Hal at The Horn Section, who has recently instituted a long-discussed television project entitled “F Troop Fridays.”  (F Troop is the good sitcom on which actor James Hampton appeared.)  Leroy doesn’t know where he’s headed, but it will be somewhere…and young Tobias tells him “That’s chicken.”  (I’ll refrain from making the obvious Edward Everett Horton-F Troop joke here.)

DORIS (to the boys): Look…hey, fellows…I’d like to talk to Leroy…okay?

BILLY: That’s a good idea!

TOBY: Yeah, that’s a good idea!

Kid’s nickname should be “Echo.”

DORIS: Privately…

BILLY: Don’t you want us to help you?

DORIS: No, I think I should handle this myself…

TOBY: You won’t let him go, will you, Mom?

DORIS (hustling them out the door): No, I’ll try not to…

BILLY (stopping at the door): Leroy…Toby doesn’t really think you’re a chicken…

TOBY: Yeah…I was only fooling…

“I like cheese!”

DORIS (sitting back down on Leroy’s bed): Now, look Leroy…you know you don’t solve problems by walking away…

LEROY: I’m not walkin’ away…I’m runnin’ away…

DORIS: What kind of a solution is that?  Is that the only thing you can come up with?

LEROY: No…I could go to that poetry meeting and make a dern fool out of myself in front of Winifred Proxmire…

DORIS: Or…you could go to that poetry meeting and give the recitation you promised…

Dun-dun-DUN!!!  It always sounds so simple when Doris comes up with the answer.  Doris agrees to help Leroy with this task, even though Leroy “don’t know anything more about English poetry than a pig knows about soap.”  Since Leroy only has to learn one poem, Doris will help him choose one and supervise his memorization of such.  She selects Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “To a Skylark,” and much of the alleged comedy that follows is Leroy learning to recite the poem (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit/Bird thou never wert…”) which gets a bit repetitious, so I’ll edit most of that out (think of me as a television syndicator).  There is one humorous bit where Leroy is practicing his recitation in front of Buck and Aggie; Aggie jolts herself awake (“Reminds me of ‘The Face on the Barroom Floor’…”) and when Leroy asks Buck for his opinion he cracks: “If I wert thou…I wouldst find myself another gal.”

The night of the Poetry Club reading (they’re going to need a few off-duty cops working this thing, ‘cause it’s liable to get rowdy), Doris has agreed to go with Leroy because he’s nervous about doing his recitation by hisself.  The scene opens with a young man reading Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn”…

…he’s identified as “Carl,” and is played by an actor named Keith Taylor.  Die-hard couch potatoes might recognize him from Leave it to Beaver, where he played Beaver’s Larry Mondello replacement pal “Harry Harrison,” and he was also on a couple of episodes of My Three Sons as “Freddie Ryan.”  Most of the characters he played had affectionate nicknames such as “Tubby” (McKeever and the Colonel), “Chub” (an episode of Mister Ed), “Beefy Smith” (in the 1966 Disney film Follow Me, Boys!) and “Fat Boy” (an installment of Here’s Lucy).  So it’s refreshing to know that Taylor’s glandular problem was able to provide us with endless hours of amusement.  But when I spotted him in this Doris Day episode, I knew I had seen him elsewhere—and it’s a credit that’s not at the (always reliable) IMDb…

…yes, Taylor was the accordion-playing Georgie in the “Miss Farmerette” episode of the late, lamented Mayberry R.F.D.  (It always comes back to R.F.D., folks.)  Well, Georgie Carl finishes his poim and gets a nice round of applause from the poetry geeks (not too many cigarette lighters at these clambakes) and then it’s Winifred’s turn in the program to introduce Professor Peabody to the crowd, who stop tossing the beach ball long enough because Trav “has graciously consented to favor us with a reading.”  Three guesses as to which poem he’s picked…and the first two do not count.

