Unbelieving!

[austin_dern]

[ This is an episode I found really amusing; it starts off with a great 500-yard expository dash to start off the story, and then throws in a series of wonderful events around a nigh-omnipotent hat to carry them on. ]

Episode Number: JBJ-6
Title: "Hang Onto Your Hat, Jabber"
Original Airdate: 16 October 1976
Production Code: 84-6
Plot: The Brotherhood of Evil steals a ``power helmet'' capable of making the wearer's every wish come true, which Jabberjaw accidentally gets. The Brotherhood of Evil lures them to their underwater castle, and after disguising themselves as novitiates the Neptunes manage to set off a series of weird magical transformations and foil yet another evil scheme.
Locations: Aquapulco
Guest Characters: Dr Ortega, Unnamed scientist, Minions, Brotherhood of Evil Master, Master of Ceremonies, Mister Harris, Spooky Hostess, Carlos the Butler.
Songs: ``Ain't Gonna Walk It''(?) (performance, fragment), ``I Told You Once' (chase)

Thoughts:
On announcing the ``power helmet'' the Aquapulco Science Institute people have created must never fall into evil hands, evil hands immediately break in and steal it.

The Neptunes need sombreros for their ``hat dance'' at the Club ``Cha-Cha'' tomorrow night. Shelly picks out what is alleged to be a sombrero.

In the exotic Aquapulco of 2076, the cuisine of choice is robot-built tacos with hot sauce.

Shelly gives Jabberjaw the hats to wear, leading to the mix-up of hats which lets the story carry on.

The tickets Biff gave the minion, as apology for knocking him over, are what lead the Brotherhood of Evil to the Neptunes.

Jabberjaw's first power-helmet uses are to throw a Minion onto a flagpole, and to turn the other into a giant hamburger (temporarily).

The unnamed scientist and talent scout Mister Harris are obviously not Casey Kasem doubling up on roles again.

The Brotherhood of Evil has an underwater castle in a stormy, lightning-ridden part of the ocean.

The Brotherhood of Evil lair has push-button dispensers for a variety of beds. Jabberjaw, giving in to cliche, wants a water bed.

Jabberjaw sleep-walks.

The Brotherhood of Evil has four minions, one of whom is immobilized by the power helmet making the immobilizer ray reflect off him.

Clamhead fakes making shark-fin soup, which a Minion finds disgusting. Bubbles tosses pepper in, making Jabberjaw sneeze their cover out.

During the secret ceremony there are dozens of Minions, and a demonstration of power-helmet use in lifting a statue, which proves it will let them conquer the world.

Novitiates to the Brotherhood must turn over their worldly possessed; the disguised Jabberjaw's include a yo-yo, skateboard, and beanie helmet. Jabberjaw does a ``what do I look like, a tuna from Laguna, a trout from trenton, a salmon from Cincinnati, a halibut from ---'' bit, as from Lambsey Divey.

Also part of the initiation: walking across an under-six-inch-wide laser beam over a pirana-infested pool.

Bubbles has an analog watch.

When the power is cut off, the laser beam over the pirana pool stays on.

Nobody uses the power helmet to affect the chase scene until the end, when Jabberjaw turns two Minions into crabs, somehow saving them from the whole brotherhood of Evil.

As thanks, Jabberjaw uses the power helmet to make Shelly adore him. I have a moral objection to using mind control, what with it being mind control, even when it's kind of funny.

Trivia: The DuMont Network's Washington station, WTTG, was granted commercial status on 29 November 1946. Source: The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television, David Weinstein.

Currently Reading: No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front In World War II, Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Comments

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's kind of refreshing they put so much nonsense into the background details, which I'm sure was a conscious choice to present a world so advanced that it could afford silly climate controls producing things like underwater storms, and not just that they grabbed some leftover scripts Josie and the Pussycats In Outer Space turned out not to need.