Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 1044 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Float Like a Butterfly…
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 2010.09.05
Don enters his office as he tells Miss Blankenship to make him and Roger a pre-fight reservation "anywhere but the Palm." Hee. She replies that she doesn't know what the big deal is about the bout: "If I wanted to see two Negroes fight, I'd throw a dollar bill out my window." Given what we learn about her past, I wonder if she played the cougar to a young and impressionable Don Rickles. Peggy leads the team in and says she thought they were doing this at nine, and points out that it's eleven-fifteen. Don tersely replies that he's late, and I like how the episode trusts us to guess that he only just got himself together after a night of boozing without seeing the hard (sorry) evidence of it. The idea, as Stan tells it, is that two no-name football players (represented by him and Danny), holding an American Tourister and a Skyway suitcase, are facing off against Joe Namath, played by Joey, who gives Don an awesome winning smile as he holds up a football, and his defender, "a sexy girl holding a Samsonite." Guess Stan's come a long way from last week, given that he (a) seems actually to have done some work, and (b) was able to refer to Peggy as "sexy" without choking on the word.
Anyway, Stan and Jonathan try to blitz Joey, holding up their suitcases like those huge pads lineman train with, while Peggy holds them at bay with her Samsonite, and as Don's eyes go wide, I'm guessing not in a good way, Stan calls for the camera to punch in on Namath, and Joey does a quite passable imitation as he tells Don, "The secret to victory on the road is Samsonite. I carry it because it's tough. And no matter what comes at me, I know I'm protected." Given what I've heard about the behavior of good-looking athletes on the road, that could just as well work for a Trojan spot. Peggy finishes out the ad with a "Touchdown, Samsonite!" and then Joey puts his arm around her and they walk off into the distance, and by that I mean "Don's door."
Don's verdict is that endorsements are lazy, and if he'd been in charge I might have seen fewer ads like this as a child, but he goes on to add that he doesn't like Namath, which even though he hadn't played in a professional game yet, I can't get behind, growing up a Jets fan as I did. Peggy counters that Broadway Joe is handsome, and when Don tries to tell her that women don't buy suitcases, she replies that "Dr. Faye" says they do. At the invocation of his philosophical nemesis's name, Don dismisses the boys before snitting that he's glad that they're in an environment in which Peggy feels free to fail. Peggy points out that he wanted to go with Danny's idea, and Don says that's true, because it -- "Only Samsonite is tough" -- works, and it's only the execution that's the problem. Peggy, casting about for something with which to stem the tide of his disapproval, asks if it should be funny, but Don's not letting up: "Actually funny, maybe. Funny like what I just saw, no." Boy, I wonder what he would have been like if they'd actually done this at nine. Stung, Peggy, exits...