User Reviews

The episode opens with John (William Windom) walking toward the animated house and making funny quips on his observations on life. His daughter Lydia (Lisa Gerritsen) is in bed with a bad cold. He sits down with his sketch pad and tells her the story of the "Unicorn in the Garden", closely drawn from James Thurber's original work. The popular Thurber cartoon is about a man who tells his wife he sees a unicorn in their garden. She threatens to call to have him taken away to a mental institution. When they come he manages to have his wife taken away by flipping the tables. The moral is that you can't judge people so harshly for being different than you. John feels Lydia missed the lesson and tells her another story of when his house caught fire when he was a little boy. His elderly Great- Grandfather Skinner (Douglas Fowley), who thinks the Civil War is still active, is visiting the family. His mother (Joan Hotchkis) is paranoid that the house will catch fire. When she sees what is actually steam from her John's cold treatment, she thinks it is smoke and rouses the entire house yelling fire. The fire chief (Three Stooges' Joe Besser) axes through the front door and Grandpa thinks it is a Rebel attack. Whose to say crazy behavior means you truly are crazy?

Only the fifth episode and the second to feature a Civil War theme. No complaints, as the undisputed highlight of this episode is the extended flashback to John's youth and that especially memorable visit from his eccentric great-grandfather, who recounts and reenacts his Civil War glory days. Douglas Fowley steals the show as Grandpa Skinner. I laugh just thinking back to his story of curing what ailed President Lincoln and how old Abe will outlive us all.

In addition to screen star Fowley, there are two other welcome faces here. Joe Besser, beloved as Stinky on "The Abbott and Costello Show," plays an overeager axe-crazed fire chief. Who'da guess Besser would presage Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING, slicing an axe blade through the door horrifying hapless Joan Hotchkis? The similarities between the two scenes are startling. Besser's part is small, but it adds immeasurably to the manic slapstick that would have fit snugly in a Three Stooges short (in which trio Besser enjoyed a brief turn).

The second surprise was Vic Tayback as Grandpa's caretaker Alexander. He gets only one scene at the tail end and is decidedly sedate compared to the blustery Mel Sharples he'd be playing in several years. For STAR TREK fans in the fall of '69, suffering through the first television season sans their favorite series, it must have been heartening to see--for a brief shining moment--the screen shared by Commodore Matt Decker and mobster Jojo Krako, two of Trek's most memorable guest characters.

An unsung star of this series is young Lisa Gerritsen, who expresses so much with her facial expressions, even when hampered by orthodontic headgear, which torture device makes a return appearance here. She and Windom work so well together, and coupled with Hotchkis, convince me this is a real family. That said, I admit that after decades enjoying reruns of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW I still think of Gerritsen primarily as Phyllis' precocious daughter Bess (and of Hotchkis as Oscar Madison's galpal Nancy).

Great fun and a welcome return to levity after the maudlin melodrama that was "Christabel." Good news for Fowley fans: He'll reprise his role as Grandpa later in the season. I'm already looking forward to the laughter he'll bring.