Yes, Professor Peabody lays them in the aisles with his rockin’ cover of “To a Skylark,” which prompts Leroy to pull out a revolver and save the future of these write-ups by committing suicide.  No, I’m just kidding—I only wish that had happened—Winifred introduces Leroy, who nervously shuffles up to the podium…and like so many of us in high school who forgot that our book reports were due today, decides if he can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.

LEROY: First off…I guess I ought to tell you people that I…really don’t know anything about nineteenth century English poetry…in fact…the only poem is…one my daddy taught me a long time ago…don’t have any thee’s and thou’s and…wert’s in it but…anyways, here goes…

“There once was a gal from Nantucket…”

LEROY:  When things go wrong

                As they sometimes will

                (The crowd bursts out in laughter, and he continues)

                When the road you’re trudging

                Seems…all uphill

                And…the funds are low

                And the debts are high

                And you want to smile

                But…have to sigh

                When care is pressing

                You down a bit

                Rest if you must

                But don’t you quit

                (Quietly) Thank you…

Doris starts to clap, but quickly stops when she notices no one else is applauding.  Leroy begins his walk of shame out of the room (and you can even see Carl smirking a bit) while there is a noticeable murmur among those in attendance—probably something along the lines of “Who admitted the bumpkin?”  Doris then gets out of her seat and goes up to Winifred, beginning a conversation.  We do not learn what was said between the two of them because the camera shifts to Leroy searching for a way out of the building in his embarrassment.  But we can easily guess as to what Dodo and Winnie were chatting about, for Winnie takes Doris’ hands in an affectionate gesture and then runs out into the hall just in time to see Leroy still looking for the exits.

WINIFRED: Leroy, wait…please, Leroy…could I talk to you?

LEROY: You still want to?

WINIFRED: Of course I do…Mrs. Martin told me about everything…

LEROY: Well…she shouldn’t a-done that… (He turns to leave)

WINIFRED: No!  I mean…I mean I’m glad she did…really…

LEROY: Well, you must think I’m…

Nah, I’ll let this one slide.  Consider it a freebie.

LEROY (lowering his voice) …you must think I’m an awful dumbbell…

Besides, I knew he had it covered.

WINIFRED: I certainly do not…I think you’re very brave…

LEROY: You’re just saying that…

WINIFRED: No…it’s true!  I mean…how many people could have had the courage to go through with something the way you did?

LEROY (as he waits for several students to walk by): I must have looked pretty silly compared to Dr. Travis Peabody…

WINIFRED: No, it’s not true…I don’t care what you know…I care what you are…

LEROY: You mean that?

WINIFRED: Uh-huh…

LEROY: You remember the other day when I was in the library…and we were talkin’…well…you’re probably pretty busy right now…

WINIFRED: Leroy…remember that cup of coffee you promised me?

LEROY: Yeah…but…I’m buyin’, Winifred…

WINIFRED: Call me Winnie…

And Leroy would soon learn after they had their coffee and went back to her place just why they called her Whinny Winnie.  The end.

Not much of a coda on this one: Billy and Toby are engaged in a game of checkers when Leroy comes into the house, nicely dressed.  The boys tease him about his wearing his “Sunday best” and then Doris comes downstairs to help Leroy with his tie because idiocy.  The implication here is that Leroy and Winifred are now the talk of Cotina…which apparently didn’t last long since we never see her again in any subsequent episodes.  Doris then tells her spawn that it’s “sack time,” and while I secretly wished it would be something involving tying them up in a bit of burlap and tossing them off a bridge somewhere…it turned out to be just slang for the bedtime ritual.

Ye gods, that was painful.  I don’t want to offer up any excuses, but I think you can see why it took me so long to tackle this (though in all seriousness, I did have many, many other projects competing for my time…and don’t think I wasn’t grateful, either).  Next week (hopefully), another episode in our struggling saga of the Martin Family…one that involves an actor whose voice is familiar as one of television’s most famous cartoon characters.  It’s “The Camping Trip”…coming to a Doris Day(s) near you!