We laugh to win!

In 1925, a group of expatriate Broadway thespians who had moved to the West Coast for film work decided to establish a social club where members could fraternize and enjoy each other’s fellowship.  It would be known as The Masquers Club, and its members included at various times such classic movie icons as Joe E. Brown, Frank Morgan, Pat O’Brien, Charley Chase, Edward Arnold, and Charles Coburn.  It’s still going strong today—you can even check out the club’s website when you get a notion.

The Masquers Club decided to capitalize on the talent present in their membership and get into the motion picture production business in the 1930s with a series of two-reel shorts produced at RKO.  They weren’t the only outfit to express interest in making their own movies; The Lambs Club did a similar series for Columbia (among the familiar faces were Lynne Overman and Leon Errol) while the Thalians (featuring the likes of Franklin Pangborn and TDOY fave Grady Sutton) cranked out shorts for Universal.  But the Masquers Club’s movies were, in the opinion of Leonard Maltin in Selected Short Subjects, “easily the best of these shorts”:

If these two-reelers had one consistent quality, it was that they tried awfully hard.  There was a conscious striving for offbeat humor, which at times was overbearing, but which often paid off.  In Rule ’em and Weep (1932), the sound effects are always wrong. In a duel that runs through the film, every time the guns are fired, different noises are heard.  And when a horse-drawn carriage pulls up to the country of Bulvania, where the story is set, the sound effect of a train slowing to a halt is heard.

Director Mark Sandrich poses with Dorothy Granger and
Eddie Borden on the set of Thru Thin or Thicket (1933)

Alpha Video has issued a fun collection of these bizarre two-reel comedies in The Masquers Club: The Pre-Code Comedies Collection.  The set kicks off with an entry described by Maltin as “one of the wildest in the series”—Thru Thin or Thicket; or Who’s Zoo in Africa (1933).  (Many of the Masquers shorts had double titles, something reminiscent of many episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle.)  Wealthy dowager Mrs. Chyzzlebottom (Grayce Hamilton) is financing an expedition in Darkest Africa on behalf of Professor Backwash (James Finlayson), who hopes to locate (despite some skepticism) the famous “Tarzan” of motion picture fame.  Instead, the party—with the help of reporter Scoop Skinner (Eddie Borden)—learns that that neck of the woods is ruled by the “Queen of the Jungle”—one Tarkana (Dorothy Granger), whose “yell” resembles in Len’s words, “a combination of Andy Devine and Johnny Weissmuller.”  Mr. M isn’t just whistlin’ Dixie when he says this is a wild short; it’s got some gut busting gags and wacky situations (Tarkana has a “homing pigeon” that’s a pelican) written by Ben Holmes & Walter Weems and directed by future Astaire-Rogers helmer Mark Sandrich.

"Youse is a viper!" declares Barbara Sheldon to villain Sam Hardy in Stolen by Gypsies (1933), who responds: "I hope she don't mean an old windshield viper."  (Okay, I didn't laugh at that so much as I did the reference to the classic Billy DeBeck comic strip Parlor, Bedroom, and Sink.)

Eddie Borden has a bit role in another short on the Alpha set—one that I found wonderfully amusing entitled Stolen by Gypsies; or Beer and Bicycles (1933).  (Borden figures in a running gag with June Brewster as the couple’s attempts to get in a little passionate necking are interrupted by various characters throughout the two-reeler.)  Stolen by Gypsies would the final short in the Masquers’ brief series; the best-known of their efforts (according to the [always reliable] IMDb) is the 1931 classic entitled The Stolen Jools (spoiler alert: the IMDb is wrong), which has been in the public domain for so long everyone’s seen it (if you haven’t—here it is).  A promotional short that sought to raise funds on behalf of the National Variety Artists’ campaign to combat tuberculosis, Jools spots an all-star cast in a funny tale about the hunt for some stolen bling belonging to Norma Shearer.  (Included in the cast are such TDOY favorites as Buster Keaton, Edward G. Robinson, Our Gang, Laurel & Hardy, and Wheeler & Woolsey.)

