The Rivals

APPLE BOOBS

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Rivals

Airdate: January 9, 1978

Written by John T. Dugan

Story by Hindi Brooks and John T. Dugan

Directed by William F. Claxton

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Saddened by her lack of, um, “development,” Laura turns to the produce department for help. Meanwhile, Charles and Garvey rob a French bistro.

RECAP: Happy 1978! A year of air disasters, mass suicide, and disco, 1978 is also noted for some memorable Little House stories, of which “The Rivals” was the first.

So let’s do it! We open on another game of Three O’Cat, with the Midsommar Kid up to bat. 

As real-life siblings, do he and Carrie have some kind of evil spell on them? They don’t seem to age at the same rate as the other children.

David Rose, meanwhile, gives us a three-four arrangement of the main theme.

DAGNY: Ah . . . this must be “The Apple Boobs Waltz”?

The rest of the Kid’s team consists of Laura, Mary, Carrie, Nellie, Not-Linda Hunt, a small Nondescript Helen who nevertheless I think is not THE Smallest Nondescript Helen of Them All, and a Not-Carl Sanderson – though perhaps not one we’ve seen before.

The Mean Kid with Very Red Hair is catching (for the other team) in the game.

WILL: Wait . . . what’s that in the sky?

Okay. I am not a kook, but it must be said, there’s something weird going on in the sky in this first scene. 

Several trembling or shimmering spots of light appear and then disappear at various points . . . . An alien manifestation? 

The rest of our commentators were not convinced . . . but judge for yourself!

Speaking of our commentator group, Amelia was home from college for this one, and she brought Ernie, her little brother from her other house, along, as well as her boyfriend Isaac. (Roman was absent.) 

Anyways, returning to our story, Willie Oleson and Andrew Garvey are both playing for the team in the field.

New Not-Carl Sanderson steps up to to the plate. Well, it isn’t really a plate.

AMELIA: They’re using those big rocks as bases? That is an ankle-breaking hazard.

Not-Carl gets a hit, which Willie fails to catch. Simultaneously, Mustache Man, that racist bastard, drives by in the background. 

Andy razzes Willie about the error. But Willie snarls at him to shut up, and he does.

Laura’s up to bat next, and Fancy Purple Nellie sniffs to Mary that she, Laura, is a repulsive tomboy. (A Sixteenth-Century expression, as we’ve noted before.)

Well, Laura gets a home run, and Not-Carl Sanderson compliments her on it as she grabs a drink from a horrible bucket on the ground.

DAGNY: I wonder who’s responsible for filling up that water.

WILL: And do you think it’s sanitary?

AMELIA: Definitely not. Think of the mosquitoes. Ugh.

I guess that was the end of the game, and Not-Carl then asks if he can walk Laura home. She shrugs and says sure.

Then we see a bunch of other kids walking up the shortcut – Mary, Carrie, the Red-Haired Kid, a little blond boy we’ve never seen before, and a sort of Keanu Reeves-looking kid we’ve never seen. An odd grouping, but it’s a pretty odd show that way.

The Red-Haired Kid seems to be smiling flirtatiously at Mary. Poor Patrick must be dead, then.

Now, I know this red-haired ass-munch did see Mary naked once, but if he thinks he’s up to her standards, I’d say he has another think coming.

Laura and Not-Carl trail behind. Actually, he looks kind of like a combination of Carl and John Junior.

And Not-Linda Hunt and the Gelfling Boy are trailing behind them, practically holding hands. Is it springtime? I get the distinct sense love is in the air. Everybody’s coupling up.

Laura notices the same thing, noting to her companion there’s a lot of “moonin’ and spoonin'” going on. (Apparently this slangy term for flirting is used in James Joyce’s Dubliners.)

Oh, by the way, this one was written by John T. Dugan (a Joyce fan?), who got help on the story from Hindi Brooks.

She’s the writer who created Ebenezer Sprague – though she cannot be blamed for the character assassination he endured last season. 

