Post by niecie on Feb 15, 2014 15:31:06 GMT -5
Aka, to me at least, as TNOT Glaring Anachronism. The Statue of Liberty is a huge part of the plot here, and yet only the hand with the torch had been delivered to the USA by the time of the Centennial. And while it is possible that a picture of the finished statue, being made ready in France, might have been available in the US by the time of this story's setting, the sonnet by Emma Lazarus certainly was not; she wrote it in 1883, well after Grant was no longer president.
Artie's line about how he 'can't cook' is rich fodder for fanficking, since most of us have him down as an excellent, even gourmet cook. My instant presumption upon hearing the line was that he was speaking of his character Herr Ostropolyer, who is a pastry chef and not a cook.
M'Guigan certainly presents himself as a champion of the common man. I wonder how he was planning to get out of making that break if Jim hadn't conveniently shown up just then.
At least this week's explosions don't come with cartoony graphics!
The Denver police get cast more in the role of Keystone Kops here. The police chief is fun as a source of comic relief and bombastic bluster. Why do he and his men freak when Jim tosses the evidence to him? He just said Jim could handle the live bombs, and Jim repeats that back to him as he throws the thingy to him. If Jim is handling the live ones, what he's tossing to the chief must not be live, yet they all panic.
And then Jim throws in a little male chauvinistic line about a bomb being like a woman. *glare*
Artie/Ross looks very much at home in the kitchen, and reports are that Ross loved to cook for his friends. Vito Scotti, who plays the rival chef, was also well-known for his culinary skills. Like Ross, Vito was one of the all-purpose-ethnic character actors of the era, even playing a Japanese sailor in an episode of Gilligan's Island.
There's a lot of slapstick going on in this episode, between Vito's rage against Herr Ostropolyer and the cops being Kops. One of my favorite bits is when Vito slings the sausage string around his neck so hard, he has to grab a knife to cut it away. Another of his bits is that he uses a big ol' meat cleaver to chop the veggies. I'm not sure if he's being too upset to realize he's got the wrong knife, or if he's sending a message to his rival by using that huge knife. I just know it cracks me up.
I love the kitchen version of a Mexican stand-off! (Vito with the butcher's knife, Artie with the bowl full of eggs.) And notice that as Artie crosses the room to show Jim the cake, he carefully does not turn his back on Vito. I also love how Artie gets to indulge himself in cracking snide insults. Humor in WWW is one of the main reasons I've always loved the show.
Of course, Jim gets in a bit of humor as well, telling Artie if he finds the dynamite, Jim will arrange for someone to pour cold water on his face to revive him.
(Could those eyebrows Artie wears possibly be longer or bushier? Was Artie trying to outdo Judge M'Guigan in the eyebrow department?)
Now here's the question: Did Jim ask Artie to make him that cake because he knew he would need it shortly as a weapon?
So this musical number is going to be staged during the upcoming banquet, right? So whisking the table cloths away? Isn't that potentially going to be messy? (And when we get to the dance sequence during the banquet, that particular section doesn't appear onscreen.)
It's funny to me the admonition that Vashti's act must be morally uplifting, considering the dance-hall outfit she's wearing.
I like how the pianist is keeping the beat, waiting for when she comes in. (Ok, I like the pianist period!)
Judge M'Guigan and his incredible teeth!
Everyone turn and stare at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Jim was almost unfair, scaring everyone by tossing the clock into the pail of water! (And shouldn't he have cleared the room before he picked up the suspicious clock in the first place??)
The clock salesman seems a trifle unknowledgeable about clocks, asking Jim how old the one he has is. Wouldn't someone who sells clocks like that know something about his wares?
And Act Two begins with the judge reciting the lines of Emma Lazarus' poem, well before she ever wrote it. (And no offense to Artie, but his kneading technique could use a little work.)
'You square-headed ninny'! What an insult the judge levels against Artie! And I love the way Artie reacts by dropping his shoulders and jumping a tiny bit.
