This tv show is pretty new to me.
I like it,and this is a fine episode. It is hilarious hearing these fellows' wonderful command of cultured English conversation mixed with their comical malapropisms and mis-statements,very funny.
There is good-natured humor and fun throughout,many laughs.
When I read that this was made with Hal Roach studios,the same people that did the ''little rascals" show,it all clicked!
This is very much like an adult version of the little rascals I think. Everybody gets their turn to shine,and it works wonderfully. Exaggerated yet believable/relatable situations make for a dog-gone funny show !
3 Reviews
The New Neighbors (character/plot correction)
snnutting14 July 2008
Warning: Spoilers
To get rid of his new neighbors, the Fosters, The Kingfish (Tim Moore) uses the nocturnal wails of a young baby left in his care for a few days. The Fosters, who have borrowed everything, including some of The Kingfish's clothes, are driven to distraction. After the baby is finally returned to its parents, The Kingfish has Algonquin J. Calhoun, (Johnny Lee) acquire a sound-effects record, from a radio station friend. Calhoun and Andy (Spencer Williams) meet up at The Kingfish's apartment to play the record, which also happens to include other sound effects (for Andy to mistakenly play), such as the howling of wolves, an elephant (!) and barnyard chickens; (pretending to be the baby's doctor, Calhoun: "Sounds like a classic case of the chickenpox to me!") . The landlord ultimately serves an eviction notice after the complaints, but (guess who) not to the Fosters.
All George needed to do was learn to just say "no" to the new neighbors
FlushingCaps21 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
George and Sapphire observe that they are about to get new neighbors across the hall. Just as George is about to exit the apartment to go meet them, the male half of the new couple struts right in and asks to borrow half a dozen items. While Sapphire is happily getting them, Mr. Foster sees a nicely ironed and folded shirt on a table and, saying he and George are the same size (I disagree) asks to borrow it, since he hasn't unpacked yet. Then he grabs a second shirt saying, "and I can use one for tomorrow." So the first one was for the day after tomorrow?
They invite Mr. Foster over for supper and Kingfish asks Andy to join them. When the new man arrives, Kingfish does the curious thing of simply introducing him as "Brown." I understand some workplaces where you might refer to a worker that way, but in a social setting like this?
Kingfish suggests a game of gin rummy, but learns from Sapphire that they might not have any playing cards. Foster says, "I just might have a deck with me." While Andy is telling his friend how "The last time I played cards with a man who just happened to be carrying his own deck, I had to sleep in the park for two weeks," Foster is showing himself to be really slick with the cards, slinging them all around the table, even counting them by sound as he rapidly riffles them while holding them up to his ear. He proceeds to clean out his new friends, gaining, I think, $20 from the pair.
So Kingfish, instead of deciding he's not going to loan this new guy anything else until the items borrowed have been returned, and not going to play cards with him anymore, decides he needs to get Foster to move out. (I would imagine he has a lease of no less than a month, so it would seem to be unlikely he'll succeed.)
Luckily, a means of accomplishing this falls into George's lap as Mama is coming back with Sapphire's niece, a one-year old baby. Sapphire will stay with her sick sister, and Mama will take care of the baby during the day, George at night. The baby begins crying loudly, right on cue, and George smiles, holds it, even takes it out into the hall and holds him next to the Foster's door. For two nights he gives him a good dose of loud crying, and gets Foster to tell him that if he has to put up with one more night of that baby crying, he'll move out.
But George is distressed the next day when at the lodge when Mama calls to say the mother is feeling better and she's taking the baby home today. Sapphire will stay away one more night, for no reason as far as their situation is concerned, but it serves George's purpose. Knowing he's one day away from his mission's success, he is bailed out by Algonquin Calhoun who has a friend who works at a radio studio and he's got all sorts of sound effects records they can borrow.
We hear that friend explain to Calhoun how the LP record has lots of different sounds on each cut, and that the baby crying he wants is on the fourth cut. Andy has brought his own radio and is set up in the bedroom to play that fourth cut while Foster, George, and Calhoun are in the living room.
I thought it weird that when the record plays and disturbs the Fosters, he tells his wife, "That's it. We're moving out tomorrow morning," that he still feels the need to go down to George's place to tell him the same thing. When George is friendly, the man starts saying that maybe he won't move-as the record got to the end of the short cut and the "baby stopped crying." Andy is supposed to play it again, but instead puts on the sound of a coyote. Kingfish calls Calhoun "doctor" asking him to check on things.
When he gets to the bedroom, Andy tells him the label fell off of the record and he doesn't remember which cut to play. It was only a minute or so earlier he played the fourth cut so even for Andy that seemed dumb. Then he has trouble, somehow, and cannot count to four as he tries to put the needle back in the right spot.
In the next room, Foster is perplexed as he hears a variety of sounds. Chickens clucking cause Calhoun to resume his "doctor" persona, saying maybe the baby has chicken pox. (I liked that one.) Finally the man storms out, saying he's moving first thing in the morning. George is pleased.
