MONSTERS - "The Farmer's Daughter" (1989)

This Wacky Wednesday feature is episode six from season two of the 1989 TV show "Monsters!"

 

Almost as old as the concept of why did the chicken cross the road, jokes about the farmer's daughter have been around for decades.

The farmer's daughter's parents are like Ma and Pa Kettle, except they don't have any last names. Ma was played by Bobo (Blood Bride) Lewis, and Pa was played by George (Old Indy) Hall. Oddly enough, Bobo was also in a 1963 TV series titled "The Farmer's Daughter."

It's a cold and stormy night, so who else but a traveling salesman should show up?

And who might that traveling salesman be? None other than one of the finest comedians in the world, the one and only Soupy Sales as Howard Filby!

Ma and Pa ain't got no phone, and they ain't got no car, so Howard has no choice but to spend the night.

Ma and Pa break out the family photo albums for entertainment!

One of the photos is of a lovely young woman named Lucy as played by Stephanie Phillips who just happens to be Ma and Pa's daughter, she also just happens to be upstairs. Stephanie has only one other credit, and that's as reporter #2 in a TV movie titled "Call Me Anna."

Even the dimmest bulb in the world knows that no matter the time and place, if you sleep with the farmer's daughter, you damn well better keep your grubby mitts off of her, or there's gonna be trouble. Howard doesn't seem to understand the concept as he stares upstairs in delight!

Ma rigs up a 'modesty sheet' between Howard and Lucy just to keep him honest in his intentions.

Howard just can't take talking to a sexy silhouette any longer, so he eventually talks Lucy into revealing herself.

It's love at first sight for Howard Firby.

Lucy tells Howard that he can kiss her, as long as he doesn't touch her.

But of course, that's impossible for Howard under the circumstances, and then he finds out that Lucy disintegrates if he touches her. Why it was okay for them to kiss is up to you to figure out!

As expected, Howard is shocked by the whole situation!

But then, he did ask her to marry him, so what else can he do?

Lucy's condition just keeps getting worse.

 

And worse!

Take the commercials out of a thirty minute show in 1989, and you're only left with twenty-one minutes of story, and that's just fine with me. There's no filler, no long chase scenes, and little wasted time, and you can do the whole thing with only a handful of actors, or in this case, four. I've got a short attention span, so I'd rather watch three of these shows instead of an hour and a half movie any day!

Hey, did you hear the one about the farmer's daughter?

It ain't so funny no more!!

THE THREE STOOGES In "Men In Black" - 1934

Here's just the third short the Stooges made for Columbia Pictures, and it's a doozy. But, I don't get the 'men in black' title, they're dressed in white! Also, Curly's name was Curley in their earliest episodes before they later dropped the E.

The Stooges have been in medical school so long (years), superintendent Dr. Graves announces that the boys are now doctors, but, they need to work hard 'for Duty and Humanity.'

Then, the electronic PA repeatedly announces... "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!"

The boys take off like a bullet and Curly slams the door behind him, which causes the glass to break! The maintenance man shows up to find a big mess to deal with, as Dr. Graves and the other new doctors look on in disbelief . This is a running gag throughout the story, glass gets replaced, broken, replaced, broken, on and on.

In their quest for duty and humanity, the boys definitely overdo it. Love the guy on the left.

And, there's lots of flirting going on! You know, mid thirties, woo woo.

When the boys go to a room to assist another doctor in analyzing a patience's condition, she looks up at the boys and says...

 The place is haunted!

Larry hams it up and sings into Moe's stethoscope!

Then they're sent to a room to deal with mental patient played by the great Billy Gilbert (dude had 233 acting credits and was in everything back then). Anyway, it doesn't go well because the guy's nuts, he even acts like a cat and hisses at them, spitting all over Larry and Moe!

Later, Dr. Graves has accidently swallowed the combination to the safe, what to do?!

They don't carry around those mallets all the time for nothing!..

They have Dr. Graves on the table, ready to be operated on by the boys! The PA comes on and says... Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard, and the boys respond with, shut Up! The PA shoots back... You shut up!

After the operation, Moe stitches up Dr. Graves...

Moe then remembers... Where are the tools?!

The nurse helps Dr. Graves up, and he clinks and clanks his way out of the room.

