Review of The Split Personality

This review is dedicated to my friend Frederick Simmons. This is Season 1's The Split Personality, written by Warren Foster, Mike Maltese and Arthur Phillips. Howard McNear, known as Floyd the Barber on the Andy Griffith Show, played the nutty doctor. Mel Blanc's voice for Barney is different from the more familiar voice he used. Plot summary: Barney is working on his car and needs a "hoozit" wrench. He goes over to the Flintstones to borrow one. He helps himself to a bottle of Cactus Coola and thanks Wilma for the hospitality. Wilma comments "If only Fred could be so polite!" Fred comes home growling. He complains about his day at work and says he was looking forward to his last bottle of Cactus Coola. Wilma suggests "Suck a lemon! That'll quench your thirst!" Fred laughs and apologizes for coming home so grouchy. Looking for his bottle, he demands where it is. "Barney took it," says Wilma. Fred goes over to Barney's house furiously. He sees a bottle, swigs it down, later to be told he just drank Barney's car polish! In a panic, Fred throws the bottle in the air and it conks him on the head! Barney and Betty carry Fred home, who's still out cold. Wilma calls a doctor who does nothing for Fred, admitting he's really a veterinarian! So Wilma hears Fred mumbling and asks if he wants a hamburger. Fred arises immediately! He speaks in a slight English accent and greets Wilma as "my adorable charming wife," Barney as "my dear friend Bernard" and Betty as "Elizabeth, a vision of loveliness." In addition, he inisits in being addressed as "Frederick." Wilma and Betty are charmed but Barney thinks he's flipped. "Frederick" buys Wilma an expensive fur coat. Wilma is touched but wonders how "Frederick" and she can afford it. Betty complains Barney left his washcloth dirty. "Frederick would never do that!" At the pool hall, Barney's friends complain they have to do more house chores. "Some guy named Frederick has been making it hard on us!" In time, Wilma gets tired of the new sophisticated "Frederick." She goes through some old photos of the old "crude" Fred and suggests a night on the town. "Frederick" suggests a "spelling bee." He puts on an opera record and starts singing an excerpt from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, much to Wilma's misery and the misery of the phonograph bird! Betty and Barney overhear "Frederick" warbling and Betty comments "Some poor mastodon is stuck in the Tarpits! They ought to put a fence around it!" Barney reflects "Either with spelling bees or operas, we get stung!" The next night is bowling night and Betty insists Barney personally invite "Frederick" 1st, who happens to be the Team Captain. "Frederick" reluctantly agrees, though he's anything but interested. So the team greets Fred who acts snobbish around them. When it's his turn to bowl, it goes in the gutter. "What happened, Fred?" "Never mind that Fred stuff," he answers. "My name is Frederick!" "Uh oh," says Barney. "They've been looking for Frederick!" So Barney rushes "Frederick" home and hides him under the bed. Then Barney boobytraps the bedroom door with a large rock, thinking it'll bring Fred back to normal. And after he's conked on the head, Fred is back to his old, grouchy (but lovable) self. He tells Wilma to return the fur coat. "You think I'm made of money?!" And he and Barney return to the bowling alley. Unsolved mystery: Will the Bowling Team welcome the old Fred back? Or will they ostracize him for his aristocratic alter ego Frederick? What I liked: I thought the quacky Doctor was funny and the way Wilma wouldn't take any of his guff! Alan Reed, who played Fred/Frederick, was a master at dialects so he probably had fun playing the "sophisticated" caveman. The Bowling Team has a good laugh at the new (but not-so-improved) "Frederick." I also liked Barney's nod to the old gospel song Dry Bones: "The doohickey is connected to the thingamajig. And the thingamajig is connected to the hoozit..." Oh yeah, I used the "vision of loveliness" line to impress pretty girls back in my single days! 9 bottles of car polish out of 10!