Description: Season 3, Episode 19
Air Date: January 26, 1962
Plot Summary: An old man and his dog have trouble coming to terms with their own deaths.
Review: Unquestionably, this is one of the worst episodes--if not the worst episode in the entire series; I'll wait until I finish the top 10 worst list before I deliver the crown however. This is also one of the few episodes where I completely question the mindset of the TZ writers. What the hell is this shit?! An old man and his doggie go skinny dipping one night and drown. The next day they wake up dead (not sure what they did all night) but don't realize it. We get serious filler regarding the old man's inability to accept the reality, but we've already touched on this material more than once at this point. All of a sudden the old geezer is roaming around and finds a cheapass-looking gate to heaven. The only problem is they won't let dogs in so the old man says fuck that shit. When hanging around outside, an apparent angel appears and tells the old man he was almost tricked into going to hell, but the devil is afraid dogs will ruin everything. And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids and your dog! So the old man and his dog do end up in real heaven...I guess...as the angel happily explains that the old man's wife will be along shortly. That's actually pretty fucked up but damn funny. Let me get this straight though, I could live the life of a saint and be tricked into going to hell simply because the afterlife is a stupid dirt road?! Might want to sort that shit out. Oh good lord, this episode just sucks plain and simple. The story is stupid and feels like a retread, the message is asinine, and the ending is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Off the top of my head, I don't recall a worse episode, but we still have like 70 to go!
Some of the episodes you don't like I agree with you on, but not this one I'm afraid, I liked "The hunt". It's cool though, everyone has a right what show to love or hate. Anyways, I liked the simplicity of old fashioned rural settings, like in " Jeff Myrtlebank". Some episodes portray heaven as an idealic serene peaceful setting since to some people, the beauty and peacefulness of it can make it seem heavenlike. I guess that's how some people see that, not big city people though, but I'm not a big city person. With that opinion, to each their own.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, they made the afterlife in this episode convincing enough for someone like countryman Hyde Simpson. It's like in "A stop in Willoughby", Willoughby was heaven for Gart because that kind of serene place was heavenly for him.
Even though they didn't show the part clearly enough, and it can look like Mr. Simpson and Rip drowning but the raccoon surviving can appear questionable since it was only a creek and the way they both fell in it does make it look a little unbelievable that that's what killed them. I guess that I could assume on that is that maybe Mr. Simpson banged his head very hard on something at the bottom of the creek when he fell which caused a fatal hemmorage to his head. But that same thing happening to Rip too? Maybe a poisoness River snake bit them both since they both fell at the same time and place, but the raccoon escaped the snake and survived. But maybe the rscoon died too, because when we first saw Mr. Simpson and Rip again out of the river, we were actually looking at their souls. Maybe that was just the raccoon's soul that we saw climbing out of the river too. It was still an interesting episode.
Also, I'm pretty sure that it's not a coincidence but they named the dog Rip and he died in this episode, and that's why he was Rip (Rest in peace)
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ReplyDeleteDude take it easy.
ReplyDelete