For that, we must turn our ire on Mr. B.W. Sandefur, a writer who, it’s worth pointing out, has not shown his face on the show since.

Clax is back as director.

Then we see Jonathan Garvey, working on a wheel-less wagon out at the Little House. Has he murdered Charles and usurped his place as the head of the Ingalls family? 

No – obviously they would have depicted that in an episode if it were the case. Probably a two-parter, in fact.

Actually, Garvey is just helping Charles, who appears with a wagon wheel from stage left.

WILL [as “TIMER”]: “Bang bang bang! Howdy, pardner! Time for Timer! I’m so hungry, I could eat a WAGON WHEEL!”

(I love Timer.)

Charles does not in fact eat this wagon wheel, but it’s worth noting he’s limping badly. In fact, one foot is bootless and wrapped in what appears to be multiple layers of seventies athletic socks.

WILL: What’s wrong with his foot?

DAGNY: Probably gout.

Caroline comes out and asks what the hell they’re doing.

Charles says they’re tuning up the wagon because they’re bidding on a freight contract and want to be greased for speed.

“Right, partner?” he adds, and Garvey makes this weird gesture to the sun with an oily hand.

WILL: What was that?

DAGNY: He was about to do a thumbs-up, but Merlin Olsen didn’t know if it was period-appropriate and tried to turn it into something else.

Charles says since his foot is “busted,” this is a better pursuit for him than plowing. (Wouldn’t the plowing need to be done regardless?)

Caroline then notices Garvey is smearing grease on the wagon with his hands rather than using tools, mentioning that it makes him seem subhuman. (Paraphrase.)

Charles jokes that he thinks Garvey looks cute covered in filth. (Paraphrase.) 

Then he laughs like the Joker.

(I suppose I can understand why nobody thought of it, but what a good Joker Michael Landon would have made, am I right?)

Caroline goes in, and Charles and Garvey discuss the specifics of the RFP. It’s a race from Sleepy Eye to Mankato, Charles says, and whoever comes out on top gets the contract.

“Top men, top money! That sounds like us, don’t it!” says Garvey.

WILL: Is he launching into a musical number?

Laura comes home, and Garvey, covered with grease, threatens to embrace her. She finds the only clean spot and gives him a little kiss on the cheek. (I know it sounds creepy, but it’s actually funny and cute.)

Laura asks Pa if she can go “froggin’.”

DAGNY: I always loved that Laura went froggin’ and fishin’.

Pa gives his blessing.

WILL: Of course he’d say yes.  He loves fooling around in swamps.

He also says he’d “like some frog legs” – an irony considering where we wind up later in this story, but never mind that for now.

Well, Laura meets the Carl/John hybrid creature down by the creek, but they don’t have much luck. At froggin’, that is.

In fact, despite spotting “the granddaddy of all frogs,” they both manage to fall into the creek.

AMELIA: Oh, do they get undressed and have an “awakening”?

Soaked, the kids get out, and for a moment they stand within kissing distance.

Then, hilariously, Laura has a hallucination of the boy as an adult man . . . or rather as himself the same age, but in a stiff collar with ridiculous sideburns glued to his face.

ALL [laughing]: Oh my God!

Back in the real world, the boy is just baffled by her stare.

Meanwhile, in the common room of the Little House, Pa is bitching about his foot and getting ready for his trip. Carrie is unhappy he’s going to be gone so long, but he explains it’s “a day to Sleepy Eye” and “three days [total] to Mankato.”

WILL: Wow! This is accurate travel timing for once.

Ma notes unhappily that the trip is just the beginning, since winning the contract will mean a lot more travel in the near future.

WILL: You know, Pa hasn’t traveled for work in a while. He learned his lesson last time, when he came home and Ma was practically pregnant with somebody else’s baby!

Laura comes home smiling stupidly, despite being soaking wet.

