Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:42 — 18.2MB)
Show description is taken from the Jot ‘Em Down Journal, the official publication of the National Lum and Abner Society:
The calendar may have said it was Halloween, but this week’s dose of Lum and Abner has nothing to do with trick or treat- Lum is suffering from insomnia (“so bad I cain’t hardly sleep”). Meanwhile, Squire Skimp is conferring with one of his old cohorts, Duke, who has a new scheme up his sleeve. Duke is played by the multi-voiced actor Frank Graham, who had logged countless. performances on L&A shows since 1942 (he was Diogenes Smith, B. J. Webster, Gregory W.W. Dobbs, Professor Sloane, and scores of one-shot characters as well).
Duke explains to Squire that he poses as an art teacher, convinces a gullible student that they have created a masterpiece, and gets the hapless pupil to pay his expenses to Europe to sell the painting. By strange coincidence, when Lum shows up Squire suggests that he needs to relax his mind by taking up surrealist painting. (This plot is only slightly based on the 1943 series involving Lum and the flighty Mabel Melrose.) “Did the fellers that painted them pitchers get well? ” asks Lum. “No,” Squire replies, “but they got rich enough so that nobody could tell the difference.”
Lum signs up with “Rembrandt Van Duke,” and goes to work creating such works of art as “Marbles in Action,” “Bananas in Repose,” “Lamb Chops with Two Pairs of Pants,” and “Sunrise in the Morning,” which eventually has its name changed to “A Fried Egg by Lum Edwards.”
Abner thinks Lum has already lost his mind, so Ben Withers calls up Orin J. Watford m Mt. Ida to see if he knows a good psychiatrist. Orin knows a fellow who has been studying psychiatry for 30 years. Granville Hudson, and agrees to send him out to Pine Ridge.
In the middle commercial. Wendell Niles demonstrates to Lum how a Frigidaire can be marked up with crayons and then cleaned off easily.
Dodson shows up, played by Herbert Rawlinson. He sees through Duke’s little scheme in the nick of time, and with his help the avaricious artist and Squire have soon paid Lum $2900 for the option on all his future paintings.
After they depart gleefully, Hodson reveals that he knew Duke wasn’t really Rembrandt… “Because I am!! Hahahahahahi” As Ben explains to Abner, Orin J. Watforil was a little mixed up when he said Hodson had been studying psychiatry for 30 years. “It turns out that psychiatrists have been studying HIM for 30 years.”