Stolen Jools isn’t in this collection, but the remaining shorts that are provide intermittent laughs and classic film celebrity wattage like Laura LaPlante, Walter Byron, John Sheehan, and Olaf Hytten in Lost in Limehouse; or Lady Esmerelda’s Predicament (1933—a funny melodrama that spoofs both Sherlock Holmes and Hairbreadth Harry-heroics) and Mary Carr, Russell Simpson, Lucile Browne, Russell Hopton, and Frank McGlynn, Jr. in The Moonshiner’s Daughter; or Abroad in Old Kentucky (1933—a feud between the Ratfields and Catfields in a tale from the hills).  My personal favorite is The Wide Open Spaces (1931), which features Ned Sparks, Antonio Moreno, Dorothy Sebastian, William Farnum, George Cooper, Claude Gillingwater, Frank McHugh, Tom Dugan, and George Chandler.  Moreno is a suspected bandito who’s smitten with heroine Sebastian…but she’s being pursued by crooked sheriff Sparks (as “Jack Rancid”).  When Dorothy agrees to marry Ned to spare Antonio’s capture (this is decided over a game of checkers), the two of them are about to be “spliced” when the justice of the peace (Gillingwater) asks Sparks to produce the ring.  Ned pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and a buttload of rings in various sizes falls to the ground.  Laughing, Judge Claude observes: “You’ve been ridin’ a merry-go-round!”

If Mack Swain is pourin'...I'm buyin'.  (Mack's the bartender in Wide Open Spaces.)

Brian Krey of Alpha Video provided me with a screener for this most entertaining compendium of classic film shorts…and I think fans of both two-reel comedies and those stars from the bygone days of Tinsel Town will want to add it to their bookshelf.  To quote Br’er Maltin: “Familiar faces and far-out humor were the order of the day in the Masquers Comedies.  They tried very hard to go off the beaten track.  Often they succeeded and sometimes they did not.  But the ingenuity that went into them always shines through.”

B-Western Wednesdays: Vigilantes of Dodge City (1944)/Sheriff of Las Vegas (1944)

Fans of the Sunday morning newspaper “funnies” might remember that Red Ryder rode the comic strip range in those pages from 1938 to 1964.  The strip was illustrated for most of its run by artist Fred Harman, who drew upon inspiration from an earlier strip he did from 1933 to 1938 entitled Bronc Peeler.  Ryder was a “peaceable” cowpoke who lived on the Painted Valley Ranch owned by his aunt—known as “The Duchess” (not my best friend from high school, of course)—in the Bianco Basin of the San Juan Mountain Range out Colorady way, and engaged in two-fisted western heroics assisted by Little Beaver, his young Native American sidekick…who unfortunately spoke in the same pidgin English that plagued the Lone Ranger’s Tonto.  (Little Beaver’s phrase “You betchum, Red Ryder” eventually made its way into the pop culture vernacular—I will sheepishly admit that I use it myself from time to time though I probably shouldn’t.)

Red Ryder was not only a popular newspaper strip, it was also a mainstay in the comic book racks from 1940 to 1957 under various titles (Red Ryder Ranch Magazine, Red Ryder Ranch Comics)—though for a brief period during its lengthy run those books were comprised of reprints from the comic strip.  Red Ryder was a merchandising fool: clothing, sporting goods, books, toys, etc.  The strip’s longest-lasting contribution to pop culture was the “Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle BB gun with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time”—featured, of course, in the Yuletide movie perennial A Christmas Story (1983).  (A friend of mine was completely unaware of Red’s history, once remarking: “I thought that was just something they created for the film.”)  Red Ryder also appeared on radio, airing on the Blue Network and Mutual (mostly on the West Coast) from 1942 to 1951, and featuring at various times the likes of professional narrator Reed Hadley, Carlton KaDell, and Brooke Temple as “America’s favorite fighting cowboy.”

