WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW
[ jazz music plays ]
[ geese honking ]
[ ducks quacking ]
[ water splashes ]
on today's show,
bill and I are gonna do
a tribute to benjamin franklin,
I'm gonna show you
some exercises
and appliances you can wear
to look thinner,
dougie's gonna do something
weird with his face,
and then harold and I
are gonna do a little bit
of stream fishing.
And now here's the reason
we're all here
and you're all there
and everyone else
is everywhere else --
my uncle, red green!
Hi.
Thank you very much.
This week, I got some good news,
I got some bad news.
What's the bad news?
Meet my nephew, harold.
[ keyboard clacking ]
[ engine chugging ]
and now the good news.
This week marks
the 130th anniversary
of the creation
of the spincast fishing reel.
Wow!
And when you stop
to think about it,
every over-fished lake,
river, and stream
owes its present state
to this marvelous invention.
Wa-a-a!
So, the question is,
how are we gonna celebrate
this momentous occasion?
Now, moose thompson
had an idea.
He said, "why don't we put
all the guys' names into a hat
"and you pull a name out
and whoever's name you get,
you go give him a wedgie?"
great idea. Not a lot to do with
the spincasting, but I like it.
Uncle red, how about an evening
of entertainment, then,
with the local
theater company --
the possum players?
No, harold. No, harold.
Not a good idea to get actors
and hunters together...
Especially those actors.
And these hunters.
Instead, we're all gonna meet
in the center of town,
we're gonna hold up
a spincast fishing rod,
buzz is gonna fly over
in his plane
and take
an aerial photograph.
Well, what if
somebody blinks?
Well, we'll retouch
the photograph, harold.
We got to airbrush most
of your teeth out anyway.
[ engine chugging ]
if you can't be
with the plane you love,
love the plane you're with.
[ zither and guitar play ]
♪ oh, we had an earthquake
late last night ♪
♪ it shook the lodge,
and gave us all a fright ♪
♪ night ♪
♪ a fright ♪
♪ hit about 9
on the richter scale ♪
♪ the scale ♪
♪ bounced all the contents
out of the minnow pail ♪
♪ pail ♪
♪ so, we went outside
till the danger passed ♪
♪ 'cause if the lodge goes down,
it'll go down fast ♪
♪ zippity ♪
♪ but it wasn't an earthquake
shakin' the ground ♪
♪ ground ♪
♪ it was a kid in a chevette
with the bass turned up ♪
way beyond
any sensible level.
[ creak! Splash! ]
all right.
Here's the situation.
You've just taken your wife
out for dinner
at one of those lovely
"all-you-can-eat" places.
Which, of course,
is a direct challenge
no real man could refuse.
Absolutely.
You got yourself up.
You're on your way up there
for your ninth plate of beef
without having
a leaf of salad yet.
Your wife turns to you
and says, "hey!
Are you having more meat?!"
what do you say?
You say to her, "honey,
I like the rare part.
"nobody else
is ordering beef,
"so it has fallen on me
"to single-handedly
eat my way right through
into the middle
of that roast."
or you could try,
"people are starving in africa."
that one worked
for my parents.
Oh, that's --
that's going for the jugular.
That's a good one.
Or you could say, uh,
"I'm not just eating meat.
I'm also
having vegetables."
I mean, horseradish
is a vegetable, right, red?
Sure is.
So is gravy, I believe.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And don't forget salt.
Salt.
You know...
That's right there on
the vegetable list in my book.
Salt, yep.
Or, you know,
worst-case scenario,
if she's still
on your case,
look at her
and give her this face...
And then say,
"it's okay, honey.
I'm not having
any dessert."
[ bounce! Bounce! ]
"for sale -- antique hope chest.
"hope you like it.
Hope it's valuable.
Hope to get $500."
wa-a-a!
Not a hope.
[ ducks quacking ]
now, with everybody
getting ready
for this, uh, aerial photo
for the, uh, commemorating
the invention
of the spincast reel there,
the beauty parlors and
barber shops around possum lodge
are jammed to the eyeballs.
