Chip is seen in the kitchen painting a mustache on his face. He tells Bub that he is supposed to go to some dance with a girl and he wants to look older. This prompts Bub to recall a time when Chip was younger and he and his dad went out for an evening with a girl Chip's age and her mother. Bub and Chip's brothers think he's growing up-as he now seems interested in a girl.
What we all learn later is that Chip was putting on the fake mustache to scare her away. But almost the entire show is done as a flashback-remembering a time when Chip got into a predicament concerning money. Now the Chip we see was indeed a younger Chip, so this has to have been a show filmed some months before-perhaps two years or so-that they never put on the air. So they likely took out a couple of scenes, added new ones to bookend the show, and finished off the series' third season with a show mostly filmed long ago.
In it, Sudsy (in what IMDB reveals is the final appearance of Chip's friend on this series) comes over licking a lollypop, offering to let Chip have a lick or two. He explains that this is sanitary because he has only been licking one side, and he is offering to let Chip lick the clean side of it. I like this typical kid-thinking. Sudsy also explains that he was given the lollypop at this new store that has just opened.
The store is a variety store, usually called a dime store. For younger readers, I'll report that these small stores that sold all sorts of cheap merchandise were a staple in towns of all sizes, whether an independent store, or part of a chain. Best known chains of "dime stores" were Ben Franklin, Kresge, G. C. Murphy, and Woolworth's. This episode sets the store scenes with a shot of a real city street where you can see in the foreground a G. C. Murphy.
This store is having its grand opening and we see the hassled owner dealing with three customers at once. One is a woman telling him his price of 25¢ for a pair of fly swatters is way too high. One is an old man, played by the 1960s most famous old-man on almost every TV series that ever needed an old man, Burt Mustin. In this show, he is buying a couple of items from the store and also a newspaper from a rack just outside the store. He argues with the store owner, who just wants him to put his dime for the paper on top of the papers, like everyone else does.
I'm sure younger people have trouble thinking this is realistic. I can well remember seeing newspaper racks outside stores where you did just that-left your dime on the stack of papers along with all the other dimes and took your paper. Only as I got older did they stop trusting you and install those machines where you put your money in and pulls open the front of the box to take out your paper. I saw them near my home city of nearly 200,000 people, and many times on vacation trips to cities of various sizes. In the show, Burt cautions the owner that he is tempting people to steal in this fashion.
When Chip arrives at the store, he is told they are out of the free lollypops. He exits and happens to see a man who just grabbed a paper appear to drop a dime on the ground. He tries to call to him but the man rushed away too quickly. Only then does Chip see a few other coins on the newspaper stack. He goes inside and while the shopkeeper is away from his counter, a lady customer hears him say he found some money outside and she tells him (seeing it is only a few coins and not knowing he found it on the newspaper stack) that this is a case of "finders keepers." Excited about his find, Chip goes back out and sees more money on the papers. He doesn't understand it, just figures it's his lucky day. He goes away for a while and comes back with Sudsy but there is no money there at this point. The boys watch for a while but nobody buys a paper and no more money appears. They then walk around the block and while gone a group of workers, obviously just finished with their work shifts, all stop and pick up a paper, dropping their dimes. The boys come back and feel like they have a small gold mine. Chip takes his money and buys a new baseball.
He goes back the next day and sees the shopkeeper sitting beside the paper stand talking to Burt and learns why the money was really there. Now he feels he will be considered a thief. Panicked, he drops the baseball and takes off and goes home.
Now at home, his brothers are all trying to help Bub find a valuable stamp from his collection that he wants to sell. It was placed on a table and disappeared. It so happens that the man who wants to buy Bub's stamp is a police officer. When he comes by, Chip thinks he is in big trouble and initially tells him Bub isn't there.
Chip finds it hard to get anyone to listen to his problems, but Mike eventually does. Mike then takes him to the store and after Chip tells what happened, Mike repays the man the amount of money that Chip and Sudsy "found," telling Chip he'll have to pay him back.
Before leaving the store, the man helps them out by "finding" that missing stamp-it had gotten stuck on the seat of Chip's pants.
I think they got into the thinking of a boy Chip's age very well in this script. He didn't tell lies about the money, only to dismiss the cop, and only briefly on that point. He had even followed an adult's opinion in keeping the money in the first place, when he couldn't return it to the man who lost it.