Red Ryder came to the silver screen in 1940 in a twelve-chapter Republic serial entitled (what else?) The Adventures of Red Ryder, with Don Barry playing the titular hero…and making such an indelible impression that he spent the remainder of his movie career frequently billed as “Don ‘Red’ Barry.”  By the time Republic committed to a B-western series based on the property in 1944 (the first entry being Tucson Raiders), however, the studio cast “Wild” Bill Elliott in the part…and after making a total of 16 Red Ryder features Elliott was replaced by Allan “Rocky” Lane for seven more outings (the studio wanted to move “Wild” Bill into bigger and better things).  Republic’s Red Ryder series ended in 1947…but only because of a clerical error on the option-renewal date; the owner took advantage of this loophole to hold out for more money.  (Republic decided “Nuh-uh” and continued to make thirty-eight non-Red Ryder films with Lane until 1953.)  There was one last gasp at resurrecting the Ryder franchise at Eagle-Lion between 1949-50 with Jim Bannon as Red; these four films were made in Cinecolor and two of the features that survive in this process were released as a “double feature” from VCI in 2004.

VCI is the reason why I’m doing a “B-Western Wednesdays” post today, by the way.  I received an e-mail flier from the company back in the latter part of December, and though I know better not to do this I clicked on the link for their “Clearance Sale” just for a browse.  (I’m an idiot, I know.)  Ostensibly, I had planned to just buy a copy of Chariots of the Gods (1974) for my fadduh (it was on sale for $3.00) because…well, in addition to his obsession with reality TV shows and MSLSD, he also watches a lot of those UFO-themed programs—you know, the ones where the narrator refers to people as “ancient astronaut theorists” because he’s too polite to say “wacko birds.”  Anyhoo, while browsing the stacks I also found copies of two of their Red Ryder volumes (11 and 12) for sale at $6 each and before you could say “Classic movies never go out of style” all three were nestled snugly in the online shopping cart and on their way to the House of Yesteryear.

Volume 11 kicks off with Vigilantes of Dodge City (1944), an excellent example of how the Red Ryder series represents Republic at the apex of their B-western powers.  Red does not reside in his usual Painted Valley environs (I think they only used that locale in the first film in the franchise), but rather in the hamlet that required a U.S. marshal with “a chancy job” that “makes a man watchful…and a little lonely”: Dodge City.  Red is breeding horses for a U.S. Cavalry contract, and while inspecting his stock with Little Beaver (Robert “Bobby” Blake) and cowpoke Denver Thompson (Tom London), hears gunshots not far from where his horses are situated.  The trio rides hard towards the source of the shooting, but arrive too late to stop the robbery of $40,000 from a freight wagon (and the murder of two men, including the driver).

The wagon belongs to The Duchess (Alice Fleming), who operates a freight line in addition to her ranch; she and Red are unaware that the robberies are being staged by Luther Jennings (LeRoy Mason), a local banker (what else?) who very much wants to buy out “Auntie” Duchess but she refuses to sell.  (Jennings hopes that the robberies will result in the freight line’s inability to continue obtaining insurance…and fortunately, he’s enlisted the help of Walter Bishop [Hal Taliaferro], the man who’s collecting the policy premiums.)  With the help of his chief goon Ross Benteen (Bud Geary), Jennings concocts an eevill scheme to rustle Red Ryder’s horses…and then pin the theft of those equines on Red himself!  Our hero is in a sticky situation…but it all comes out in the wash, as he rounds up the bad guys and brings them to justice.

