User Reviews

This is probably as lighthearted and fun of an episode that you're going to get with this series.

Thomas Craig's (Dick Van Dyke) rich uncle has passed away and he's expecting to inherit a fortune. Much to his disappointment, as well as his gold digging fiance, his uncle has left almost all of his money to a dog. However, Thomas will get the money once the dog has passed on. The rest of the episode flows rather predictably from there but it's a lot less dark than one might expect with such a premise.

The ending is somewhat disappointing but this is an otherwise solid episode.

At the reading of Old Wilbur Craig's will, he leaves millions of dollars to be dispersed amongst his housekeeper, the butler, and Casper, the dog because he's been faithful to him. The only relative, Tom Craig at the reading is pissed that his uncle only left him $1 and a room & board in the mansion. The estate attorney adds that the only way Thomas will receive his $800,000 is if Casper dies.

The problem is the dog is only 2yrs old and healthy and doesn't seem like he's going to croak anytime soon. So, Tom and his gold-digger girlfriend concoct a plan to kill the dog even hiring detective to do the job.

Not your typical AH show, however it's funny and cute.

Will they kill Casper and take the money or will Casper win them over? Watch and find out!

I suppose I liked this episode mostly because of the presence of Dick Van Dyke. Although I've seen this entry once before, a few years ago now, it still seems surprising to find Van Dyke in an episode of this series. It's also refreshingly humorous & a nice change of pace. Van Dyke does quite-well in the role, catching the ironic & satirical-spirit of the premise. He uses various amusing facial-expressions in a controlled, natural-way, i.e., they aren't over-the-top or mis-timed. His appearance here still was before he'd become famous but I'm sure anyone in the business could see the obvious, underlying-talent he possessed, especially as a normal, relatable, and likeable light-comedian. National-recognition of his appealing, ingratiating-style, resulting in immense popularity & a brilliant-career in both TV & movies, weren't too far-away. The other reason I enjoyed this episode is due to the presence of Stella Stevens. I'd never seen her at this stage of her career, except perhaps for an episode of Bonanza I recall. Whether it was before her appearance here or shortly-after, I can't say but definitely before her rise to fame in the big Jerry Lewis comedy-hit of 1963, "The Nutty Professor". I was impressed with her in this AHP episode. Although she became a major sex-symbol in the 60's, beginning with "Professor", and one can detect a hint of it here, Stevens, her beauty & general-aura of "sexiness" aren't exagerrated for prurient-effect. The "steam" she puts-on for Van Dyke is done in a quite-charming & naturalistic-way. Van Dyke's naieve-character can't resist her sultry-provocations about killing the dog who's preventing the couple from inheriting a fortune. We, the viewers, know, though, that she's faking her seductive-ardor, simply to persuade Van Dyke to engage in unethical, malevolent-behavior. Eventually, of course, he sees-through her ploys, thus destroying all her hopes & plans for becoming filthy-rich at the dog's expense. It's all very-cutely played-out. The dog himself is most-amusing & likeable. While watching, I found certain of his canine-gestures reminiscent of Lassie, consciously-thinking of the famous TV-collie, including his bark, which did, in fact, sound-like the same dubbed-over "bark" used for Lassie. I'm sure it was, as I learned afterwards that the dogs did, in fact, share the same trainer---and both AHP & Lassie were on CBS, too! In short, a very-pleasant episode not-to-be-taken seriously and equally-interesting to see 2-stars in-the-making, so-early in their careers, on the very-eve of their imminent, meteoric-fame!

Thomas Craig is attending a "reading of the will" where he expects, as the sole living relative, to inherit a fortune from his uncle. But after taking care of others, the old man has left him only $1, leaving his vast fortune to his beloved dog, Casper. Listed in the credits as those his regular name was Casper, the dog's actual name was Red. He was owned and trained by the famous Rudd Weatherwax, known of course for being the owner and trainer of all of the "Lassie" dogs over the decades. Red was a Labradoodle who went on to a semi-regular role for two seasons on Get Smart as "Fang."

The story is that on Get Smart he would not follow his directions from his handler and the extended time necessary to get the dog to not ruin the scenes cost the production a lot of money, so on the second season, "Fang" was retired from the field and supposedly assigned to a desk job. I note that on this AHP, the dog was almost never shown walking anywhere or doing anything other than bark and look cute. I imagine one scene in particular where they wanted the dog to walk over to Tommy after being told to stay probably had the script call for a shot of the dog not staying but following him, but Red was instead only shown being next to Tommy because the dog wouldn't follow him on command.

