The Buster Keaton Show: Unknown Episode Title 1 (1951)

Okay, so Buster had two TV shows that both aired in the early ‘50s, The Buster Keaton Show and Life with Buster Keaton.  If I understand it correctly, I think these were essentially the same show airing in different parts of the country, but I’m not positive (I know that some of the bits from one or both of these TV shows were also cut into a feature film that was shown in the UK.)  There are a few episodes from both floating around online, and I’m not always entirely certain with show they’re technically supposed to be “from,” so over the next few Buster Mondays, take the title with a grain of salt.

The basic premise of the show is that Buster works as a sales clerk at a sporting goods store, and I think also manages a community theatre on the side, if I have it straight (there’s no theatre stuff in this episode, but I know it plays a part in some of them.)  Regardless, either locale is a prop-filled excuse for him to get into trouble.  That’s how this episode starts, in the sporting goods store with Buster being a danger to himself and others as he tries to equip two professors for an expedition to Africa.

But as you can guess from the episode title, things don’t remain at the sporting goods store.  For reasons unknown, Buster is enlisted as an assistant to the professors in a soundstage version of Africa while they search for the “missing link” (since they’re looking for a live animal and not a fossil, it makes me wonder how widely-understood the idea of a missing link was at the time.)  In between wreaking his usual havoc, Buster of course stumbles upon the professor’s big prize – as it happens, the missing link is a university-educated gorilla who speaks with a plummy British accent (obviously.)

It’s made most definitely on the cheap, and the plot, as you can see, is pretty hokey.  Some of the jokes are off-the-wall in a good way, while others feel stale.  There are a few decent pieces of slapstick – especially Buster getting his hand caught in a trap and badly attempting to erect his tent in the jungle – and the odd bit of good business here and there, but not as much as you’d hope to see from Buster.

Also, this being 1951 and the characters of a sitcom making a trip to Africa, the portrayal of African people is decidedly lacking.  There are a few bits about “superstitious natives” and the like, and just a general insensitivity.  That said, there’s one English-speaking African character with whom Buster chiefly interacts, and I do appreciate that Buster always talks to him like a regular guy.  For all I know, that would’ve been comic in and of itself to audiences in the ‘50s, but I’m glad not see Buster speaking in exaggerated pidgin English or otherwise talking down to him, so that’s something.