The Children's Corner: Episode 4101

Broadcast Date: Undetermined

Hischer Booptrunk welcomes the “ladies and gentlemen of the television audience” to Attic Art Company’s “latest and greatest” Spring Revue entitled “Old Faces of 1956.”

Foo Foo Fish and the rest of the Company (Lawrence Light, Lydia Lamp, Gramma Phone, Rhoda Dendron, and Phil O. Dendron) begin with a song about “old faces looking out at you” followed by a song with the lyrics “Hello hello, we hope you like our show…” (to the tune of Auld Lang Syne). While they change the scenery, Hischer says he thought the audience might want to hear a good joke or two – he just wishes he had a good joke to tell, but doesn’t, so he moves on.

Foo Foo and “William Worm” (Bill Bookworm) then perform a number entitled “Side by Side,” but are interrupt mid-song by Gramma Phone who was assigned to be the line prompter from the wings but has taken it upon herself to come out on the stage and finish the scene for them. Backstage, Rhoda worries over Gramma’s interruption and Hischer’s angry reaction while Phil (who is wearing a hat labeled “Magician”) is “sick to his roots and planter” with nerves anticipating his pending magic act.

Lawrence Light and Lydia Lamp then perform a rousing “musical version of Romeo and Juliet” (which is partially set to the tune of Oh My Darling, Clementine), but they are also interrupted mid-scene by Gramma Phone who comes out on stage and finishes the scene for them. Hischer calls for the curtain to be pulled and fills time by telling a joke about “a man with a banana in his ear,” while Lydia and Gramma discuss the proper role of a line prompter backstage.

Ino A. Horse and Rhoda Dendron (as “Boney and Head”) then perform a number together (which of course contains numerous repetitions of the phrase “I know” by Ino). Rhoda thanks the audience for their (inaudible) applause, and then attempts to tell a few jokes, but mixes up the punchlines. This time, Gramma Phone prompts her from offstage, before Ino and Rhoda sing another song together, “How I love to sing (I know)”.

Hischer (as an airplane captain/pilot) and Gramma Phone (as Miss Dorris, the stewardess) then perform a sketch “An Airplane Lunch is a Many-Splendored Thing,” which according to Foo Foo is supposed to be the “big emotional scene, the dramatic moment in the production… Gramma Phone’s big scene.” Unfortunately, Gramma forgets her big line, which Lydia notes the irony of since she knew everyone else’s lines. In the meantime, Phil is thrilled that it appears Hischer has forgotten and completely skipped over his magic act.

The Company then concludes with a “big production number” finale together.

Screenshots

Appearing In This Episode

In order of appearance

• Hischer Booptrunk
• Miss Foo Foo Fish
• Lawrence Light
• Lydia Lamp
• Gramma Victoria Ola Phone
• Rhoda Dendron
• Phil O. Dendron
• Bill Bookworm
• Ino Horse

Cast

• Fred Rogers
• Additional Unknown Voice Cast

Guests

• None

Locations

• Stage (in the Attic?)
  

Songs

• Various performance songs

Notes

• This is likely a partial episode, as it contains only the Attic performance segment and is only 17 minutes long, as opposed to the usual half hour episode.
• According to Hischer, Rhoda calls the first number “the multicolor, technicolor, cinemascopic, extravaganzic spectacular with stereophonic sound and stage movement.”
• The lyrics of Lawrence and Lydia’s musical version of Romeo and Juliet are, in part: (to the tune of Oh My Darling, Clementine)

  Lydia: Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling is it you?
  Can it be my dearest Romeo? Is it you? Can it be true?
  Lawrence: Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling, Juliet
  I am climbing up your balc’ny. It is raining. I am wet.

  Lydia: Do not climb dear, do not climb dear, for our families do feud,
  Though I love you oh so madly. I do not want to be rude.
  Lawrence: Oh my family, oh my family, I’m a proud old Montague,
  But the Capulets, they hate us. Yes, they hate us, all but you.

  [roughly to the tune of People Will Say We’re in Love from Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1943 musical Oklahoma, the film version of which premiered in 1955]
  Don’t climb my balcony
  Hide from my [inaudible]
  I cannot be seen with you
  People will say we’re in love…

• Hischer’s joke about a man with a banana in his ear’s basic premise is that another man tries to tell him he has a banana in his ear and he says, “Sorry sir, I can’t hear you, I’ve got a banana in my ear.” This joke was used several years later on a Sesame Street segment featuring Ernie and Bert.
• Rhoda attempts to tell the jokes “Why does a fireman wear red suspenders?“ (to hold his trousers up) and “Why did the chicken cross the road?” (to get to the other side of the road), but swaps the punchlines. She does successfully tells the joke that “whenever [she does] anything wrong, [she] always shrug[s her] shoulders nonchalantly and say[s] ‘HAIR today, gone tomorrow!’” (a pun on the hair on her shoulders and the phrase “here today, gone tomorrow”).
• The title of the sketch “An Airplane Lunch is a Many-Splendored Thing” is undoubtedly a satirical reference to the 1955 romance film Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
• It appears that much (if not all) of the content of this “Revue” is sort of an “Attic satire” on popular or traditional songs and stories of the 1950’s
  

Episode Credits

None