I love Artie jumping all over those dudes for dumping the case of 'champagne' on the floor. And lo and behold, the dynamite! (So where's the guy with the cold water, hmm?)
Zeno Baroda is one of my favorite villains in WWW. He has such curious aphorisms, sees right through Jim, and has such a natty, distinguished look to him. (Mind, he makes me furious later when he nearly blows up Artie!)
Ok, what's the name of the dude Jim fights with by the water trough, the same guy who planted the bomb billiard ball earlier, then got a faceful of Jim's cake (and is the Act One freeze frame)? I can't find him in the cast list for this episode, mainly because I never caught the character's name. Anyone know?
Hmm... When the shot rings out, the horses behind Jim jump.
The next scene starts silly, with Vito's character threatening Artie over the dancing girl. Once Artie sees a suspicious character (we know it's Zeno Baroda, but I'm not sure if Artie does), he handles Vito very quickly, then heads upstairs to see what Zeno is up to -- and the policemen don't even notice the baker heading upstairs in his full white outfit with a gun in hand!
(Artie looks like he feels a bit foolish for pulling the gun after the flaming shish kebab hits the pillar next to him, but until Vito pops out and takes credit for throwing the skewer, Artie really had good reason to fill his hand!)
Now, Artie goes to the judge's door to see if he's all right, and at this point there's already a bullet-splinter in the door, before Zeno saps Artie, knocking him out, then yells at the door and shoots it. Why was there a bullet hole already? Was it supposed to alarm Artie? But we didn't hear any shooting before Artie got knocked out. (I don't understand!)
(When Artie gets knocked out and his hat -- or toque -- falls off, my but that's a lovely gray-streaked head of hair! He sure looks fine in gray hair!)
Question: Zeno fires four bullets into the door, and NO ONE comes running from any direction to find out what all the shooting is about? In particular, there were at least two policemen a few feet from the bottom of the stairs when Artie came up, and THEY didn't even hear the gunfire???
The toy bear closing in on unconscious Artie is such a suspenseful sequence! A real nail-biter, at least for me. And then the perfect timing of him rolling over and pushing himself up off the floor just in time for the bear to pass by. And his punch-drunk lines to the bear just before he realizes what this thing inches from his nose must be!
So he snatches it up and flings it toward the window and BOOM! And even after that, no policemen come running!! The only person who notices is Judge M'Guigan who pops out of a different door -- and Artie gets to make yet more snide comments about Vito's cooking.
Jim gets off a fine snide comment himself as soon as M'Guigan sets foot on the Wanderer.
What sort of game is Jim playing with the cards? He seems to be just dropping them into a single pile one by one. All I can figure is that he's counting them?
How did Vashti know the judge was there?
Vashti and the judge together are So Very Annoying!
Jim, at least, trusts Vito's cooking. And he gets in yet another zinger against the hapless chief of police.
I wonder if the actors themselves thought of the Keystone Kops while wearing those costumes!
And while the chief is wandering around the banquet hall, congratulating his men on such good work, who walks in behind him but Zeno himself. I love how he taps the chief's shoulder with a drawn gun, then offers himself to be arrested -- in fact, he insists!
Jim tests his bullet-proof vest at point-blank range, and the vest doesn't even get a mark on it? Much less a dent! I find that hard to believe.
Nice map. The western areas, just at a cursory glance, seem to have the proper boundaries for the era.
We get to see some of the hiding places within the varnish car. I always enjoy that sort of thing!
The closed captioning does NOT know how to spell Ostropolyer! Actually, when he gets that envelope, I try very hard to get a look at what's written on it, but have never succeeded. I like the 'tip' he gives to the bellhop (or whatever that young man's job is).
Jim is thinking, unlike the police chief. If the main suspect demands to be arrested, the chief really ought to be wondering why instead of just chortling over his own supposed brilliance.
