Monster of the Day #78

Who needs Medusa when you have Mary Tyler Moore and her classic “Ordinary People” WMD?

Oh, I get it. A much better location than the shoulder (original or hommage) when you think about it.

I always loved the ‘spooky’ music they used in this episode and the one with the haunted cabin, sounded like it should’ve been in a real spooker instead of a sitcom!

“What’s a Danny Thomas?”

Well, the ‘spooky cabin’ episode I mentioned was titled “The Ghost of A. Chantz” and had the gang invited to a lodge over the weekend to help Alan Brady develop a new show. The reservations were screwed up, however, meaning the gang has no option but stay in the one lonely cabin the lodge has, which is said to be haunted. Naturally, all sorts of ghostly things happen once they settle in for the night.

I can’t recall the title of the episode the picture is taken from, all I remember is that the word ‘walnut’ was in the title. In this one, Rob bugs Laura about her scaredy-cat reaction to an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-type science fiction movie (starring Danny Thomas, and featuring alien walnuts instead of seed pods) that they just finished watching on television. Rob then dreams that the walnut-invaders really have taken over and taken Laura into their fold. Danny Thomas is their leader. The only way to tell an alien from a human being is that the aliens have a second set of eyes on the back of their heads. Rob’s reaction in the photo is response to discovering Laura’s new optics.

Both episodes (as well as an episode in which Rob thinks he sees a flying saucer) use a theremin-type score that provides a ghostly whistle. In fact, in the ‘walnut’ episode Laura notes that one of the creepiest elements of the horror movie they just watched was the spooky music. This is fitting, since it was often the music in those old flicks that really sold their menace and often gave them a more professional sheen than they might otherwise have. The Dick Van Dyke show spoofed this element perfectly.

Adding to the gag is that (if I’m not mistaken) Richard Deacon was one of the actors in the bookends of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.