Pa comments on Laura’s strange behavior to Mary in an aside, and Mary, ever the interpreter of her sister’s love rhapsodies, replies, “Well, maybe she found something a little more interesting than frogs.”

AMELIA: Yeah . . . penises!

Pa, thinking along similar lines, does not like the implications of this statement.

AMELIA [laughing]: Now he’ll come home and LAURA will be pregnant.

Then, out in the barn, we suddenly get Laura naked in a tub.

ALL: OH MY GOD!

You wouldn’t get away with this today, though others have pointed out, you can see Melissa Gilbert is actually clothed in the bath.

Laura asks Mary why she’s had so many boyfriends. You know, she hasn’t, really; apart from John and Patrick, we’ve really only seen her pursued by Johnny Johnson, and that was a very long time ago.

I don’t think you can count Cass McCray. That was a one-off.

It’s also worth pointing out Laura has had at least two boyfriends herself – Henry Henderson and (most significantly) Jason R., the scientist.

Mary, who’s wearing her poofy pinafore again, says she has no clue why boys like her. I suppose I believe that; I think most very good-looking people don’t really understand that’s the reason everybody is always interested in them.

Speaking of good-looking people, and not to be mean, Mary’s complexion is not the greatest in this story.

Anyways, Laura asks if Mary’s kissed anybody other than John. 

But that question offends her. She gets up to leave, but Laura stops her.

AMELIA [as LAURA]: “Kiss me.”

But no, Laura just asks what kissing’s like, blah blah blah.

Inside that night, Little Bo Peep’s opinion is that nobody should kiss anyone – just stare with a porcelain face forever and forever and forever.

(Also . . . what the hell happened to her? She’s clearly been smashed and very imperfectly repaired since the last time she had a close-up.)

Then we see Charles and Caroline in bed! But there’s no popcorn bowl in sight.

To moody music that seems better suited to a 1940s noir film, they just have a pointless conversation about how Charles hopes they win the race. (Never would have guessed that.)

Upstairs, though, more productive things are happening. 

AMELIA: What is she doing with her eyes?

WILL: It’s called “REM sleep,” child. Look it up.

REM sleep is supposedly the dream state, and in a dream we see Laura herself, in a tasteful ballgown, running through a field with Unnamed Not-Carl/Not-John-Junior.

This image is accompanied by David Rose’s riff on the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet theme, which he’s previously employed at least three times before. 

(And as a classical-music person, I have to say, I think it’s delightful. It’s the most ingenious and sincere parody of the original. I don’t know why David Rose would bother incorporating famous classical tunes in these stories, if not to impress the rare crossover Little House/classical music fan. Well, if that was his target niche audience, I say well done, sir!)

Anyways, the dream itself is boring, but it ends with a cliffhanger to a kiss.

Laura wakes up before the kiss happens. That’s always the way it is, isn’t it? Just last night I dreamt our cat Cashew came into the bath with me and went under the water, but I woke up before learning if he lived or died. (He lived in real life.)

Suddenly and scarily, Mary screams in the dark, “What are you doing down there?” 

“None of your business!” Laura screams back, and then we see she’s been sleeping on the floor for some reason.

Laura gets into bed, but this time her dreams only lead to a commercial.

After it, we see, to a weird, syncopated three-quarter time Rose arrangement of the theme, Laura readying for school – but with her hair down!

Ma comments on this, but Laura says she’s chosen to leave it down – suggesting having braids all these years wasn’t part of a parent- and/or religion-driven torture program, as I’d assumed.

DAGNY: Her hair looks great.

Melissa Gilbert acts this scene pretty strong, too. This is the reason people love this show, everyone!

But then, Laura asks Ma if she can wear her Sunday gear and trimmings today. 

And then she asks if Ma thinks she’s pretty. 

Ma shrugs again, and Laura says, “Pretty as Mary?”

Unable to lie, Ma says, “Mary is Mary, and you are you!”

Knowing God’s own truth, Laura herself shrugs, then heads up to bed.

