User Reviews

The Ziffels have the flu so they asked Lisa is Arnold could stay with them for a while so he doesn't catch it. To Oliver's distress, Lisa agrees before she tells him about it. They bring Arnold with them while doing errands in Pixley and leave the pit in the car while they go into a store. Moments later, two men emerge from the bank, stand outside their car while taking off their stocking masks, then make their getaway.

The bank guard comes out looking for witnesses. Arnold tries to tell but nobody understands him except Lisa, but Arnold was so excited he lost his voice before he could let Lisa know what he saw. Lisa had told Oliver she could understand him because his accent is the same as what she knew in southern Hungary. So she has nothing to tell the police.

Word gets around that Arnold Ziffel was a witness to the robbers' escape, which sets up a scene where one of the bandits enters Drucker's Store and learns about this, and where they can find him. They get to the Douglas's barn while Eb is talking to Arnold, and assume Eb is Arnold, not believing what he tells them. They take him to a remote hideout, figuring to use him to get past police roadblocks, but thanks to Arnold, who leads Oliver and Lisa to the place, justice prevails.

There aren't great lines to quote, although Mr. Haney was funny with his witness protection service, for $100 or more, with the lower price one guaranteed to make it almost certain the witness will live until the trial. But this really was a decent episode with a fair amount of laughs. One of the crooks is Al Lewis, best known as Grandpa Munster.

Of course, we had an earlier episode where the bank was held up while Fred and Arnold were inside and one of the jokes was the two crooks arguing about how much money they got from the pig. This wasn't really a remake in any way, just a matching premise.

I give it a 7, contrasted with a reviewer from a few months ago. His/her criticisms seemed odd to me. They wrote it was "overly heavily plotted", and had "too many guest stars." I went through all the important elements of the plot in three paragraphs. The cast has only the regular trio from the Douglas farm, Sam Drucker, Mr. Haney, Hank Kimball, plus the sheriff, the bank guard, and of course, the two crooks. The guard and the sheriff were each in one short scene, leaving only the two bandits who could qualify as "guest stars" by any definition, so I really don't get that criticism.

By the way, the IMDB cast list currently does not show Alvy Moore, even though he was featured, and was the one who told the crook where to find Arnold. IMDB incorrectly says Mr. Haney was there as "credit only" when he was most definitely in a scene, and they list someone as playing a "man." Nobody else, male or female was featured at all. There were several people gathered around when the bank guard asked for witnesses, but nobody else had a line and nobody was focused on at all.

The robbers hear of this witness-- somebody called Arnold Ziffel --assume he is a man--and they kidnap Eb. Lisa and Oliver try to find their farm hand.

This episode has many, many problems. It is overly heavily plotted, too many guest stars, the script is all over the place, and Oliver is weaker than usual in most of the ep (though he does catch the crooks in the climax)! Overall a real and complete disappointment! Never feels right for a second! (What in God's name would have been wrong with just having the entire ep be about Oliver and Lisa getting kidnapped and never had these entirely unnecessary subplots?)

To the more recent poster called Flushingcaps. All and any guest stars on a show are considered guest stars. Just where in blazes do you get off deciding who is a guest star and who isn't among actors who guested on a show and had lines in that show! More flaws exist in that bad recent review! Enough said. My review is valid!