So, I thought I'd take
today's "handyman corner"
and show you how to do
a complete beauty makeover
using stuff you find
right around your house.
All right, uh, let's start
with something for the ladies,
uh, like doing your nails,
for example.
Get yourself a pizza box
like this
and, uh,
trace your hand on there.
And then punch out all
of the fingernail tips there,
and then all you have to do --
this is
a real great time saver --
is you just, uh,
put your hand inside the box,
take some spray paint there,
and just, uh, put that all
on there.
And it doesn't matter how --
you know, how you do it.
[ chuckles ]
I hope the other lodge members
still respect me
with, you know,
painted fingernails.
All right.
Oh, uh, well, you have to
have the back of your hand
against the holes.
This actually looks like I've
been arrested and fingerprinted.
Guys will respect me now
for sure.
But, you know, for you ladies,
there's all kinds of tools
right in the workshop
you can use
for beauty treatments.
Uh, you could, uh,
tweeze your own eyebrows...
[ saw buzzes ]
...Shave your legs...
Lay the makeup in there.
Want pierced ears?
Try a pop riveter.
If you're having trouble
fitting into that dress
that you bought last fall,
you don't need a girdle.
Get yourself
one of these tube socks
and cut the toe out of that,
and just slip that baby
on there.
You'll get a shape that'll get
all kinds of attention.
[ creak! ]
it's coming.
Almost got it.
[ boing! Boing!
Boing! Boing! Boing! ]
come on.
[ boing! Creak! ]
there we go.
And I'll tell you --
you're not just looking good,
you're losing weight,
'cause there's no way
you can eat food
when you're wearing this type
of a unit.
And another thing is,
you want to make sure
your digestive system
is tight as a drum.
All right,
now what about the men?
What can they do to get
themselves kind of gussied up
for a fancy occasion?
Well, basically,
they shave and get a haircut.
I don't even do that.
I don't shave, myself.
But when I have to go somewhere
and look real good,
like, uh, at funeral
of somebody with money,
what I'll do is, uh, cover up
my beard with these, uh...
Flesh-colored bandages.
And I just camouflage the beard.
Man, I look like jay leno.
As far as the haircut goes,
you know, the reason
that a barber can charge you
up to 7 bucks to cut your hair
is 'cause he's learned
how to cut every hair
exactly the same length.
But there's a cheap way
that you can do that at home,
even if your head
isn't bowl-shaped.
Okay, first thing you need
is an old lamp.
Take the cord off of it.
[ electricity crackles ]
and then, uh,
get rid of the lamp
so your wife doesn't ask
any stupid questions.
And then you want to take one
of them light dimmers
and hook that into the middle
of the cord,
and hook that all up,
and I'll show you how that --
[ electricity crackling ]
... Works.
All right,
once you got that hooked up,
plug her in and then attach
the bare ends of the wires
to your earlobes.
Now, when I, uh,
turn on the dimmer here,
the electricity flows
into the head of the victim --
uh, I should say,
"the customer" --
making his hair stand
right up on end,
making it real easy to cut.
You're gonna end up with a fella
who's not only handsome,
but handy.
Watch this.
[ crackle! Whoosh! ]
not quite what I had in mind,
but he's not gonna need
a haircut for a while.
Stay tuned.
Coming up, bill has another
negative experience
with gravity.
And then buzz shows harold
what it's like at boot camp.
I want to talk
to all you middle-aged guys
about how you feel tired
all the time.
I know
what you're going through.
Many's the time I sit
in the living room there,
listening to my wife talk,
and all of a sudden,
my leg will fall asleep.
Or I'll be going
up a flight of stairs
and have to pull over into the
slow lane to let the dog go by.
And he's 17...
Which in dog years is...
Old man sedgwick.
Just seems that,
as the years pile up,
the energy level goes down.
Now, your doctor's gonna tell
you it's the hours you keep
or the food you eat
or how much of it
or not getting enough exercise,
plus the fact
that you've put on 75 pounds
since the last time
you did anything.