We finish by seeing the Fosters moving out, the landlord saying these things happen. Another couple walks up, seeing the "For Rent" sign and asks the landlord if it is a quiet apartment. He says it will be now. We see Mama, Sapphire, and George coming out with all of their possessions (I guess) as they have been evicted.
Unless he thinks he cannot say no when Foster asks to borrow something, George has no need to want this man to move. He certainly doesn't have to play cards with him again. The man wasn't noisy or anything else. He never met his wife. This is the first time in this series I can remember when Kingfish's goal seemed pointless.
It was also dumb in this regard: Encouraging the baby to cry, taking him into the hall, would seem likely to get a few neighbors complaining about George. I would have expected Foster to complain and he would stay and George and family would have to leave.
When Foster came down to complain to George, I expected him to say, "Let me see the baby. I think I can get him to stop crying," which would have presented a problem the night they only had a record. As I said, if he planned to move out, there really was no need to go tell George about it-they weren't really friends at this point.
So it was an OK episode, I'll give it a 6 because I'm generous.
They invite Mr. Foster over for supper and Kingfish asks Andy to join them. When the new man arrives, Kingfish does the curious thing of simply introducing him as "Brown." I understand some workplaces where you might refer to a worker that way, but in a social setting like this?
Kingfish suggests a game of gin rummy, but learns from Sapphire that they might not have any playing cards. Foster says, "I just might have a deck with me." While Andy is telling his friend how "The last time I played cards with a man who just happened to be carrying his own deck, I had to sleep in the park for two weeks," Foster is showing himself to be really slick with the cards, slinging them all around the table, even counting them by sound as he rapidly riffles them while holding them up to his ear. He proceeds to clean out his new friends, gaining, I think, $20 from the pair.
So Kingfish, instead of deciding he's not going to loan this new guy anything else until the items borrowed have been returned, and not going to play cards with him anymore, decides he needs to get Foster to move out. (I would imagine he has a lease of no less than a month, so it would seem to be unlikely he'll succeed.)
Luckily, a means of accomplishing this falls into George's lap as Mama is coming back with Sapphire's niece, a one-year old baby. Sapphire will stay with her sick sister, and Mama will take care of the baby during the day, George at night. The baby begins crying loudly, right on cue, and George smiles, holds it, even takes it out into the hall and holds him next to the Foster's door. For two nights he gives him a good dose of loud crying, and gets Foster to tell him that if he has to put up with one more night of that baby crying, he'll move out.
But George is distressed the next day when at the lodge when Mama calls to say the mother is feeling better and she's taking the baby home today. Sapphire will stay away one more night, for no reason as far as their situation is concerned, but it serves George's purpose. Knowing he's one day away from his mission's success, he is bailed out by Algonquin Calhoun who has a friend who works at a radio studio and he's got all sorts of sound effects records they can borrow.
We hear that friend explain to Calhoun how the LP record has lots of different sounds on each cut, and that the baby crying he wants is on the fourth cut. Andy has brought his own radio and is set up in the bedroom to play that fourth cut while Foster, George, and Calhoun are in the living room.
I thought it weird that when the record plays and disturbs the Fosters, he tells his wife, "That's it. We're moving out tomorrow morning," that he still feels the need to go down to George's place to tell him the same thing. When George is friendly, the man starts saying that maybe he won't move-as the record got to the end of the short cut and the "baby stopped crying." Andy is supposed to play it again, but instead puts on the sound of a coyote. Kingfish calls Calhoun "doctor" asking him to check on things.
When he gets to the bedroom, Andy tells him the label fell off of the record and he doesn't remember which cut to play. It was only a minute or so earlier he played the fourth cut so even for Andy that seemed dumb. Then he has trouble, somehow, and cannot count to four as he tries to put the needle back in the right spot.
In the next room, Foster is perplexed as he hears a variety of sounds. Chickens clucking cause Calhoun to resume his "doctor" persona, saying maybe the baby has chicken pox. (I liked that one.) Finally the man storms out, saying he's moving first thing in the morning. George is pleased.
We finish by seeing the Fosters moving out, the landlord saying these things happen. Another couple walks up, seeing the "For Rent" sign and asks the landlord if it is a quiet apartment. He says it will be now. We see Mama, Sapphire, and George coming out with all of their possessions (I guess) as they have been evicted.
Unless he thinks he cannot say no when Foster asks to borrow something, George has no need to want this man to move. He certainly doesn't have to play cards with him again. The man wasn't noisy or anything else. He never met his wife. This is the first time in this series I can remember when Kingfish's goal seemed pointless.
It was also dumb in this regard: Encouraging the baby to cry, taking him into the hall, would seem likely to get a few neighbors complaining about George. I would have expected Foster to complain and he would stay and George and family would have to leave.
When Foster came down to complain to George, I expected him to say, "Let me see the baby. I think I can get him to stop crying," which would have presented a problem the night they only had a record. As I said, if he planned to move out, there really was no need to go tell George about it-they weren't really friends at this point.
So it was an OK episode, I'll give it a 6 because I'm generous.
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