Then the PA's up to its old tricks and the Stooges have had enough, they take their mallets and have at it. They finally get to the thing's innards and tear it to shreds! 

But it keeps calling for them, and they can't figure it out, until they find the culprit, that big transistor wobbling around there on the floor.

They grab their revolvers (don't ask me) and put the thing out of their misery! Welp, hope you had a few laffs with our favorite guys, The Stooges! We did!

THE REBEL SET - "Jungle Of Strange Kicks" (1959)

 

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is a hipster/robber flick from 1959 called "The Rebel Set," but let's get something straight first thing, You don't spell Beatnik Beatnick, because that's just not cool!

They tried to sell this film as being about rebellious beatniks, and their wanton ways, but that's not what it is at all!

The setting at the beginning of the film is a 'beat' club, and there's lots of cool and groovy music from Maestro Paul Dunlap no doubt!

The owner of the club is a shyster named Mr. Tucker as played by Edward Platt. His flunky is a two-bit crook named Sidney. Mr. Tucker has a plan to rob an armored car, and he sends Sidney out to get three known losers to help him with his plan. Edward Platt might be best known as The Chief on "Get  Smart" for 137 episodes, but he's done so much more than that including being in the episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "A Hundred Yards Over The Rim," and I believe he's the only person I know of who has been in three episodes of "The Outer Limits!"

 Ned Glass as Sidney had a totally amazing career that included lots of Three Stooges shorts, two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "A Passage For Trumpet," and "The Midnight Sun," two Elvis movies, and parts in everything from "War Of The Worlds," to "West Side Story."

The first of the three chumps is an out of work actor named Johnny Mapes.

Since a lot of you people out there don't even know how to drink a beer properly, here's a three point set of instructions on how to do it. First, get yourself a Churchkey, and punch a hole on one side of the top.

Second thing is you rotate the can 90 degrees, and punch a hole in the other side so that it acts as a vent!

The third step is to pour it down your gullet! You don't sip beer, it's made to be gulped!

Really talented beer drinkers can even drink with one hand in their pocket without falling down and breaking their face. This is really something to strive for!

Johnny's taking acting lessons from an "Act With The Stars" record.

The record is cleverly moved to reveal the next one of the three stooges to get involved in this heist!

"The Rebel Set" was made the same year as "Bucket Of Blood," and the hipster beat elements and antics are very similar in both of them. The cool jazz, free poetry, and distant people spacing out, would make the two films into a very hip double feature!

Here's the three victims chosen by Mr. Tucker to pull off his heist, from left to right. Ray (Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter) Lupton as failed author Ray Miller, Gregg (The Creature Walks Among Us, From Hell It Came) Palmer as failed actor Johnny Mapes, and Don (The Giant Gila Monster, Teenage Zombies) Sullivan, as bad boy loser son of a famous actress, George Leland.

Before we leave the beatniks and hipsters and this film turns into a fairly standard cops and robbers affair, we have to talk about the main act in the beat cafe, I. Stanford Jolley as a wildman beat poet called King Invader.

I. Stanford Jolley had an incredible 379 acting credits to his name that included sixteen tons of western movies, but he was also in serials that included "Batman," "The Phantom," "Superman," and "The Crimson Ghost," etc. This role as King Invader was quite different for him, and it looks like he relished it!

What a shot of a train!!

Well, of course the whole plan goes haywire in multiple directions. The guy with the least amount of money problems, George Leland, gets greedy, and gets a bullet for his excesses made to look like a suicide.

Mr. Tucker escapes dressed as a priest, and there is a long and tedious chase scene.

In one of the rare moments of intended comedy, just like in a cartoon, these three bums pop out of their hidden sleeping quarters to watch the scene go by, and just as quickly, duck back in!

Johnny Mapes cannot believe what he has just witnessed!

In a weird twist of fate, George Leland's dead body passes unknowingly right in front of his famous Mother, just as she's telling reporters that she's back in town to be with her son, and reunite their family!

 

"The Rebel Set" is in the public domain and can be viewed and shared freely via the Internet Archive.

It's only a little over an hour and eleven minutes, so what have you got to lose!?

I specifically didn't tell you the story so you can enjoy all the quirkiness of this 'jungle of strange kicks' firsthand!