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Today’s show notes are provided from the Jot’Em Down Journal of December, 1998.
Charlie Redfield is hospitalized in Mena! His problem? He is nearsighted_ How does that land him in the hospital? Abner explains that Charlie flirted with ”another woman” at a dance, not realizing she was his own wife! His ”shortsightedness” got him ”knocked subconscious” by Mrs. Redfield. ”You mean unconscious,” Lumm clarifies, ”Subconscious is your other mind.”
”HUH?” Abner responds, launching into a variation of the tried and true ”other mind” or ”two heads are better than one routine.” This time around, Abner names the ”other mind” Chester rather than Frank, rattling along in a conversation with himself, as Lum phones Ben Withers for a ride into the County Seat. Abner blames ”Chester” for a sudden case of hiccups, which keeps him ”hic”-ing for most of the program. Ben attempts an old Zinkafoose hiccup cure by tying Abner to the back of his car and driving down the road, forcing him to ”run” his hiccups off! In a scene better suited for an episode of The Flintstones, Ben screeches his car to a stop, and the wildly running, leaping Abner smashes into the back! Another Withers hiccup cure backfires, as Ben tries to frighten Abner by pretending to run the auto into a pole! Unfortunately, he forgets to miss, and the CBS sound effects department creates another collision!
Finally arriving at County Hospital, Abner is mistaken for a patient with a rare form of hiccups! Nurse Cooper (Gloria Blondeli) prepares him for surgery by Dr. McNaughton (Rawlinson again). Abner thinks he is merely being taken to visit Charlie, and wonders why the nurse instructs, ”Please take your clothes off!” So shocked is Abner, his hiccups vanish! Nonetheless, he continues to be prepared for his operation.
Lum discovers the mistake too late, and enlists an unwitting Ben Withers to pretend he is Abner’s personal doctor. Thinking ”Doc” Withers will be able to remove Abner from an unnecessary ”hiccupectomy,” Lum assures Nurse Cooper that the bogus medicine man studied with the Mayo brothers – all three of them, in fact – ”Manny, Moe and Jack!” Lum and Ben find Abner covered with a sheet, and believe him to be deceased, causing Lum to voice his regrets regarding his sometimes harsh treatment of his partner. Naturally, Abner interrupts soliloquy by returning to ”life!” (The half-hour programs contain moments of morbid humor generally not found in the previous series injuries and accidents played for laughs, jokes about death, Lum or Abner often expressing little concern over a life-threatening situation for the other, etc.) The doctor arrives to clear Abner, but now it is Lum with the hiccups! ”Nurse!” the sawbones shouts, ”Get this fellow to surgery right away! At last we’ve got the right man!”
After Wendell Niles hawks a Frigidaire automatic washing machine (and pronounces lingerie as ”LAN-jer-EE” rather than LON-jerAY”), we are treated to a final scene, in which Ben also has the hiccups – and so does Wendell: ”This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting S ystem
