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Today’s notes come directly from the Jot ‘Em Down Journal of December 1998.
playing checkers, and fairly ignoring their customers’ Ezra Seestrunk enters, complaining of “trouble in the home,” and thinks Abner’s checker-playing comments are directed to him in a very funny exchange:
EZRA: That woman o’ mine is on the warpath again. I don’t know what to do!
ABNER: (toLum) Go ahead and MOVE!
EZRA: How kin I do that? Quick as I git in the house, she locks me in the upstairs bedroom!
ABNER: (to Lum) They’s jist one thing ta do – JUMP!
EZRA: What if she ketches me again’?
ABNER: (having just jumped into Lum’s king row) CROWN HER, BOY!
After having been unwittingly advised to “whop” his “woman,” Ezra leaves the store with neither Lum norAbner realizing he had been there! Commenting on the checker game, Abner opens the door for topical humor by declaring, taken me a long time, but now I got me a king! Lum responds: Now you know how Princess Elizabeth feels! ” (England’s Prince Charles was born the day of this broadcast!) What of “Ezry? ” He did as Abner “suggested” He went home to “move, out. He went upstairs to “Jump,” and after he landed (on his “woman,” who broke his fall!), he “crowned” his wife (“Whanged her un the noggin with his valise! “)! Mrs. Seestrunk now considers Ezra her “big, strong caveman.” and all is peaceful! Thanks to Ezra, Abner’s reputation as a counselor has spread around town, a fact made evident by a large group of folks gathering for advice. “Grannies, lookit that! ” Lum jokes, “They’re lined up outside the store there like Democrats outside the White House! ” (Note: Harry S Truman had just been elected President
Lum adds a Marriage bureau in the store, just as he did in the L&A continuities of December 1944 – January 1945. Scriptwriter Roz Rogers was responsible for both versions, of course. Not present for the 1944 session was Ben Withers, who manages to confuse “Old Doc Peabody” in 1948, reversing the roles of counselor and client in operating his “advice
Lum closes the “advice” show, stating that Abner, “the homespun philosopher” has just been “spun home,” as Maestro Mills’ musicians spin into There’s No Place Like Home
The program closes with a final political gag:
LUM: (answering the phone) Hello? Wha-? No, I’m sorry, Abner ain’t in the advising business no more. I know you need advice bad, but he can’t help ya. Goodbye.
ABNER: Who was that?
LUM: Dr. Gallop. (
In the afore mentioned Presidential election, Dr. George Gallup Sr. and other pollsters had predicted the victory of Dewey rather than Truman. The headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” was emblazoned across no less a source of current events than the Chicago Daily Tribune, while newscaster H. V. Kaltenburn’s radio announcement of that information was mocked in a speech by Truman himself!)