Ok, the voice of Herr Ostropolyer under the bandages sure sounds like Artie! But the wire. When Jim sees the wire, why does he pull it out from under Ostropolyer, then grab the girl and tell her not to move? Shouldn't he have instead sent her away and studied that wire before moving it? And then he cuts the wire, still without studying it?
Seriously, even with the bandaged face, who could mistake Judge M'Guigan for Artie? The size and body shape are all wrong!
Question: the Statue is a decoration, a cake-topper. So why does the torch come away in a single piece, and how could the judge count on that being the case? The torch could have been molded into the rest of the arm so that trying to remove it would wreck the whole arm.
So could Jim hear what the judge was telling Vashti? There seems to be a small window in the door.
Banter. Love the banter!
Umm... in the midst of the patriotic medley,while M'Guigan is being all shifty-eyed and pulls a small gun from his pocket, isn't that music 'Jesus Loves the Little Children'?
M'Guigan, in his speech, insults his fellow judges, and the police chief laughs aloud. I guess he didn't realize the man wasn't joking.
When Jim lights the match and it goes out, it sure looks to me like Artie blows it out! And I love the exchange: 'Give me another bullet' -- 'You ate the last one!' *grin*
I wonder how much Vashti and M'Guigan knew about the blast radius of their torch bomb.
The way the door blows out is just great!
Bless Jim for figuring out the torch is a bomb and dowsing it! But the police chief is still showing himself to be an idiot, isn't he?
Ah, the 'Sorry about that, chef' line! One of my all-time favorites!
Now are the policemen so stupid that when the judge tells them to stop the man who's following him and the man turns out to be the federal agent they've been dealing with all along, they really try to stop him? Yep, Keystone Kops.
Umm... has M'Guigan become so married to the idea of getting rid of the members of the Supreme Court that he's just going to gun them down in front of everyone? He starts firing at them! I sure hope he missed!
(I wish John Hoyt had been there playing one of the Justices...)
Aw, poor Artie, upset over his cake. But it's marvelous seeing ol' Judge M'Guigan all caked up and in custody. Heh.
I love the line about the president being in his right mind.
Vashti -- my, but she's loyal to her co-conspirator, ain't she?
(Well, Vito gettin' all caked up is worth the price of admission too. Oh, but he winces his eyes shut just before the cake hits him!)
Artie's line about how he 'can't cook' is rich fodder for fanficking, since most of us have him down as an excellent, even gourmet cook. My instant presumption upon hearing the line was that he was speaking of his character Herr Ostropolyer, who is a pastry chef and not a cook.
M'Guigan certainly presents himself as a champion of the common man. I wonder how he was planning to get out of making that break if Jim hadn't conveniently shown up just then.
At least this week's explosions don't come with cartoony graphics!
The Denver police get cast more in the role of Keystone Kops here. The police chief is fun as a source of comic relief and bombastic bluster. Why do he and his men freak when Jim tosses the evidence to him? He just said Jim could handle the live bombs, and Jim repeats that back to him as he throws the thingy to him. If Jim is handling the live ones, what he's tossing to the chief must not be live, yet they all panic.
And then Jim throws in a little male chauvinistic line about a bomb being like a woman. *glare*
Artie/Ross looks very much at home in the kitchen, and reports are that Ross loved to cook for his friends. Vito Scotti, who plays the rival chef, was also well-known for his culinary skills. Like Ross, Vito was one of the all-purpose-ethnic character actors of the era, even playing a Japanese sailor in an episode of Gilligan's Island.
There's a lot of slapstick going on in this episode, between Vito's rage against Herr Ostropolyer and the cops being Kops. One of my favorite bits is when Vito slings the sausage string around his neck so hard, he has to grab a knife to cut it away. Another of his bits is that he uses a big ol' meat cleaver to chop the veggies. I'm not sure if he's being too upset to realize he's got the wrong knife, or if he's sending a message to his rival by using that huge knife. I just know it cracks me up.