Where she immediately commences upon making out with her mirror!

Mary comes up and catches Laura, but either because of the stupidity of the character, the rigidity of the performer, or the inattentiveness of the writer, she doesn’t say or do anything about it.

Then we cut to Charles and Garvey in Sleepy Eye, loading up for the big race at a place called the Zucker Freight Company.

A guy identified as “Mr. Perkins” tells both teams to get set as the Alamo Tourist from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure rearranges barrels in the background. 

Mr. Perkins’s first name is “Si,” according to the credits. You’d think that would be short for Silas, but if you look closely you can see his first name appears on the company signage as “Cyrus.”

Anyways, he’s played by Sam Gilman, who was a go-to actor in many fifties and sixties shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also played Doc Holliday on a Star Trek episode.

And he was the lifelong close friend of Marlon Brando. The two were so close that when Gilman died, Brando asked his widow if he could keep some of his ashes – a request she granted. And it was reported when Brando himself died, his ashes were combined with Gilman’s and those of another friend, Wally Cox, and scattered in Death Valley and Tahiti.

Charles and Garvey get the opportunity to depart first, and the other team hurls abuse at them.

Meanwhile, back on the playground/graveyard that sits in front of Groveland Elementary, all the kids are assembling.

Blah blah, Laura’s dream lover, whom Mary and Carrie address as “Jimmy,” isn’t aroused by her efforts to woo him with fine clothing, blah blah.

In fact, he insults her hairdo, saying it’ll get in the way of her athletic performance. “You better cut some of that mop off,” he says.

WILL: Mop? He should talk.

Then, suddenly, a brand-new character steps forward with force.

Immediately identifying herself as Mankato native “Sam,” this is a young woman who says she’s “starting school today.”

AMELIA: Is this the first lesbian in Minnesota? 

AMELIA: I’m a queer softball player myself, so I can make that joke.

AMELIA: She’s dressed like Nellie’s husband, the pig farmer. Speaking of which, where is he?

Unknown, but we also see a bunch of kids playing. It’s interesting how easy it is to tell they’re reusing old costumes – I know I joke about the “Not-Carl Sandersons,” but there’s one kid who is LITERALLY WEARING CARL’S COSTUME FROM ONE SEASON AGO.

Then, against a beautiful, VERY seventies sky, we see the silhouette of Charles and Garvey as the Chonkywagon sails by.

By the way, we’re never informed how exactly the Chonkies came back after Charles traded them away to the Goofy Old Gent With an Ear Trumpet last week.

And in fact, it appears this time there are TWO pairs of Chonkies pulling the load.

But anyways, it’s apparently sunrise, and Charles and Garvey have apparently entered the greater metropolitan Mankato area.

Since there’s no sign of their competitors, they assume the race is theirs.

But in fact, the other team has arrived there first, having taken back roads and shortcuts.

Next recess, Jimmy the Dream Boy flirts with The First Lesbian in Minnesota, and in a surreal segment, Laura Ingalls sits down to discuss romantic topics in a friendly manner with Nellie Oleson.

Laura says she’s curious about Nellie’s views on couples dating back to “Anthony and Cleopatra,” and as recent as “Luke Simms and Nellie Oleson.”

(Marc Antony and Cleopatra, you’ll recall, were a Roman general and Egyptian queen, respectively, whose relationship caused great political turmoil in ancient times.)

It is odd Luke isn’t present in the school scenes. He did seem to be older, but he can’t have graduated already, since he only just enrolled last summer. Maybe he dropped out?  

Wherever Luke is, Nellie (who’s having her own pimple problems in this episode) notes she was only married to him “for about ten minutes.” Nevertheless, she launches into a long list of things that make one attractive, including being beautiful, staying beautiful, and then just more of the same after that.

She also notes that “a good figure helps.”

But remembering that Ma said not to dirty her clothes, Laura then declines to join the O’Cat game her intended love spontaneously calls.

