Episode 10Davey is up in Sky Watch scoping out the world's shortest circus train rolling down the tracks. It is the Stills and Burns Circus and the whole lot consists of three cars [one which may or may not be a coal car], plus an engine and a caboose. No matter as Davey dashes off a message and sends it down to the ever faithful Jimmy on some sort of weird pulley contraption. The message says "Let's go watch them unload circus" and Jimmy's skull just about explodes from the huge smile he has. He is one beaming dude. I guess maybe because he is down in a tent and couldn't see how lame the circus train is.
Davey cruises into the house to ask for permission to go hang out down at the train yard to watch the circus unload. Will Elaine ever deny him anything? Of course he can go - the only stipulation is that he has to take Sally along. He makes a little stink eye over that but it is not a biggie. While he is waiting on Sally to get ready he starts grubbing in his toy box and we notice something, well. Weird. He has a picture of an ice dancing pairs couple on his wall! What is up with that? He's in the golden age of hockey. One could see a Gordie Howe, a Maurice Richard or even that fink Bobby Hull enshrined on the wall. If the kid was a little randy, perhaps even a Denise Bielmann skater photo [hubba-hubba

] but Torvill and Dean? No way an eight year old is into that. Something is off there.
WTF?

There is a bird on a wire moment, where a bird lands on Davey's pulley contraption and starts hammering out some sort of code. Can't make it out real well but I suspect it is some sort of mocking message to all other birds "check out this dude. He has a picture of Torvil and Dean on his wall". The noise perplexes Davey for a bit but then he gets the all too obvious idea of a string telephone. While that might be important later, what is important now is that Davey...well. He changes. Do you know how David Icke shows clips where the Queen's eyes change into lizard eyes for just a split second? That Ickian proof that shows the world's elites are really not elite at all but rather some sort of Echo Gecko? Well by jove, Davey does the lizard eyes shuffle. It is just a split second but he lets his guard down and his inner reptiod shows.
Reptoid

The action cuts to the train yard where we see a cage with a mountain lion in it being unloaded. The cage has a sign that says "Cougar. Felis Concolor". Pretty taxonomic of them guys down at Stills and Burns, eh? The cougar seems to be recycled from the previous episode where it was an Egyptian Lion but no matter. Goliath sticks his grill up between the bars and gets his nose clawed for the trouble. The world's cleanest Carny ever warns them off. Immaculate white smock, white hat, pencil thin mustache, no Winston hanging out of his mouth and not kicking at the dirt and muttering "F*ckin' A" - what kind of Carny is this? The kids blow the joint but as they do we see a truck backing up and busting out one of the bars in the cage.
Davey has now transformed his any-to-any mesh pulley contraption network into a modernized string telephonic version with the nexus point of convergence being his tent in the backyard. He fires up the string blower and asks Elaine if he and Jimmy can eat dinner in the tent and then sleep out there overnight. Again, the ever pliant Elaine approves it - she is always just so much putty in Davey's reptoid claws. The Carny then notices that the mountain lion has flown the coop and it's whereabouts are unknown.
It's supper time back at the tent and hoo boy, Davey is saying grace. The show was produced by the Lutheran Church in America, it opens with Luther's own
A Mighty Fortress is our God being played in front of Luther's Rose. I fully expect Luther's prayer for grace. It is magnificent in its directness and simplicity. All is covered and no words are wasted:
Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen. Luther gets in. Luther gets out with nary a wasted syllable. This is what the audience wants here. This is what the audience needs here This is what the audience
demands here. Heck, it would be a great way to educate the non-Lutheran schlubs out there in Germanic, Lutheran efficiency. Just get on down to brass tacks and then start grubbing - there is no need to write a book. There is no satisfacion. What we get is some sort of rambling, Southern Baptist of a screed from Davey. It goes on and on. Everything under the Sun seems to be blessed - from the Aardvarks to the Zerbras. Everything but Goliath [Sally has to intercede and rectify this omission]. Jimmy is like "what was that?" Davey always assumes that Jimmy is some sort of heathen and explains what grace is but I give Jimmy more credit and think he was coming from the "That blessing was one hot mess - what was that?" mantra. Elaine then nags Davey about coming in and getting the salad [which Sally somehow, mysteriously forgot with the meal

] and as Davey heads into to get them, we see the mountain lion nosing through the Food Maxx Crone's rubbish cans.
The scene then cuts to some oily, Clark Gable, pencil thin mustache, swinging dick of a radio guy down at the WAZZ studios announcing that a "Koo-Gar" has escaped from the circus and that parents need to keep their kids inside lest they be eaten up.
Kaptian KooGar

The Hansen's just miss the message because Sally flips her radio on as it was ending but the radio then starts kicking out the jams. Well...jams is a bit of a stretch. It is lounge lizard music. The kind that brings up thoughts of Julie London, cigarettes, martini's and adulatory. I wouldn't expect the show to have Elvis on the radio but the kids listening to chamber pop is ridiculous. It is what it is I guess. Jimmy guns down his milk, just like Sinatra down at The Dunes, polishing off a scotch on the rocks before he goes chasing broads. Sally and Goliath call it a night and head on inside with Sally taking her boombox with her. It seems that Davey busted his all up so being tuneless only serves him right. Before the lads turn in, Davey heads up to Sky Watch to check things out one last time. He sees what he thinks is a dog over in the Food Maxx Crone's rubbish cans and then the boys hit the hay. The background music starts building tension as Jimmy goes out to kick some doggie ass for waking them up. He sees that it is
no dog and ducks back inside the tent. Inside the house, Goliath is barking it up and the Old Man comes in to see what the deal is. Most men when woken up in the middle of the night by barking dogs are rather irritated but John Hansen is one smooth Mo Fo. He looks outside, sees the danger, calmly tells Elaine to tell the boys not to come out of the tent and then cool as a cuke rationally picks up the blower and tells the police that there is a lion in his backyard. Whereas the Old Man is wearing a robe and slippers as he well should in the middle of the night, Elaine is wearing flats and some sort of ugly rain coat - I mean one of those "As Time Goes By", London Fog, Lauren Bacall, kind of a deals. Very strange but she is cool, calm and collected on the string blower as she gives the boys orders to stay put. Davey tells her that the beast has seen them in the tent and is headed their way. Jimmy proves there are no atheists in foxholes as he pleads with God for help.
Once again, we get a sense that John Hansen has seen the elephant. Based on the timing of the series maybe it was in Korea. Perhaps he hung on grimly in the Pusan perimeter as the Norks squeezed ever tighter or maybe he made that long, cold walk back from Chosin. He knows what he is about as he takes a bead on the critter with his rifle from a position in enfilade and covers the boys as the make their way into the house. The lion then bounds up to Sky Watch and claims it as his own. The cavalry shows up in the form of the police, a white fire chief rig and a ladder truck. The top cop starts barking out orders in an Irish brogue [That's not racist, that is just what he is] and the brave men of Engine Company No. 5 lasso the lion and drag him to justice.
Rope-that-Cat

The episode ends with a dejected looking Koo-Gar back in lock up. It was a loner. It was a rebel. Those free and freaky times are over forever for it and it knows the deal. The kids equate the string blower to a prayer to God and the episode ends.
This episode is perfectly serviceable. The background music does a nice job of building tension. Decent enough message. It does have its funky aspects though. The kids happily listening to lounge music, Ice Dancers on Davey's wall, Elaine protecting her night time virtue with a full length rain coat and whatever the hell that reptoid Davey eye deal was. There is a deduction for not using the proper proper Lutheran prayer for grace.
Two and a half roses.