One of the better episodes in this series-good enough for an 8.
What we all learn later is that Chip was putting on the fake mustache to scare her away. But almost the entire show is done as a flashback-remembering a time when Chip got into a predicament concerning money. Now the Chip we see was indeed a younger Chip, so this has to have been a show filmed some months before-perhaps two years or so-that they never put on the air. So they likely took out a couple of scenes, added new ones to bookend the show, and finished off the series' third season with a show mostly filmed long ago.
In it, Sudsy (in what IMDB reveals is the final appearance of Chip's friend on this series) comes over licking a lollypop, offering to let Chip have a lick or two. He explains that this is sanitary because he has only been licking one side, and he is offering to let Chip lick the clean side of it. I like this typical kid-thinking. Sudsy also explains that he was given the lollypop at this new store that has just opened.
The store is a variety store, usually called a dime store. For younger readers, I'll report that these small stores that sold all sorts of cheap merchandise were a staple in towns of all sizes, whether an independent store, or part of a chain. Best known chains of "dime stores" were Ben Franklin, Kresge, G. C. Murphy, and Woolworth's. This episode sets the store scenes with a shot of a real city street where you can see in the foreground a G. C. Murphy.
This store is having its grand opening and we see the hassled owner dealing with three customers at once. One is a woman telling him his price of 25¢ for a pair of fly swatters is way too high. One is an old man, played by the 1960s most famous old-man on almost every TV series that ever needed an old man, Burt Mustin. In this show, he is buying a couple of items from the store and also a newspaper from a rack just outside the store. He argues with the store owner, who just wants him to put his dime for the paper on top of the papers, like everyone else does.
I'm sure younger people have trouble thinking this is realistic. I can well remember seeing newspaper racks outside stores where you did just that-left your dime on the stack of papers along with all the other dimes and took your paper. Only as I got older did they stop trusting you and install those machines where you put your money in and pulls open the front of the box to take out your paper. I saw them near my home city of nearly 200,000 people, and many times on vacation trips to cities of various sizes. In the show, Burt cautions the owner that he is tempting people to steal in this fashion.
When Chip arrives at the store, he is told they are out of the free lollypops. He exits and happens to see a man who just grabbed a paper appear to drop a dime on the ground. He tries to call to him but the man rushed away too quickly. Only then does Chip see a few other coins on the newspaper stack. He goes inside and while the shopkeeper is away from his counter, a lady customer hears him say he found some money outside and she tells him (seeing it is only a few coins and not knowing he found it on the newspaper stack) that this is a case of "finders keepers." Excited about his find, Chip goes back out and sees more money on the papers. He doesn't understand it, just figures it's his lucky day. He goes away for a while and comes back with Sudsy but there is no money there at this point. The boys watch for a while but nobody buys a paper and no more money appears. They then walk around the block and while gone a group of workers, obviously just finished with their work shifts, all stop and pick up a paper, dropping their dimes. The boys come back and feel like they have a small gold mine. Chip takes his money and buys a new baseball.
He goes back the next day and sees the shopkeeper sitting beside the paper stand talking to Burt and learns why the money was really there. Now he feels he will be considered a thief. Panicked, he drops the baseball and takes off and goes home.
Now at home, his brothers are all trying to help Bub find a valuable stamp from his collection that he wants to sell. It was placed on a table and disappeared. It so happens that the man who wants to buy Bub's stamp is a police officer. When he comes by, Chip thinks he is in big trouble and initially tells him Bub isn't there.
Chip finds it hard to get anyone to listen to his problems, but Mike eventually does. Mike then takes him to the store and after Chip tells what happened, Mike repays the man the amount of money that Chip and Sudsy "found," telling Chip he'll have to pay him back.
Before leaving the store, the man helps them out by "finding" that missing stamp-it had gotten stuck on the seat of Chip's pants.
I think they got into the thinking of a boy Chip's age very well in this script. He didn't tell lies about the money, only to dismiss the cop, and only briefly on that point. He had even followed an adult's opinion in keeping the money in the first place, when he couldn't return it to the man who lost it.
One of the better episodes in this series-good enough for an 8.