But I say it's all in your mind.
See, your mind has just
sat there quietly for 40 years,
watching your body do stuff
like, uh, flip over
the handlebars of your bike
or take the fast way down
from the roof...
Or go...
[ pencil snaps ]
...From picking up
too much wallboard.
And your mind is tired
of taking in all that pain.
So, one day,
when your brain is asleep,
like when you're watching reruns
of "matlock" or something,
your mind quietly
tells your muscles
to go to sleep
or cramp up or something.
And that exhaustion
is just self-preservation.
It's that simple.
You should be happy
that your body is too tired
to do the things
that you want to do,
'cause that tiredness
is saving your life.
Remember -- I'm pulling for you.
We're all in this together.
Well, this group photograph
we're planning to take
is turning into a portrait
of disaster.
Sometimes, I think
the residents around here
are one chromosome away
from dragging their knuckles
on the ground.
How difficult can it be
to tell them to show up on time
and just stand in the middle
of the street?
Exactly.
All they got to do is stand
there and stare at the sky.
They do it for an eclipse.
And some of the guys are saying,
"bring the plane in low
so you can't see
my bald spot."
and others want us
to delay it for a month
so they can go on a diet,
for gosh sakes.
Plane's gonna be 1,000 feet up.
No one's even gonna notice.
What a bunch of vain idiots.
Wa-a-a!
Says the guy who spent 10 bucks
on acne cream.
I had a flare-up!
Flare-up.
So, I just told the fat ones
to stand under
the grocery-store awning.
Grocery store's got
a new awning?
Well, yeah, see,
the merchants realized
their shops are gonna be
in the picture,
so now they're
fixing their stores up.
Oh, great.
Well, it was until they saw
the advertising potential.
Now the funeral parlor put
a great big sign on the roof --
"coffins --
priced to move."
oh, boy.
The worst was
murray's leisure wear.
10-foot letters --
"men's and ladies' pants,
half off."
[ engine sputters ]
well, what with picture day
coming up,
I thought we'd drop in
and see our resident
bush pilot/aerial photographer,
buzz sherwood.
Hey, buzz.
Yo, red-man,
how are you?!
Good, good, good.
Good to see you.
Hey, haro-o-o-ld!
[ harold grunts ]
[ laughs ]
oh, for crying out loud, harold,
how much can that hurt?
Gotcha.
[ laughs ]
I was asking harold.
So, buzz, uh, you all set
for the picture-taking thing?
Oh, sure. Sure.
Soon as we pass our safety
inspection, we're in business.
What safety inspection?
Oh, man,
the rule makers.
The whole corrupt system,
man --
they just want to tie my feet
to the ground, you know?
They pull these random checks,
right?
So that guys like me make sure
our planes are safe.
"safe"?!
I mean, what is safe?!
It's like,
are we supposed to predict
what's gonna fall off...
Or not?
[ splash! ]
see?! Sheesh!
Well, if they find something
wr-- what am I saying?
When they find something wrong
with the plane,
what happens then?
[ gasps ]
oh, man.
The flight fuzz come down
on you so hard, man.
Well, then
who are we gonna get
to fly over possum lake
and take our picture?
Oh, oh, don't -- don't --
don't panic. Don't panic.
Hey, your buddy buzz
has everything under control,
'cause I've been working
on beauty here.
She's gonna pass,
no problem.
I even caulked up
all them bullet holes.
Well, you missed a whole bunch
right there in the tail section.
Oh, those are --
that's okay.
Those are --
those are going-in holes.
I can say that was, like,
a hunting accident or something.
It's the exit holes
that make them nervous.
And, uh -- and look.
Look what I found.
Look what I found, huh?
Two more bolts
to hold the propeller on.
Now I got four
out of five there.
And -- and these things.
Did you know
these were called flaps?
And...And you're
supposed to oil them?
I mean, I've just
learned so much.
And -- like
the control panel.
