No
contest, I’d say this guest-starring episode is the best of Buster’s forays
into television in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Some really funny, Bustery stuff here, along with a solid story and
decent production values. You can tell
it was absolutely made with Buster in mind, and I’d bet that he had a lot of
input with the comedy (premise spoilers for the episode.)
Buster
plays Woodrow Mulligan, the central character in this little yarn. Living in 1890 (where the scenes are shot
silent-movie style,) Woodrow is fed up with the “modern world,” where sirloin
steak costs a whole seventeen cents a pound and the streets are crammed, I tell
you, crammed with dangerous bicycles
whizzing about. As it happens, he’s also
the janitor for a professor who has just put the finishing touches on his “time
helmet,” which allows the wearer to visit any year for 30 minutes. Through an inevitable mishap, Buster winds up
getting transported by the helmet to the at-the-time present day of 1961, where
he’s in for a rude awakening about how he should’ve appreciated what he had.
As I
said, there’s some excellent comedy here, both in the silent-movie 1890 scenes
and in the “talkie” present-day scenes.
There are plenty of good sight gags in the opening 1890 sequences that
remind me a little bit of the “bustling” depiction of 1830s New York in Our Hospitality. It hits on the same dramatic (or in this
case, comedic) irony of someone in the past talking about this “fast, modern
world” they’re living in when we know about the sort of changes that are
ahead. Bits like Woodrow bemoaning the
headline “Government Surplus Only $85 Million” are great. And of course, there’s all sorts of slapstick
to be had, with lots of little touches that are Buster through and
through. I especially like the bit with
the cellar door, hanging up the harmonica on the clothesline, and the fight
with the vacuum cleaner. On the latter
note, all of Woodrow’s wary curiosity of 1960s technology is a blast.
There are
a couple of reused gags here, both of which involve a frantic, pantsless Buster
on a busy city street. When his
pantsless predicament (of course) catches the attention of a cop, a sort-of
friend Woodrow has managed to make fills in with the Fatty Arbuckle part from The Garage, first hiding Woodrow from
the cop and then, once they get him some pants, picking him up so he can put
them on without missing a step. I’ve
always loved that gag, and Buster still executes it like a pro here. There’s also a nod to the bit from Daydreams where an, again, pantsless
Buster pays for his new pants with a wad of cash he discovers in the pocket.
It’s a
little interesting to me that this is the theme of a story written for Buster
to star in it. I get why they set it up
the way they do, because starting in the past gives them an excuse to do the
silent-movie shtick, and it’s naturally gonna be funny to have Buster freaked
out by everything he encounters in the ‘60s.
Obviously, Buster does a great job with the episode and I’m sure had a
ball making it. But, given Buster’s love
of new things and changing times – we constantly see his fascination with cars
and other machines in his silent work, always innovating, and he once talked
about being at a Hollywood party with some of the old guard and being amazed
that no one there listened to the Beatles – it’s a bit ironic that the story
made for him is about a man from the past who thinks the world is already too modern and wishes he could go back
to a simpler time. It makes for good comedy,
and Buster can play the heck out of it, but that wasn’t him, not one bit.
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