Boyd Magers at Western Clippings gives Vigilantes of Dodge City four stars and calls it “high energy, non-stop action.”  He’s not exaggerating, either; the highlight of the movie is a climactic chase where bad guys Jennings and Bishop have kidnapped Little Beaver and are making a run for it in a wagon while Red and Denver give chase with a stagecoach.  The wagon is carrying a shipment of dynamite, and at one point in the action the vehicle is set ablaze as Red and Jennings fight to the finish.  The stunts in this little programmer are incredible; it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that the second unit director on the movie was one of the motion picture industry’s finest stuntmen, Yakima Canutt.  It’s got a great cast of oater veterans: Mason, Taliaferro (he played a good guy in the Red Ryder serial), London, Geary, Kenne Duncan, Stanley “The Old Ranger” Andrews, and The Man with the Perpetual Sneer—Bob Wilke.  (TDOY fave/Republic serial queen Linda Stirling plays the ingénue in this one—she was in quite a few of the Ryder films—but she doesn’t get much to do, sadly.)

Paired with Vigilantes is Sheriff of Las Vegas (1944); Magers isn’t quite as enthusiastic about this one (two stars) but it’s not all that terrible.  In this entry, Red is appointed sheriff of that titular berg (this was before the casinos, of course) and has his hands full trying to solve the murder of prominent jurist Homer T. Blackwell (John “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” Hamilton), who gets croaked shortly after announcing to The Duchess and schoolteacher Ann Carter (Peggy Stewart) that he’s having banker-lawyer Arthur Stanton (Selmer Jackson) write his no-account son Tom (Jay Kirby) out of his will.  Suspicion in Blackwell’s demise falls upon Tom, of course—though it was really Tom’s disreputable buddy (and saloon owner) Dan Sedley (William Haade) what done the dirty deed.

I was entertained by Sheriff even though I’m convinced the movie’s major flaw is that you never really understand the motivation behind Sedley’s killing of Judge Blackwell (it’s sort of explained at the end, and even that clarification is weak).  (Then again, the only reason why Shakespeare had Don John in Much Ado About Nothing is that he needed a bad guy.)  Geary, Duncan, and Wilke are on hand for this one (playing different characters, natch), and the movie also benefits from the presence of old pros like Hamilton and Jackson.  There’s a bit more emphasis on comic relief in Sheriff (much of it at the expense of Little Beaver) …but I wouldn’t be telling you the truth if I didn’t say I smiled at some of the lighter moments from time to time.

The Red Ryder westerns run a little less than an hour (slightly longer than a TV episode from that 50s era) but when they’re en fuego with the action and stunts they’re entertaining as all get out.  Robert Blake, fresh off being an obnoxious kid (sorry, Baretta fans—but it’s true) with the Our Gang comedies at MGM, would play Little Beaver throughout the Bill Elliott and Allan Lane incarnations of the franchise—Don Kay “Little Brown Jug” Reynolds replaced him in the Bannon Eagle-Lion Ryders.  (Alice Fleming portrayed The Duchess in the Elliott films, Martha Wentworth in the Lane entries, and Marin Sais in the Bannon vehicles.)  I highly recommend these unpretentious little oaters for the dedicated B-western fan, and will hopefully return to some more of them on the blog in the future.

Book Review: The Perry Mason Book

“All I wanted was a list.  Just a little bitty list of Perry Mason episodes.”  That simple task would spur author Jim Davidson to write The Perry Mason Book: A Comprehensive Guide to America’s Favorite Defender of Justice—an e-book I picked up for my Kindle a while back.  Why?  Because I love watching Perry Mason, a habit I adopted when the series was in reruns on TBS in the 1980s; it would run five minutes past the lunch hour (12:05 ET), just as I was returning home from slaving over a hot book at Armstrong State College (now Armstrong Atlantic State University).  My major was in criminal justice, and so I was understandably drawn to a classic boob tube show featuring an attorney who—with rare exceptions—won every case he argued in court.  (Also understandably—I like to watch TV while eating lunch…regardless of my major.)