Anyhow, our story has Tommy (Dick Van Dyke) telling his fiancee Judy (Stella Stevens) how he only inherits the fortune when the dog dies and her reaction is to get Tommy to agree to kill the dog, despite his normal human objections. He buys a hunting rifle and plans to have "an accident." Just as he appears to be about to pull the trigger another nearsighted hunter walks up and almost does the job for him before the other man realizes the animal he was sighting was a dog.

We switch to a scene of a car with the Judy waiting where she hears a gunshot before seeing Tommy AND Casper rushing up toward her. Tommy tells her they need to leave, the place is full of dangerous hunters, and we surmise that the other hunter who wandered off didn't go far and took a shot at the pair.

Tommy admits he couldn't have pulled the trigger anyhow, so Judy goes to Plan B, hire a seedy private detective named Sam to off the dog. Calling him a cousin, they move him into the mansion where Red is cared for by the butler, where Tommy is allowed to live while earning his living at a normal job only mentioned once.

Sam's first attempt is to take the dog on a rowboat to the middle of a lake and clobber him with an oar and drop him in the water. We see him raising the oar...and we cut to where he's back at the house telling Judy how "the dog saved my life." Out in the middle of the lake, I have trouble believing if Sam fell overboard, the dog could have towed him to shore. How the dog did this was never mentioned.

Sam goes about the house trying to figure the best way to arrange an "accidental" death for the dog, finally settling on poison after seeing that the dog is fed prime steak every night. He sees one steak in the refrigerator and pours ant poison on it. But as he is starting to eat his own steak dinner, with Judy and Tom, he suddenly notices they aren't also eating steak and the butler explains that after Sam had admired the filet mignon he saw the dog eating last night, the butler, who apparently had only one available steak that next day, asked Judy and Tom if they wouldn't mind having meatballs while their guest, Sam, got the one remaining steak and the dog ate something else that night.

***ENDING SPOILER ALERT*** So Sam, who only ate a bite or two, is treated by a doctor, but not harmed too much, we come to the conclusion which I need to spoil to explain my criticism. Julie is telling her therapist how she now has given up on being rich and marrying Tom, and has decided the only way she can marry rich is to become a dog. She literally barks a couple of times and the show is over.

Judy was willing to pay $1000 to the detective to kill Casper. As the soon-to-be relative of Tommy, who lives with the dog, she could easily have taken the dog for a walk one day, and have him slip his leash and run into traffic. If no car accidentally hit him, she could have retrieved the dog and tried that trick again. Or course, she could have thought of the idea of poison herself-it seems like an easy way to do this sort of job. Or she could have easily found some other way that didn't involve her fiance.

This episode was obviously supposed to be humorous, but something about the way the scenes were staged, or the actual dialogue prevented it from really being funny at all. One example, when Tommy is in the woods with his gun, the other hunter comes out almost right next to Tommy, but he never sees him, only the dog some 20 feet away and so he aims his rifle before seeing it is a dog, then he notices the man. For him to have not seen the man right next to him was simply not believable.

The whole plot is also troubling. Tom will get to hold his regular job which he doesn't' appear to hate, live in a mansion with servants, and become filthy rich in a few years whenever the dog passes away naturally. And he and Judy will risk losing everything if it is found out they killed the dog because they couldn't wait? It seemed like every way they planned to kill the dog would have been a rather obvious murder of the dog that would have gotten Tommy to not inherit anything and have to leave the mansion.

But the stupid ending I described earlier just kept it from having any chance of getting a score higher than a 4 from me.

Well, you know they weren't going to kill the dog, so you have to wonder where the writers were going with this episode. The only recommendation I can offer here is to check out Dick Van Dyke in a Hitchcock episode, along with Stella Stevens, looking lovely as Thomas Craig's gold digging girl friend Judy. I think she described him as 'moderately handsome' in her narration to the shrink she was seeing over the lost cause of missing out on an eight hundred thousand dollar inheritance. She even hired a private investigator (Paul Stewart) to make the hit on Casper when Craig couldn't bring himself to do it. I get the biggest kick out of some of these old time shows when a guy like Vincent Noonan (Stewart) goes boating while wearing a jacket and tie. Why so formal? Anyway, Craig drops Judy like a hot potato, so she figures there's only one way left to get her hands on all that money. Really? If I knew how dumb this ending would be I probably would have skipped it.