I love the kitchen version of a Mexican stand-off! (Vito with the butcher's knife, Artie with the bowl full of eggs.) And notice that as Artie crosses the room to show Jim the cake, he carefully does not turn his back on Vito. I also love how Artie gets to indulge himself in cracking snide insults. Humor in WWW is one of the main reasons I've always loved the show.
Of course, Jim gets in a bit of humor as well, telling Artie if he finds the dynamite, Jim will arrange for someone to pour cold water on his face to revive him.
(Could those eyebrows Artie wears possibly be longer or bushier? Was Artie trying to outdo Judge M'Guigan in the eyebrow department?)
Now here's the question: Did Jim ask Artie to make him that cake because he knew he would need it shortly as a weapon?
So this musical number is going to be staged during the upcoming banquet, right? So whisking the table cloths away? Isn't that potentially going to be messy? (And when we get to the dance sequence during the banquet, that particular section doesn't appear onscreen.)
It's funny to me the admonition that Vashti's act must be morally uplifting, considering the dance-hall outfit she's wearing.
I like how the pianist is keeping the beat, waiting for when she comes in. (Ok, I like the pianist period!)
Judge M'Guigan and his incredible teeth!
Everyone turn and stare at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Jim was almost unfair, scaring everyone by tossing the clock into the pail of water! (And shouldn't he have cleared the room before he picked up the suspicious clock in the first place??)
The clock salesman seems a trifle unknowledgeable about clocks, asking Jim how old the one he has is. Wouldn't someone who sells clocks like that know something about his wares?
And Act Two begins with the judge reciting the lines of Emma Lazarus' poem, well before she ever wrote it. (And no offense to Artie, but his kneading technique could use a little work.)
'You square-headed ninny'! What an insult the judge levels against Artie! And I love the way Artie reacts by dropping his shoulders and jumping a tiny bit.
I love Artie jumping all over those dudes for dumping the case of 'champagne' on the floor. And lo and behold, the dynamite! (So where's the guy with the cold water, hmm?)
Zeno Baroda is one of my favorite villains in WWW. He has such curious aphorisms, sees right through Jim, and has such a natty, distinguished look to him. (Mind, he makes me furious later when he nearly blows up Artie!)
Ok, what's the name of the dude Jim fights with by the water trough, the same guy who planted the bomb billiard ball earlier, then got a faceful of Jim's cake (and is the Act One freeze frame)? I can't find him in the cast list for this episode, mainly because I never caught the character's name. Anyone know?
Hmm... When the shot rings out, the horses behind Jim jump.
The next scene starts silly, with Vito's character threatening Artie over the dancing girl. Once Artie sees a suspicious character (we know it's Zeno Baroda, but I'm not sure if Artie does), he handles Vito very quickly, then heads upstairs to see what Zeno is up to -- and the policemen don't even notice the baker heading upstairs in his full white outfit with a gun in hand!
(Artie looks like he feels a bit foolish for pulling the gun after the flaming shish kebab hits the pillar next to him, but until Vito pops out and takes credit for throwing the skewer, Artie really had good reason to fill his hand!)
Now, Artie goes to the judge's door to see if he's all right, and at this point there's already a bullet-splinter in the door, before Zeno saps Artie, knocking him out, then yells at the door and shoots it. Why was there a bullet hole already? Was it supposed to alarm Artie? But we didn't hear any shooting before Artie got knocked out. (I don't understand!)
(When Artie gets knocked out and his hat -- or toque -- falls off, my but that's a lovely gray-streaked head of hair! He sure looks fine in gray hair!)
Question: Zeno fires four bullets into the door, and NO ONE comes running from any direction to find out what all the shooting is about? In particular, there were at least two policemen a few feet from the bottom of the stairs when Artie came up, and THEY didn't even hear the gunfire???
The toy bear closing in on unconscious Artie is such a suspenseful sequence! A real nail-biter, at least for me. And then the perfect timing of him rolling over and pushing himself up off the floor just in time for the bear to pass by. And his punch-drunk lines to the bear just before he realizes what this thing inches from his nose must be!