We can already tell, Jimmy is a natural fit with Sam First Lesbian. (The latter is played by one Seeley Ann Thumann, who wasn’t in much else.) 

Laura’s reward for her self-sacrifice is a lecture from Nellie Oleson, who tells her she smells like fish and doesn’t comport herself like a proper girl.

Nellie advises using perfume or “toilet water,” which Laura of course gets offended by, because haw haw haw toilet.

(Others have pointed out Laura’s reaction is anachronistic, since the term toilet probably wasn’t used for privies until somewhat later. Interestingly, in Renaissance England, one term for a lavatory was “little house”!)

Meanwhile, Charles and Jonathan Garvey arrive in Sleepy Eye.

We see a few brands represented on signage as their wagon passes through. There’s a First National Bank – a chain so far only known in Northfield and Mankato on this show.

We also see two hotels: the Grand, and one the name of which I can’t quite make out. Lawson? Leeson?

This would seem to contradict Nels’s comment in “‘Here Come the Brides'” that the only places to bed down in Sleepy Eye are “the hotel and Mrs. Leary’s.”

But since it’s clear this second hotel’s name begins with L, let’s suspend our disbelief and assume this is in fact the Leary Hotel, Mrs. Leary, propr.

Having been beaten by their rivals, Charles and Garvey now are subjected to their taunts as well.

Some sort of humorless receiving manager appears out of nowhere and asks to see the contents of the barrels they’ve been transporting. He addresses one of these pricks by name – the subtitles give it as “Mr. Atkins,” but it doesn’t sound like that to me. It makes no difference, since neither of them get a credit.

The humorless receiving guy does get a credit. He’s billed as “Zucker,” so he must actually be the owner, and he’s played by a Don Starr, who was a regular on Dallas and also appeared in Night of the Lepus and V.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, all the other team’s fine cargo was destroyed when they took the rough road. But by playing it safe, Charles and Garvey have won the prize!

Back home, Bandit makes a brief appearance as the Ing-Gals ready for school.

While everybody else is busy, Laura goes into the Master Bedroom and steals some of Ma’s perfume.

DAGNY: I don’t understand. What happened to her lemon verbena?

Later, Carl the Flunky drives through town whilst kids arrive for school.

WILL [as CARL]: “Mmmm, somethin’ smells GOOD!”

AMELIA: Gross, Dad.

Laura starts flirting with Jimmy, but all he can talk about is Lesbian Sam.

Then he says he hates Laura’s perfume.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, he says he might be confusing it with the smell of a nearby skunk or dead rat.

WILL: Oh, now that’s taking it a little far.

ROMAN: Alexander once told Olive her perfume smelled like a guy called “Jimbo” at our daycare.

(Roman returned at this point, everyone.)

That night, Caroline lies in bed twisting her hair madly and crying.

Suddenly hearing a wagon in the drive, she jumps up, rubs her eyes, and goes out to greet Charles.

DAGNY: She’s smoothin’ out her eye bags.

Charles says they got the contract, and Caroline pretends to be pleased.

Charles asks for an update on the kids – weird his foot is still wrapped up, given time is passing. (Of course this is because Michael Landon hurt himself in real life, though I don’t know how.)

Ma tells Pa Laura’s in love, a notion he dismisses as “spring fever!” (See! Spring! Putting us in the spring of 1882-F, it must be?)

Caroline goes into the house, Grassle emoting wildly to indicate Ma’s inner anguish.

Then we cut to Ma and Mary at some unspecified later point, hanging clothes and complaining about Pa being gone so long. There’s no point to the conversation.

Meanwhile, we see Charles and Garvey driving along a beautiful road framed by oaks, their leaves blazing orange.

DAGNY: Did they take a wrong turn and wind up in Vermont?

AMELIA: Actually, this looks more like Minnesota than the show normally does.

WILL: Yes, but now it’s fall? Pa just said it was spring.