I put a battery
behind it, right?
And now it looks
like it really works
with lights and everything.
It's just amazing.
So, you think beauty's
gonna pass this thing?
Oh, no problem.
I pumped out the pontoons
and duct-taped the holes.
It's gonna be great.
And that'll
fool the inspectors?
No sweat.
What if they ask you
to fly her?
Oh, well, they never do.
'cause that would mean
they'd have to get in it
and go up with me.
[ laughs ]
[ whoosh! ]
uncle red?
Uncle red,
what's this deficiency in adults
that makes them
want to drink alcohol?
Well, there's no deficiency,
harold.
It's a tradition,
a ritual.
Alcohol is a sign of friendship,
you know, like...
Baptism or installing a new pope
or a playoff game.
Wa-a-a!
Well, personally,
you know,
I-I-I just don't think
it's necessary.
For instance, like,
how come they need, like,
alcohol at, like, a wedding?
How come?
Well, harold,
without alcohol,
a lot of weddings
would never happen.
You know, it's --
it's up to each person
to know his own limit,
you know?
It's -- it's an individual
who makes the decision.
That's all.
Well, I think a lot
of the lodge members
are making bad decisions --
every weekend.
Well, harold,
either they've got a disease
that needs
to be looked after
or maybe they're trying to
escape an unpleasant situation.
Wa-a-a!
I never thought of the lodge
as an unpleasant situation.
Only when you're here,
harold.
Wa-a-a!
Well, don't you worry.
I'm going back home
in a few months.
Want to give us a push there,
harold?
The beer store closes
in an hour.
Time for "adventures with bill."
I've been reading the mail,
so I was out flying a kite,
of course.
And, uh, bill decided to join
me. Isn't that beautiful?
Just such a simple thing
up there, flying away.
It's kind of magical.
And bill's gonna whip out...
Oh, a kite kit.
Yeah, these are great.
Looks like he got
the childproof-lock bag,
which is sensible.
You don't want a kid, you know,
opening up one of those
and playing with a kite.
Luckily, bill has a vasectomy
kit in his other pocket.
[ boing! ]
oh, well, thank you, bill.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, "uh-oh" is right.
Now what?
You got another one of those
kits in your, uh, kit there?
Oh, that's fair enough.
Gonna give me his.
Oh, no, he has got another one.
All right, all right, all right.
Fair enough, fair enough.
So, now, with these, you know,
you got a little bit
of assembly required.
And, of course, we can
put these together
faster than most women
can read the instructions.
Bill's is kind of -- kind of
a wild-looking thing, isn't it?
Mine is norm--
what? Uh, bill?
Aha!
Get up.
Now, that's odd.
The wild --
the wild-looking thing is...
Whoa!
Unbelievable.
But, you know, to me,
the thing about wild kites is
they shouldn't really
be in captivity.
There you go.
Be free. Go, be free.
Ohh!
Fair's fair, bill.
So, we decided
to combine our efforts
and make a super-duper,
triple-triple-decker, 3-story --
yep, it's a beauty,
it's a beauty,
it's a beauty, it's a beauty.
All right, bill, throw her up,
throw her up, throw her up.
Let her go, let her go. Oh.
[ honk! ]
oh. Oh, boy.
Throw her up, throw her up.
Let her go. Let her go.
Oh. Oh.
Gosh, that...
All right, bill, bill, I'll
take care of that one, okay?
Oh, here --
now here's a kite kit.
Look at -- look at all this.
Look at this, look at this,
look at this, look at this.
Huh? What?
Little bit
of over-packaging there.
Oh, I see.
The kit is actually the box
that it comes in.
Well, now, that's smart.
All right.
Boy, this is a beauty.
This is a beauty.
This thing's --
this thing is really gonna fly.
It's gonna fly.
It's gonna...
That's -- think that string's
heavy enough?
All right, all right, all right.
Okay, bill.
Throw her up. Throw her up.
There she goes.
Oh, man, look at her go.
Look at her go.
