Gomer has a large box shipped to him that contains a baby carriage. Knowing it was a shipping mistake, he phones the department store that sent it, but is given the phone run-around, so he wheels it all the way to the store to return it.
So far, I'm OK with this. But he first goes to the department that sold the buggy, then to shipping, then adjustments, and he winds up frustrated because nobody will just accept him returning the thing without wanting money back or a credit or other merchandise-even though he clearly explains that it was simply something sent to him that he never ordered.
Tying to put myself in Gomer's place, I'd simply ask for the store manager-or an assistant. When that person comes, I'd say, "Here's the situation: I never ordered anything from your store. This was sent to me. I'm returning it so you can send it to the person who ordered it. Good day!" Then I would just leave.
Instead, he winds up taking the carriage back out of the store, figuring to do something else to return it. The store detective stops him and hauls him upstairs accusing him of stealing it. The manager actually suggests Gomer take out an ad in the paper to try to find who owns it.
Gomer is locked in an office, with Carter coming down to straighten it out. Carter helps him climb over the half-wall so they can leave...but Gomer won't leave that carriage in the office area of the store where they CAN find out who bought it, he insists of taking it back out as he feels it is his duty to find the owner.
The same detective stops him and Carter again, apparently trying to steal the carriage. Finally, the clerk Gomer first talked to comes in to report she found out what went wrong-she scribbled the name and address on the shipping order and it got typed up wrong and was not sent to a Mrs. Peale on Marine Avenue. A pretty unlikely scenario here.
The manager, trying to make up for the store's blunder, invites Carter to take a tiny TV and writes a note so they can get past that store detective. Carter asks Gomer to take the note while he totes the TV. We clearly see how Gomer just grabs one of three pieces of paper on the man's desk. Downstairs, Vince purposely gets the detective's attention as they are leaving, hoping he'll stop them and demand to see a sales slip. But when he tells Gomer to give him the note, the detective says, "This is an order for a baby carriage," and he noisily hauls them away, calling out, Coming through. I've got two shoplifters here," just like no store detective would ever actually do.
The basic plot is much like one from a year earlier, when a pay phone spit out $41 that Gomer insisted they return to the phone company, where he also got the runaround, then wound up being arrested when he tried to return the money. That one also had real funny stuff, with the accompanying dumb parts where, I thought, the phone company executive mocked Gomer and made jokes, refusing to take the money back, but instead of Gomer saying, "Well, if they don't want their money back, I guess I'll keep it," he continued to try to return it.
I'm not sure how I would fix this script. There are some funny scenes, particularly involving that store detective. Two other good scenes involve a store clerk named Mr. Kendall, marvelously played by Marvin Kaplan. But Gomer's two attempts to take the buggy back out of the store after all the troubles he had just don't ring true as something anyone would do. He returned it to the store, told more than one person what happened. Just leave the blasted thing and go home. They'll figure it out. I score the funny parts an 8, the dumb parts a minus-2, making the total score a 6.
So far, I'm OK with this. But he first goes to the department that sold the buggy, then to shipping, then adjustments, and he winds up frustrated because nobody will just accept him returning the thing without wanting money back or a credit or other merchandise-even though he clearly explains that it was simply something sent to him that he never ordered.
Tying to put myself in Gomer's place, I'd simply ask for the store manager-or an assistant. When that person comes, I'd say, "Here's the situation: I never ordered anything from your store. This was sent to me. I'm returning it so you can send it to the person who ordered it. Good day!" Then I would just leave.
Instead, he winds up taking the carriage back out of the store, figuring to do something else to return it. The store detective stops him and hauls him upstairs accusing him of stealing it. The manager actually suggests Gomer take out an ad in the paper to try to find who owns it.
Gomer is locked in an office, with Carter coming down to straighten it out. Carter helps him climb over the half-wall so they can leave...but Gomer won't leave that carriage in the office area of the store where they CAN find out who bought it, he insists of taking it back out as he feels it is his duty to find the owner.
The same detective stops him and Carter again, apparently trying to steal the carriage. Finally, the clerk Gomer first talked to comes in to report she found out what went wrong-she scribbled the name and address on the shipping order and it got typed up wrong and was not sent to a Mrs. Peale on Marine Avenue. A pretty unlikely scenario here.
The manager, trying to make up for the store's blunder, invites Carter to take a tiny TV and writes a note so they can get past that store detective. Carter asks Gomer to take the note while he totes the TV. We clearly see how Gomer just grabs one of three pieces of paper on the man's desk. Downstairs, Vince purposely gets the detective's attention as they are leaving, hoping he'll stop them and demand to see a sales slip. But when he tells Gomer to give him the note, the detective says, "This is an order for a baby carriage," and he noisily hauls them away, calling out, Coming through. I've got two shoplifters here," just like no store detective would ever actually do.
The basic plot is much like one from a year earlier, when a pay phone spit out $41 that Gomer insisted they return to the phone company, where he also got the runaround, then wound up being arrested when he tried to return the money. That one also had real funny stuff, with the accompanying dumb parts where, I thought, the phone company executive mocked Gomer and made jokes, refusing to take the money back, but instead of Gomer saying, "Well, if they don't want their money back, I guess I'll keep it," he continued to try to return it.
I'm not sure how I would fix this script. There are some funny scenes, particularly involving that store detective. Two other good scenes involve a store clerk named Mr. Kendall, marvelously played by Marvin Kaplan. But Gomer's two attempts to take the buggy back out of the store after all the troubles he had just don't ring true as something anyone would do. He returned it to the store, told more than one person what happened. Just leave the blasted thing and go home. They'll figure it out. I score the funny parts an 8, the dumb parts a minus-2, making the total score a 6.