I suppose it could be early spring before the new foliage has sprouted, since some oaks, as we’ve discussed in the past, are marcescent.

Whatever the season, we actually can see quite clearly now that the four draft horses are all new ones. So I guess we can assume our dear lovely Chonkies are now in fact in sunny California with the Goofy Old Gent. 

I’m struggling to accept this. We’ve been through so much together.

Well, please press play and listen to the following song as you scroll down through some nice memories of our equine friends. Take your time.

And now, ladies and gentlemen and . . . everybody, we begin the plot thread you’ve been waiting for. APPLE BOOBS!!!

Laura and Mary are walking to school. Carrie goes running ahead.

ROMAN: They let Carrie run off by herself? What about Busby?

Then Laura says, “When am I going to get some bumps?”

ALL: [screaming]

Laura embarrasses everyone in the audience then by pointing out that Mary and Nellie have both developed breasts over the course of the series. 

Even with the supremely bad taste of our Walnut Groovy commentators, we wouldn’t go there with these child performers, and it’s kind of weird this script does.

Laura goes on and on, saying Sam First Lesbian has the biggest “bumps” of all.

WILL [embarrassed]: Oh my God, I don’t think I can bear this. Is she gonna go through every woman in town?

I was half-worried Mary would start talking about cows’ udders or make some other farmyard analogy, but she just says all women develop at their own rates.

Mary says having developed doesn’t mean anything, but Laura for some reason assumes it does “to Jimmy Hill.”

Mary says there’s nothing Laura can do about her breast size; but Laura holds up an apple (Red Delicious, gag, barf) and says, “Yeah. . . .”

ALL [chanting]: AP-PLE BOOBS! AP-PLE BOOBS! 

DAGNY: Do you think Landon gave this as an assignment to the writers’ room?: [as MICHAEL LANDON] “I got two words for you – ‘apple boobs.’ Go.”

I guess given the episode’s apple focus, we must be in the autumn after all. (That’s good, because it means we can still be in 1881 rather than leaping ahead yet again.)

Anyways, we cut to Andrew Garvey, who sadly doesn’t have much of a part in this one, ringing the bell to gather his fellow students into school.

Then Laura appears, her chest covered by her books and slate.

She enters the school and suddenly reveals her “new figure” fully, to everyone’s shock and/or amusement.

It’s worth noting here that the theme of this story is reminiscent in some ways of Judy Blume‘s 1970 novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, with its classic catchphrase, “We must! We must! We must increase our bust!”

It’s also worth noting there’s a new student in class today who I think may actually be fictional Minnesota native Betty Crocker.

Anyways, Mrs. Simms, WHO WILL HEREAFTER BE KNOWN EXCLUSIVELY AS “THE BEAD,” tells everybody to shut up. She hasn’t actually seen what they’re laughing about yet.

(And speaking of boobs and the Bead, we did get some cards and letters questioning our choice to begin the Charlotte Stewart interview by asking about the episodes where you can see Miss Beadle’s nipples through her top. To that I would say, hey, truth is just truth, people. You can’t blame Walnut Groovy if the show is full of nipples and huge penises!)

As uzhe, the Bead has been drawing long-division problems on the chalkboard.

ROMAN: These problems are insane! Is this really how they taught kids in the Nineteenth Century?

Of course, by coincidence, she invites Laura up to be the first contestant in her long division math-off.

Laura begins writing on the board, and if you’re actually watching the episode as you read this recap, you’ll surely want to rewind several times to enjoy Charlotte Stewart’s reaction to noticing the ABs.

Out in the gallery, Jimmy Hill’s face is also hilarious.

He’s played by Chris Petersen, who was in things like The Incredible Hulk, M*A*S*H, and CHiPs, as well as in The Swarm, a movie about killer bees considered one of the worst films ever made.

(Roman and I watched The Swarm just this morning. I’ve seen worse. You can skip it, though.)

[UPDATE: Reader Art notes that Chris Petersen’s brother Patrick was also an actor who was on Knots Landing for many years.]