Wow.
Look out, bill.
It's coming back. Bill -- oh.
Oh. Fair enough.
He's fine.
Oh, oh, oh. Up she goes.
Big wind. Big wind.
There she goes.
Lot of lift in her.
That's a 100-foot pine,
and that's a 97-foot pine,
and that's a 107-foot bill.
And now it's a -- oh,
a 100-foot bill, 90, 80, 70, 60.
Okay, that's a sea-level bill
there.
Is he all right?
Oh!
Checking over the kite.
Oh, there he goes.
He's okay.
We'll check his tail later.
[ groans ]
coming up,
we got winston rothschild,
the ultimate hoser,
and harold's gonna show you
how he colored this place mat
from the possum lodge diner.
It looked like that big
group-aerial-photo thing
was gonna be canceled.
We got the date all --
and the time
all nailed down
and everything,
but we got families feuding
with other families,
and they refuse to pose
in the same picture.
I got that covered, uncle red.
I have got that covered.
I have color-coded
the downtown area.
And look at this --
I put the potsons right here
because they don't want to
be near the richardsons,
who I placed strategically
over here, you see?
Now, they're in front
of the sims up here.
'cause you know why?
They hate the tylers.
Right there --
that's the tylers.
But that's okay.
That's gonna be okay
'cause what I've done
is I put us,
the green family,
right in the center of town,
right there at the crosswalk.
Wa-a-a!
And -- and the fredericks --
you know what I've done
with the fredericks?
Put them right there
as a defense.
Ask me why.
Don't, 'cause I'll tell you.
Because what I've done is
I'm protecting the sims
from the tylers, 'cause
if they try to sneak up here
and, you, know
on the flank of the sims --
can't happen 'cause of those
fredericks defense people.
What about the richardsons,
you ask?
I tell you --
they're right here,
and if they try the old
quarterback-sneak play,
what we do is
we reverse our offense
and we meet down here
at the mailbox
right downtown,
right there.
Wa-a-a!
You can just feel the love
in the community, can't you?
[ splat! ]
a lot of people
around possum lake think
this group-photo thing is
a total waste of time and money.
So, I thought we'd talk
to winston rothschild here
to get some of the
entrepreneurial angles
on the project.
Well, you know,
I've got a suggestion,
just off the top
of my hat, eh?
Why don't you take the photo,
laminate it...
And make place mats
out of it?
You know,
like for tables.
Well, I don't know,
winston.
I think an aerial shot
of possum lake's
gonna make it hard
on digestion.
Yeah.
And they'd be tough
to clean.
How do you tell the lake
from the stain?
Well, you know what
my, uh, business guru
and success mentor,
anthony anthony, says, eh?
"you got to seize
every opportunity,
you know,
and increase business."
well, all right, fine.
Well, tell everybody
how you're gonna use
the town-photo opportunity
to increase your business then.
Well, uh, like a lot of folks
owes me money, right?
Yep.
Dan gerlombi
owes me 50 bucks
for a job I done for him
last spring,
and, uh, well,
the keelys still haven't paid up
from last month.
Oh, fine.
Oh,
and there's this big job
for the saint germains
that I done.
I rescued a real expensive piece
of jewelry for them.
I mean, how hung over
do you have to be
to ralph your necklace
right off?
Well, I still
don't understand
how you're gonna get the people
to pay up, winston.
Oh, it's simple.
Uh-huh.
Like, I'm gonna go
to the photo...
Yeah.
...Dressed up
in my work clothes, right?
And when I see somebody
who owes me money,
I'm just gonna go over there
and stand next to them.
[ chuckles ]
exactly.
Yeah. Oh.
And when they pay up,
I'm gonna go over
to my next outstanding account,
eh?
You wouldn't believe
how fast
these folks are gonna
cough up the cash.
Yeah, I'm guessing
you'll get paid in full, huh?
Oh, I might even do better
than that, eh?
People don't count money
too good
when their eyes
are watering, eh?
