There once was a terrific daredevil and escape artist known as Rudolpho "The Great" Gambini, or Gambini the Great. He could slip his way out of ANYTHING. Be it a box covered in hay and set ablaze with the old man chained up inside, he could get out...but unfortunately these days Gambini is moving much slower due to his old age, and as a result of the aforementioned trick, he nearly burned to death. After this close call, Gambini decided it was about time to retire, only he was dismayed to realize that his son Stefano had no interesting in filling his shoes. The old man exploded and cast him out, so now the burden was placed onto his youngest boy, Marco, who didn't want to do it either, but found he didn't have the heart to say no. Well, the next stop for the Gambinis' act was Walnut Grove. As they set up a trapeze for a practice session, the kids gather around the net to watch. They see some spectacular stunts, which Albert wishes he could emulate. Next day, Gambini had himself fired out of a cannon and into the river. Getting an idea, that little idiot Willie stole a powder keg and set about constructing his own home-made cannon and made Nancy's cat the "star attraction". Now what he didn't count on was the cannon backfiring and nearly blowing up the shed. Fortunately the cat was unharmed, but the same cannot be said for Harriet's fur muff.
Marco started attending school regularly and was constantly being questioned by all the kids on stunts and what each one entails. Albert started boasting that he could do the same rope stunt as Gambini did. Despite Marco's repeated warnings, Albert was determined to do the trick exactly as the long-time, experienced master had done it. So with his wrists tied together and a rock to weigh him down, Albert jumped into the river and tried to free himself, but he discovered it was obviously more easier said than done. Just when all the kids thought he'd drowned, Albert emerged triumphant. Despite Charles' warnings, Albert continued training with Gambini. He was doing a fairly decent job on the tightrope when out of nowhere came Charles, who forced Albert to come home and blamed Gambini for his bad influence. Well, sir, despite everything that has happened up until now, despite realizing he's getting too over the hill for escape artist stunts, Gambini was determined to try his coffin trick again. It could mean certain death, but that comes with the territory...both for being a daredevil and for being on this show...so while the old man and Marco tried for a miracle, all of Walnut Grove was looking forward to the show. Not Nels, because he feels Gambini is a bad influence, yep, he and Harriet have had a role reversal. Yeah, blame the daredevil because you can't control your children, Nels. What happened to your balls, dude? Despite forbidding Albert from attending the show, he went anyway and Charles had to track him down... why can't any of the parents control their children in this episode? Anyway, ringmaster Nancy introduced the final act, Gambini the Great in the flaming coffin of death! The same act we saw at the beginning of the show. Everybody gathered around excitedly to possibly watch the old man get turned into kindling. Gambini tried hard to escape his bonds, but sadly, the blaze was too big and out of control, and he just couldn't be rescued in time. So, Rudolpho Gambini was burned alive doing what he loved best, and although Albert was sad to see his hero go, Charles got him to focus on another hero, Doc Baker, even though he didn't appear in this episode, but the point was that Albert was going to become a doctor. (Spoiler alert: he never does.) I've had enough. Roll the credits.
The ending of this episode was basically telegraphed right from the very start. You just knew Gambini was going to fail at one of his stunts and pay the ultimate price. On top of that, I couldn't believe how pussified Nels was. Sure he's usually depicted as spineless around his family, but here it was even more so. It gets disturbing to watch after a while because he looks so pathetic. How could he blame Willie and his cannon mishap on Gambini? Maybe if he and Harriet paid more attention and actually disciplined him once in a while, he wouldn't have done it. Same with Charles, he should have had a talk with Albert and reached out to him, shared their feelings like he's always done on this show, but he didn't do that this time. So the characters are very inconsistent here and the script is flawed. The writer went on to do the episode Wave of the Future, also inferior. "Gambini the Great" is forgettable at best, the performances were sub-par which is VERY unusual for this show, but none of them seemed like their hearts were really in it. Everybody pretty much phoned this one in. Anyway, IMO, this one was not very good. "Gambini the Not-So-Great", I'd say.
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