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
After a closeup on a flyer offering free kittens, we see Peggy move it aside so she can post her own ad, one looking for a roommate. It's typewritten and asks for a woman who's "clean, responsible, considerate" and also "serious and financially secure." I'd hope Peggy knows that if she gets even three of those five it will be like winning the lottery.
At home, Don sips a drink and reads the paper as Bobby and Gene appear in the kitchen handling a box full of the latter's mementos. One of said trinkets is a Victory medal Gene was awarded in France and which he takes great care to show off to Don before commenting, "I should have another for beating the clap!" Given his proclivities, so should Don. After a great geezerly laugh, Gene pulls out the next exhibit, a German spiked helmet with a hole marking the spot through which Gene apparently shot the helmet's previous owner dead. He goes on to muse that he killed a lot of Germans, and when Bobby tells him war is bad, he acknowledges that that might be true, "but it makes a man outta you." He puts the helmet on Bobby's head as he adds, "Ask your pop!" and Don, who's been watching much of this with an air of making up his mind exactly when to intervene, is happy enough for the cue as he tells Gene to stop it already. Bobby asks if he can't keep the helmet, and despite the fact that Don points out that there was a person in it, Gene tells him to keep it on. Don, of course, does not merely accept this challenge to his authority, and gets up, physically removes the thing from his son's head, and leaves the room. But while that last move may have added to his macho swagger, it also means he's not there to see Gene get a mischievous look on his face and remove a Japanese fan from the box with these words, "There was this girl." Of course, with only general principles to guide me, I'd guess that Don would find this particular subject a lot less distasteful.Oh, dear. With Sal writing something in bed while wearing pajamas that leave almost as little of him exposed as would a full-body condom, Kitty emerges from the bathroom wearing a sheer lime-green negligee. Erroneously thinking that this effort will increase her chances of spousal relations, she initiates some kissing, but after a few tepid moments he calls an end to it by saying he's working. She worriedly says something's wrong, not realizing that if she really wants to get her husband in the mood, all she has to do is invite Ken over for dinner again. He vaguely says that he's not himself, which is hilarious in that you'd think in that case he might actually hit that, but she repeats that for the last few months, something's been wrong. "I don't need that much, but...I do need tending." Funny how that seems so much more delicate than, say, "plowing," even though we're talking about the same thing. Eventually, Sal blames his work situation for his lack of sexual enthusiasm, saying that with the advent of photography, his days as an illustrator are numbered, and now he's nervous, as he has a crack at something that actually has a future. Kitty encouragingly says it's been building to this, "and tomorrow you'll triumph and come home a conquering hero." Sal, however, is doubly concerned because the entire thing will be a one-shot deal, since it's a recreation of the beginning of Bye Bye Birdie. Not being the enormous queen that is her husband, Kitty needs help remembering the scene in question, so after Sal refreshes her memory, he animatedly tells her the girl will be holding a can of Patio as he starts to act out how the spot is going to go. Kitty looks enthralled at first, but after Sal has performed the entire thing for her with extremely enthusiastic execution of the attendant hair-tossing and shoulder-turning and pouting and the like, her smile fades to the point where she looks like she's seen a ghost. The ghost of Paul Lynde, to be more precise.