[ buzz! Buzz! ]
and welcome to "the expert"
portion of the show,
where claiming to be an expert
this week with my uncle, red,
is mr. Dalton humphrey.
Okay,
here's the letter,
and it's from a viewer
in furrow, nova scotia.
Wa-a-a! All right.
Uh, "dear experts,
how can I make sure
that I have enough money
set aside for retirement?"
well, I'll tell you
what I'm doing.
Uh, I'm gonna retire at 65,
so I'm just putting enough money
away to last me,
and I'm -- I'm gonna be fine
as long as I die at 67.
Well, maybe just
never retire.
Yeah, because what you do
is you pick a job
where there's
no mandatory retirement age,
you know, like, say,
um, a politician.
Yeah.
Or a car thief.
Got to -- got to --
got to save for a rainy day.
Yeah, sure.
Maybe that's a better route.
Yeah, okay.
No, you got to save.
Make a sacrifice, you know?
'cause people
want everything.
They want food,
and they want shelter,
and they want clothing.
You know, the thing
you have to remember --
what my old man said.
He said, "you know,
you got to take your income,
"set some aside.
"some you live on.
Then you save
a certain percentage."
I keep it to around 10%.
Well, not everybody
can save 10%, dalton.
No, to live on.
You save 90%
of your income?!
Well, sure.
You know, you have to give up
a few luxuries,
like toothpaste or socks
or stuff like that.
And my daughter, uh,
spends a bit.
$400 for a blouse.
Hmm.
Huh!
$400 for a blouse
for my daughter.
You have a daughter?
I don't even have $400.
[ creak! ]
well, we all showed up
for the aerial photo
just as planned, but...
It didn't go quite as well
as we'd hoped that it would.
Well, you couldn't have asked
for a better day. Wa-a-a!
Could have pushed
for a better pilot, I think.
Buzz's plane
is not really equipped
to fly with all that
aerial-photograph equipment.
Buzz's plane really isn't
equipped to fly, period.
That's very true.
So, he borrowed a plane
from, uh, ranger gord --
one of them
water dive bombers.
So, we're all
standing there,
squinting up at the sun,
smiling.
Buzz comes over,
pulls the wrong lever,
soaks us with 1,200 gallons
of water.
You know, I really didn't mind
getting wet so much.
It was just that red chemical
they added to the water --
it really itches.
It's fire retardant.
Well, we don't
have to worry
about spontaneous
human combustion, anyway.
That was the bad news.
The worse news is buzz
had his finger over the lens.
Complete waste of time.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Did you not see the photo?
Oh, it's cool. It looks great.
There's like 1,000 angry,
screaming people,
you know, all covered in red
liquid, running helter-skelter.
Wa-a-a! Big pink finger,
right in the middle.
That does kind of capture
the spirit of possum lodge.
You know, I figured
what we could do
is sell the picture to one
of those tabloid newspapers.
"giant digit attacks townsfolk,
bleeds on petrified populace."
wa-a-a! Wa-a-a!
They pay big bucks
for pictures like that,
you know, of strange mutants
and aliens and elvis.
Well, I guess your family album
must be worth a fortune, huh?
Oh, no, uncle red. I don't
have that many pictures of you.
[ screeching ]
meeting time.
Wa-a-a!
If my wife is watching,
I'll be coming straight home
after the meeting.
I'm bringing you
a little anniversary gift.
I got you that, uh,
spincast fishing reel
I've had my eye on
for a month or so.
I know how much
you like nice things,
and this one's a real beauty.
I'll tell you what --
you wouldn't be embarrassed
to lend this to anyone.
And to the rest of you,
thanks so much for watching.
And on behalf of myself
and captain harold liner,
until next time, keep watching,
and keep your stick on the ice.
[ screeching ]
[ indistinct conversations ]
all rise.
All:
Quando omni flunkus, moritati.
Red: If you'd like to become
a member of possum lodge
and you got 3 bucks to blow,
you can either mail it to
the address here on the screen
or dial 1-800-ypossum.