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Episode # in order of airing: 46 (January 20, 1967) Episode # in order of filming: 46 (pc 6618) Apparent J/A intimacy: ***** Lovers and fairly new ones at that. Artie is just bubbling over with admirable self-confidence, and Jim's not far behind. Compelling plot holes to be spackled: Hmmmm? Reason to spackle the episode anyway: The trulyrevolting ending! Shirtlessness: Oh my, yes! Jim is fabulously shirtless for an extended period of time: he even stands on his head shirtless! Saaaaaaaaaaaaay, he looks just as good upside down as right side up! Then, STILL shirtless, he goes on to wander around a gypsy camp. Interestingly, he attracts as much male attention as female. Not that that is news to anybody with eyeballs. There's even a splendid shirtless fight scene. Physical contact: Jim and Artie are thisclose when they are polishing the elephant. Then they get tied up lying down, not touching but reasonably intimate. Then "Artie" (or an incredible simulacrum) hops on the back of a horse Jim's riding. H/c potential: Happy ep. Angst potential: Happy happy ep. Jim beauty: ****** Yahooovius! Fabulous beyond belief: out-of- the-closet drop!dead! cute: everybody's happy with his studliness. Artie beauty: **** Artie's minimalist "disguise" as Moe the Peddler is fairly do-nothing. But, as Artie, he's all right. General bizarreness of episode/bad scriptwriting: The stupidity of the ending. Importance of having this on a pimping tape: The extended shirtlessness is pretty alluring. Apparent relationship status: Too happy. Plot recap: Awww, this is such a precious little episode. I mean, there's a whole subplot about murdering a iddy baby welephant, but no one really does. Okeydoke, here goes. There's a big fat sheik whose effete performance grows on one. He has an all-girl army (Jim and Artie ARE impressed) He also has an assistant named Gumball! And a baby sacred white elephant named Akbar! All right! It seems Jim and Artie have to carry the sheik and Akbar safely to Washington. (Jim and Artie have advised against relying on the girl army.) So here they go. On the trip, Artie tries to teach Akbar tricks. Is that just too cute! But it's no good because Akbar's so dumb. "You know you're lucky you're sacred, ‘cause you got no talent at all." What a great line: do you think RM was thinking of RC as he said that? Then criminals board the train. Hey, it's Arthur Batanides! He was in "That Which Survives" from the original "Star Trek" – and a bunch of B-movies from the fifties. He has a great tough-guy-deese-dem-dose accent too. However, the other significant criminal is played by a guy who MUST BE be the boyfriend of somebody important at the studio, because, in addition to his beefcake-houseboy vibe, he's just the worst actor ever! Anyway, when the bad guys kidnap the white elephant, Jim decides to chase the bad guys while Artie grudgingly stays on the train with the sheik. Over in the bad-guy camp, Arthur Batanides tells Beefcake to go kill the elephant. Although Beefcake wanders off with Akbar, don't worry, kids, this guy's eyes are too blue for him to shoot a baby elephant. Then, while Arthur Batanides and them capture Jim who's been sneaking around their camp, Artie finds out that the sheik wants a million dollars for his elephant or he'll kill all the American missionaries back in the sheik's hometown. "That's a thousand dollars a pound!" Artie yelps. Cut to a gypsy carnival (or, since everybody has had their Ren-and-Stimpy pills, a geeeeeeeepseeeeee carnival.) We find out the gypsy carnival is having financial difficulties, but the addition of a baby elephant (aha!) might help its solvency. Hey, I like the Queen of the Gypsies. She's dominant, she takes Jim as a man would (well, I sort of made that part up) and she's intelligent and extremely pretty. She's lovers with a gypsy man too, but, when she sees Akbar the elephant wandering up with Beefcake, she blows her lover off. "Go fin' sometheeng to wrestle." she says dismissively. She cons the elephant away from Beefcake Gump-boy, who goes back and lies to Arthur Batanides, saying that he has killed Akbar. After Artie busts into the camp, Jim frees himself and runs off the bad guys except for Forrest Beefcake, who tells our boys about losing the white elephant to the gypsies. Jim decides to sneak into the gypsy camp to get Akbar back, but he gets captured by the Gypsy Queen. God, they are so hot together!!!!! What about my future, he asks her after a particular steamy (for 1967) kiss. "I don' know. You just fogged up my creeeeeeeeestal ball." I love that line! To get her to hire him into the gypsy circus, Jim does some acrobat stunts for her. (Is that really Conrad doing gymnastics? They cut away as if it were a double.) But later it is definitely RC standing on his head SHIRTLESS and looking so fine. So fine, as a matter of fact, that all the gypsy men are terribly upset and the Gypsy Queen's lover challenges Jim to the geepsy scarf dance of death or something. Jim makes a decisive win, but he pretends he and the gypsy lover have fought to a tie. When the gypsy lover asks why, does Jim say "because your ass is valuable to the circus"? That's what I heard. But, before much else can happen, Artie turns up again! I don't much relate to his Uncle-Moe-the-Peddler character. He doesn't have enough makeup and RM seems both haggard and hyper. Hey, maybe there's been some alpha jockeying between RM and RC here. RC: doin' gymnastics and fighting shirtless for, what, twenty minutes. RM: well, then, I'll do some of my trademark *acting*. Although Artie has some nice lines: singing the word "ties" and saying "get away from me with that nickel, boy." Well, Jim's got his shirt back on so let's wrap up this recap. Jim and Artie find out Akbar isn't sacred (the white was just paint), and figure out that the sheik is in cahoots with Arthur Batanides. They go back to the train, defeat Gumball, and arrest the sheik. Then, one last stop at the geeeeeeeeeeeepseeee carnival to give Akbar to the Queen. Jim's very cozily walking along arm in-arm with her until she spies Artie doing some magic tricks. The Queen is so impressed it infuriates Jim. Don't ogle my boyfriend THAT WAY, his whole manner says. Artie comes over and starts to get cozy himself with the Queen, who is quite receptive to his favors. Jim's all red-faced. *We gotta go, queenie* he says abruptly and they leave. OOOOOOOOOOOOh, I get it: shoe's on the other foot, isn't it, Jimbo! See, the way I figure it is that, while Jim has the trump-card of his gorgeousness with both Artie and the Queen, the Queen and Artie actually have much more in common. The Queen's just as amoral, and it's obvious how useful Artie (with all his gifts) would be in a geeeeepsee camp. Besides, Artie's hot too, not as hot as Jeeeem, but still hot. You can never have enough hot meeeeeeeeeeen, says the Queen to herself. But Artie goes with Jim: after all, it took forever to bed him – he's not going to give it up for this bit of skirt, cute as she is. Back at the train, they say good-bye to the sheik, and, when the arresting officer turns up, Jim hands over the sheik. (Hey, the arresting officer looks just like Theodore Dreiser! Say, what do you want to bet this wily sheik seduces Theodore? Revolting as it is to think about.) Oops, seems there's a lovely parting gift behind the curtain from the sheik. Oh, we can't accept gifts, Jim reminds Artie, who rolls his eyes. So Artie opens the curtain and in come two tramps and then they just get it on sans preliminaries. I guess the Queen of the Gypsies was so powerful the producers have to remind of us of womankind's real place (and these girls are so colorless they just buy right into their limited sexual roles.) Artie tonsil-boxes his doxey first, and Jim hesitates as he watches Artie and then reluctantly joins in. Aha, more proof Artie is the dominant one in this relationship: fab! Cue the music and the little comic-strip boxes! |
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