The quest for an accurate list of Masonry (sorry about that) would lead Davidson to form NAAPM—the National Association for the Advancement of Perry Mason.  (“My then-girlfriend wasn’t fond of the show and refused to watch it with me,” Davidson continues in the book’s foreword.  “So I figured, ‘There must be somebody out there who’d like to watch these episodes.’”)  Jim would eventually cobble together a tally of the show’s telecasts through the CBS Program Information Department in New York…and from there sprang forth a newsletter (in the days before the World Wide Web) and interviews with many of the individuals who worked on the show—including Raymond Burr hizzownself.  Eventually, Davidson had to disband the fan club to concentrate on the book he needed to write.

The Perry Mason Book does not take its “comprehensive guide” appellation lightly.  It begins with a history of how author Erle Stanley Gardner was inspired to create a character that has gone on to inspire many of the individuals familiar with Perry Mason (through books, movies, TV and other forms of pop culture) to become lawyers themselves—first with a thorough biography, and the events that led up to the debut Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws, being published in 1933.  (All of the subsequent Mason novels and “novelettes” [short stories] are listed with painstaking detail, with lists of the characters that appear in each printed version, and as to when they were adapted as movies or episodes of the TV series.)  In addition, both Perry Mason novels written by Thomas Chastain (in 1989 and 1990) are discussed, and there’s an exhaustive list of the attorney’s appearances in magazines (many of the novels appeared in serialized form in periodicals like Liberty and The Saturday Evening Post.)

Mason fans are no doubt familiar with the film franchise produced at Warner Brothers from 1934-37 (available since 2012 on a 2-DVD collection from the Warner Archive); several of the features starred pre-Code cad Warren William as Perry.  There’s a section on these films in Davidson’s book (though the author doesn’t seem to have too high of an opinion on W.W.—sorry, Cliff).  The radio version of Perry Mason (which aired over CBS from 1943 to 1955, and later transferred to TV as the soap The Edge of Night) also receives its own chapter (I did not know that John Lund was the first actor to play Paul Drake on this daytime drama—I always associate him with being the weakest of the Johnny Dollars), not to mention the comic books (published between 1944 and 1964) and the brief Perry Mason comic strip from 1950-52 (I did not know there was one—daily and Sunday!).

As you’ve no doubt guessed, the largest section in The Perry Mason Book centers on the popular series that aired between 1957 and 1966.  There’s a list of every single episode telecast, with enough arcane trivia (cast lists, quotes, etc.) about each installment to impress even the most jaded fan.  The attempt to revive the show in 1973-74 (The New Perry Mason) is also discussed in loving detail…or to be more accurate, non-loving detail—producer Ernie Frankel is quoted as saying: “It was just a nightmare.  It was the worst time of my life.  I’ve been through combat and it wasn’t nothing like that.  It was just awful—just awful.”  (Frankel, a story consultant for the original series between 1965 and 1966, not only appears to be sitting on the fence but later went on to produce Young Dan’l Boone…so I guess there are some lessons not easily learned.)  Supplemental material is presented in the form of mentions of the show in various pop culture outlets, including records, games, audio books, and magazine parodies (remember the MAD Magazine send-up “The Night Perry Masonmint Lost a Case”?)

It goes without saying, of course, that a book like this is impossible to read from cover to cover—I skimmed a great deal of its contents to get a general feel for what’s inside, and I’m sure there’s a number of things I could have touched upon but didn’t.  But I can say without exaggeration that if you’re a Mason devotee like Andrew “Grover” Leal or Our Lady of Great Caftan, having this book on your computer is a must—even though the author admits that tomes like The Perry Mason Book are by their very nature destined to become out-of-date.  As for Mr. Davidson, he was able to use his knowledge and expertise on the series to become the co-producer of the Perry Mason: 50th Anniversary Edition DVD set and contribute to such essential reference books as The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network TV Shows and The Best of Crime & Detective TV.  You can rest assured that I will have The Perry Mason Book at the ready whenever I hear the familiar strains of Park Avenue Beat.

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!