Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 343 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Do You Know How "Taps" Sounds on a Ukulele?
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2009.09.06
Gene banters with Sally about his "salt tooth" (don't ask) while eating ice cream at the kitchen table. He offers her some, and when she tells him Betty doesn't let them have ice cream before dinner, he replies, "She afraid you're gonna be fat like she was?" Funny how one little sentence from her dad can make Betty seem so much more understandable. He adds that Betty's mother used to drive her into town and make her walk home to lose weight, and then asks if Sally remembers Grandma Ruth. Sally: "She gave me a ukulele." One way to be remembered, all right. Upon hearing that Sally hasn't learned the instrument, Gene tells her she should -- she's smart. "You can really do something. Don't let your mother tell you otherwise." Kind of the gruff old man version of Oh, The Places You'll Go! Gene gets Sally to partake in the ice cream, and then comments, "This tastes like chocolate, but it smells like oranges." Here's a game to play at home: How many times can you say "I smell bread" before Gene has a stroke?
Out to dinner, Bronzo is regaling Pete and Don with tales involving Montezuma's Revenge, and then Pete tells Don that Bronzo thinks a photo of JFK enjoying jai alai would be a great endorsement. Somehow, it seems fitting that those two thoughts came so close together. Bronzo then waxes philosophical about how his father made his money -- he rented ships for troop transport during "the war," the point being that he was a profiteer and didn't do it out of any patriotic loyalty. Bronzo's scheme, however, while it may sound silly, has the potential to get people psyched about a new sport, "and people are gonna be dying to do business with me, even my father." That's the least likely thing about this entire scheme by far. Which is sad, because all this shows that Bronzo is one of those too-rich boys who still long for Daddy's approval, but considering he's getting the benefit of millions of dollars in 1963 to help him work through his issues, I can't feel too sorry for him. Don opines that Bronzo should take the decisions he's making a bit more seriously, causing Pete to seriously consider yelling "FIRE!" to get Bronzo quickly away from Don, but Bronzo wants to hear Don out, so Don tells him that while they're happy (in Pryce and Pete's case, ecstatic) to take his money, he thinks he should reevaluate "this particular obsession. You can do better." Pete looks like he might put in for a vacation that very night, but Bronzo, after looking confused for a few moments, laughs and erroneously concludes that Don's just employing a sales technique, and says he learned a lot about advertising from the galleys of a book by "Oh-GIL-vee." Oh, brother. Don, pronouncing the name correctly, asks why, then, Bronzo isn't retaining Ogilvy, but Bronzo evenly replies, "Because Campbell talked me out of it." As Pete restrains himself from a completely beatific smiles, Bronzo adds that they need to get one thing straight -- "if jai alai fails, it's your fault." Don looks at Bronzo like he's suddenly a lot happier about taking his money.