So he snatches it up and flings it toward the window and BOOM! And even after that, no policemen come running!! The only person who notices is Judge M'Guigan who pops out of a different door -- and Artie gets to make yet more snide comments about Vito's cooking.
Jim gets off a fine snide comment himself as soon as M'Guigan sets foot on the Wanderer.
What sort of game is Jim playing with the cards? He seems to be just dropping them into a single pile one by one. All I can figure is that he's counting them?
How did Vashti know the judge was there?
Vashti and the judge together are So Very Annoying!
Jim, at least, trusts Vito's cooking. And he gets in yet another zinger against the hapless chief of police.
I wonder if the actors themselves thought of the Keystone Kops while wearing those costumes!
And while the chief is wandering around the banquet hall, congratulating his men on such good work, who walks in behind him but Zeno himself. I love how he taps the chief's shoulder with a drawn gun, then offers himself to be arrested -- in fact, he insists!
Jim tests his bullet-proof vest at point-blank range, and the vest doesn't even get a mark on it? Much less a dent! I find that hard to believe.
Nice map. The western areas, just at a cursory glance, seem to have the proper boundaries for the era.
We get to see some of the hiding places within the varnish car. I always enjoy that sort of thing!
The closed captioning does NOT know how to spell Ostropolyer! Actually, when he gets that envelope, I try very hard to get a look at what's written on it, but have never succeeded. I like the 'tip' he gives to the bellhop (or whatever that young man's job is).
Jim is thinking, unlike the police chief. If the main suspect demands to be arrested, the chief really ought to be wondering why instead of just chortling over his own supposed brilliance.
Ok, the voice of Herr Ostropolyer under the bandages sure sounds like Artie! But the wire. When Jim sees the wire, why does he pull it out from under Ostropolyer, then grab the girl and tell her not to move? Shouldn't he have instead sent her away and studied that wire before moving it? And then he cuts the wire, still without studying it?
Seriously, even with the bandaged face, who could mistake Judge M'Guigan for Artie? The size and body shape are all wrong!
Question: the Statue is a decoration, a cake-topper. So why does the torch come away in a single piece, and how could the judge count on that being the case? The torch could have been molded into the rest of the arm so that trying to remove it would wreck the whole arm.
So could Jim hear what the judge was telling Vashti? There seems to be a small window in the door.
Banter. Love the banter!
Umm... in the midst of the patriotic medley,while M'Guigan is being all shifty-eyed and pulls a small gun from his pocket, isn't that music 'Jesus Loves the Little Children'?
M'Guigan, in his speech, insults his fellow judges, and the police chief laughs aloud. I guess he didn't realize the man wasn't joking.
When Jim lights the match and it goes out, it sure looks to me like Artie blows it out! And I love the exchange: 'Give me another bullet' -- 'You ate the last one!' *grin*
I wonder how much Vashti and M'Guigan knew about the blast radius of their torch bomb.
The way the door blows out is just great!
Bless Jim for figuring out the torch is a bomb and dowsing it! But the police chief is still showing himself to be an idiot, isn't he?
Ah, the 'Sorry about that, chef' line! One of my all-time favorites!
Now are the policemen so stupid that when the judge tells them to stop the man who's following him and the man turns out to be the federal agent they've been dealing with all along, they really try to stop him? Yep, Keystone Kops.
Umm... has M'Guigan become so married to the idea of getting rid of the members of the Supreme Court that he's just going to gun them down in front of everyone? He starts firing at them! I sure hope he missed!
(I wish John Hoyt had been there playing one of the Justices...)
Aw, poor Artie, upset over his cake. But it's marvelous seeing ol' Judge M'Guigan all caked up and in custody. Heh.
I love the line about the president being in his right mind.
Vashti -- my, but she's loyal to her co-conspirator, ain't she?
(Well, Vito gettin' all caked up is worth the price of admission too. Oh, but he winces his eyes shut just before the cake hits him!)