Jim Asher
06-05-2007, 11:17 AM
Been going through the Mill Creek set. (BTW, exactly half of the Shout! set is duplicated on MC[12 eps]. However, the 12 which are duplicated are all superior on MC, more complete and with commercials.)
Just wanted to highlight "Orchids and Violets", which IMHO is one of the great half-hours of comedy TV I've ever seen. (And it is uncut on the MC set, 28 minutes.)
What a show! Just a brief synop:
Ozzie and the boys welcome Spring by playing some baseball in the front yard. (A BIG front yard!) Ozzie gets all muddy, so Harriet won't let him in the house. Strangely enough, this triggers an idea in Ozzie's head to go downtown to get some violets for his wife. At the flower shop -- ORVILLE THE FLORIST :crazy: --, Orville decides that Ozzie, because of his muddy old clothes and because he only seems to have some nickels and dimes in his pockets, is on his way (or maybe already there) to the poor house. In a gesture of good will, Orville sends ahead a couple of orchids to Harriet instead of the violets, causing Ozzie to believe that his shipment never arrrived, and that some old beau (Cranston Poole) is once again after Harriet.
The absolute insanity of this episode is hard to describe. (A far more genuine example of TV surrealism than anything from that fount of Attitude, "Seinfeld".) The scene in the flower shop is amazing. Not only do we have Orville mistaking Ozzie as a homeless man -- maybe the best moment is when he hesitates to give Ozzie the address form, thinking Ozzie cannot write or read --, but after Ozzie leaves, the sparks really fly. The florist's wife is played by the great Wellesian and Shakespearean actress Jeannette Nolan, and poor poor Orville. She starts screaming at him for sending the orchids, and then she starts screaming at him because she is sick of flowers. "Flowers! Flowers! Flowers! That's all we ever get around here!!"
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Back at the house, Ozzie learns of the orchid delivery and decides that Cranston Poole -- after 20 years -- has sent them. This causes a major depression for Oz, and he and Thorny sit down at the kitchen table, to drown their sorrows -- with big glasses of milk! The scene at the kitchen table is one of those rare moments when the line between TV and life just dissolves. We really seem to be just listening in on two guys talking, the story stops, nothing happens. But then, as so often during the 1950s version of O&H, everything is happening.
Sorry to gush, but this episode is a masterpiece.
Just wanted to highlight "Orchids and Violets", which IMHO is one of the great half-hours of comedy TV I've ever seen. (And it is uncut on the MC set, 28 minutes.)
What a show! Just a brief synop:
Ozzie and the boys welcome Spring by playing some baseball in the front yard. (A BIG front yard!) Ozzie gets all muddy, so Harriet won't let him in the house. Strangely enough, this triggers an idea in Ozzie's head to go downtown to get some violets for his wife. At the flower shop -- ORVILLE THE FLORIST :crazy: --, Orville decides that Ozzie, because of his muddy old clothes and because he only seems to have some nickels and dimes in his pockets, is on his way (or maybe already there) to the poor house. In a gesture of good will, Orville sends ahead a couple of orchids to Harriet instead of the violets, causing Ozzie to believe that his shipment never arrrived, and that some old beau (Cranston Poole) is once again after Harriet.
The absolute insanity of this episode is hard to describe. (A far more genuine example of TV surrealism than anything from that fount of Attitude, "Seinfeld".) The scene in the flower shop is amazing. Not only do we have Orville mistaking Ozzie as a homeless man -- maybe the best moment is when he hesitates to give Ozzie the address form, thinking Ozzie cannot write or read --, but after Ozzie leaves, the sparks really fly. The florist's wife is played by the great Wellesian and Shakespearean actress Jeannette Nolan, and poor poor Orville. She starts screaming at him for sending the orchids, and then she starts screaming at him because she is sick of flowers. "Flowers! Flowers! Flowers! That's all we ever get around here!!"
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Back at the house, Ozzie learns of the orchid delivery and decides that Cranston Poole -- after 20 years -- has sent them. This causes a major depression for Oz, and he and Thorny sit down at the kitchen table, to drown their sorrows -- with big glasses of milk! The scene at the kitchen table is one of those rare moments when the line between TV and life just dissolves. We really seem to be just listening in on two guys talking, the story stops, nothing happens. But then, as so often during the 1950s version of O&H, everything is happening.
Sorry to gush, but this episode is a masterpiece.