[Pat Petersen was also in the delightful horror film Alligator, in which he plays an Albertian street kid who makes faces at the cops and tries to fight the giant alligator with a breadknife. Thanks, Art!]

Very quickly, Laura’s ABs begin to droop. 

Then one of the apples actually bounces to the floor.

Most everybody, including Carrie, screams with laughter. 

Mary looks mortified, and Andrew Garvey just looks embarrassed.

The Bead tries to save the situation by saying “Laura, don’t you have to go to the outhouse?”

Laura runs outside, remaining apple a-bouncing under her pinafore.

AMELIA: Uniboob.

She doesn’t go to the outhouse, though, just runs off.

Back in Sleepy Eye, Charles and Garvey pull up to the loading dock. Notably, Charles addresses one of the horses as “David.”

They chitchat with Mr. Perkins as the Alamo Tourist from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure rearranges barrels in the background yet again, or still. (Do they let him go home at night?)

I guess some time has passed, because they mention they have some time off coming up. But Perkins tells them a very lucrative job has come up that will change their minds.

He mentions that the company is extremely pleased with the quality of their work, which is nice. You don’t always get that in a job.

Perkins gives them the details of the opportunity, and they happily accept. In fact, Charles says “we’ve been bustin’ our buns” to earn such a gig. (“Buns” in this sense probably didn’t come into use until the 1960s.)

To celebrate, Charles suggests to Garvey that they get a nice hotel room and have dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Garvey jokingly insists Charles have a bath, then picks him up in his arms and declares he’s taking him to the hotel.

AMELIA: Oh my God! Is this going to be Little House’s first gay scene?

(I think not. Even I wouldn’t go that far.)

Then we cut to a “fancy restaurant” that seems to be constructed out of bits and pieces of this show’s previous saloons, restaurants, and the like.

They are greeted by a French maitre d’ (friendly, not snobbish) who introduces himself as “François.”

I wondered if French restaurants would have been considered the zenith of the culinary experience at this time; but certainly it does seem French cuisine was much admired in America from the Eighteenth Century onwards. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were big promoters of it, though it probably wasn’t until the early 1900s that it became considered the “gold standard” of dining out.

I’m not sure a town the size of Sleepy Eye would have a French restaurant, though. As I’ve mentioned before, today its notion of fine dining is a Subway.

François tries to offer them seats, but they stupidly choose other chairs. (This scene annoys me.)

Charles and Garvey notice the menu is written entirely in French. (In Sleepy Eye?)

Well, Garvey initially thinks it’s written in “I-talian.” 

WILL [as the H.M.S. Pinafore Boatswain, singing:]: “Or perhaps I-tal-I-an!”

For whatever reason, Charles and Garvey are intrigued by the “escargotts” on the menu, which are priced at $1. ($31 today.)

Ultimately, they ask François to choose for them – a nice old practice, but one that might baffle servers today, I’m sorry to say.

François is delighted, pointing out the escargots recipe is his own.

Monsieur François is actually played by a Ukrainian-born actor named Leon Belasco, who was in a zillion things in the 1930s and 1940s (not an area of cinematic expertise for me, I’m afraid). I do know Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy and Holiday Inn.

In the fifties, he appeared in Abbott and Costello and Ma and Pa Kettle movies, and in the sixties, episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Beverly Hillbillies. 

Belasco was also a bandleader, who apparently had a hand in discovering (Minnesota natives) the famous Andrew Sisters.

Anyways, Monsieur François also recommends some other bistro classics. First, salade niçoise. (My absolute favorite salad – tuna, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, anchovies, and those little dry salty black olives being the version I like to make.) But it probably wouldn’t have been known in America until later.

Then bœuf bourguignon (beef stewed in red wine). Another standard, which maybe had crossed the Atlantic by this point?

Finally, for dessert, glace royale (a kind of fancy frosting – this seems strange to me) and café noir (black coffee). Overall, a splendid menu, if you ask me!

Then François says he’ll also bring a bottle of “our best local wine.” I’m sorry to say, wines from the Upper Midwest are pretty horrible. The University of Minnesota does its best to engineer hardy varietals, but our weather is just piss-poor for winegrowing. Maybe climate change will help with that?

Charles and Garvey then fantasize about how, if their luck continues, they’ll move their families to the big city.

François then brings them a bottle of “Sleepy Eye red ’78.” (One other thing – the first Minnesota-grown wines were produced in ’77 – that’s 1977, not 1877.)

There’s a lot of stupid nonsense in this scene about Garvey not knowing how to taste the wine, etc.

Notably, Charles – mostly a teetotaler on this show – stops François from filling his own glass.

Then he and Garvey depress themselves by staring at other families with kids in the restaurant.

François then delivers the escargots – which disgust his diners.

WILL: Philistines.

All of a sudden, the two decide they hate French food, like being poor, and would rather go home to their families than take the big contract.

ERNIE: All because of snails?

Then Garvey grabs the wine, and they leave without paying for it!

WILL: Oh my God! The swine!

I think this scene is just awful, but maybe that’s just me.

Well, after a final break, Charles returns home. His foot’s still in that stupid sock.

Ma comes out, looking anxious rather than happy. “This is a surprise,” she says flatly.

DAGNY: Oh, does she have the handyman in there?

Charles handles this very nicely – he doesn’t ask Caroline’s permission to give up the contract, but he does apologize to her, assuming she’ll be upset about the money.

DAGNY [as CAROLINE]: “Oh oh oh oh . . . oh CHARLES!!!”

Charles says the main reason is he can’t take being away from his family.

ROMAN: He’ll take popcorn over snails anyday.

Then Caroline says, “Oh, you great big galoot!”

DAGNY: Huh? He’s no galoot. He’s short.

WILL: Yeah. Garvey’s a galoot.

Inside the house, though, Laura is weeping with humiliation from her school fiasco.

Mary and Carrie greet Pa when he comes in.

AMELIA [as CARRIE]: “Pa! Laura has APPLE BOOBS!”

Ma goes up to talk to Laura, telling her she was foolish to try to be somebody other than herself.

She says, “We have to be – to become – what God intended.” (The church I was raised in taught us that God had expectations beyond “be yourself and act naturally.” That said, I think our clergy would have agreed God doesn’t want everybody to be an Apple Boobs.)

Ma tells Laura to go back to school and kick ass – as herself.

AMELIA: The first thing she’s gonna do is go punch that lesbian.

Well, Laura does go back to school, as the Long-Haired Young Man with a Mustache from last week drives by.

Of course, first thing she does is hit a home run on the ballfield (they play full games before school?), reasserting her spunky tomboyishness.

After school, the Ing-Gals walk home via the shortcut. The AEK dressed in Carl Sanderson’s costume passes them.

Laura is accompanied by Jimmy, who’s carrying her books.

“You ever carry Samantha’s books home?” she asks, and he says, “Nah – she carried mine.”

AMELIA: Good for her!

Suddenly, then, Jimmy sees Laura in hallucinogenic form – as a smiling teenager in a ballgown – and he suddenly moves forward and kisses her.

(This is certainly her first on-screen kiss, but I find it hard to believe she and Eric Shea never kissed. They were together for a while.)

To cover for this sudden awkwardness, Jimmy asks if she wants to go fishing over the weekend.

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll bring the worms.”

AMELIA [as JIMMY]: “I’ll bring ONE worm.”

Unfortunately for him, we never see him again. Probably Sam was spying on them and murdered him on the way home. Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH: Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: I would describe this one as “filler” . . . but that goes without saying, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, Gilbert is good; Grassle too. So is Jimmy Hill, though as I mentioned we never see him again. And of course the story is memorable and entertaining, for obvious reasons.

UP NEXT: Whisper Country