This episode featured the oft-used theme on family sitcoms of a younger sibling annoyed at too-often being compared to the older brother or sister. Here, Robbie keeps hearing that he's "Mike's brother" and feels lots of pressure to try to be as good as his seemingly-perfect older brother.
The story was well-written because we could see different things happening to Robbie and see how this resentment kept building up in him over several days. He was observed grumbling by his Dad and Bub but they figured he'd get over it.
I also liked the main action of the story-a garage full of things making it hard to get out of the car-as demonstrated by Steve coming home from work one night. He takes lots of time moving things out of the way, and setting them back inside the garage as he squeezes his way out of the car and the garage, only to realize he left his briefcase on top of his car.
We learn that Steve actually drew up plans for some shelves to solve that problem and ordered the wood so Mike and Robbie could build the shelves and that within the past couple of weeks the wood had arrived. The boys couldn't find time when they were both available to work on it together, so Steve arranges for Mike to do half the job one evening when he's available, and Robbie to finish the next day when he is free.
Mike wasn't available the next day because he was auditioning for a job at a local sporting goods place, being given a one-day try out, in competition with another high school student. Whoever did the best, would get the job.
On that Saturday, Robbie is doing his best with the shelves, but gets a phone call from a girl who invites him to a barbecue. On some TV series, he would have ditched the shelves for the girl and figured he'd do the shelves later. Here, Robbie knew he had to do his work first. He may have tried to do it a bit too quickly-not measuring accurately, for example-but he did put the shelves up and thought they were fine.
Mixed in with scenes of Robbie struggling with the shelves, we see Mike at the store trying so hard to sell things to customers they didn't want, and accidentally knocking things over in the store that we knew he wasn't going to get the job. So we see Mike doing everything wrong, then Robbie grousing about his "perfect" brother, then back to another blunder by Mike, etc.
Of course, Steve comes back from a golf outing and is happy to see the shelves all finished. He parks his car but before he gets to the house, after closing the garage door, he hears a clatter that he knows means trouble-the shelves collapsed spilling things all over his car. He listens to Robbie's explanation and whining about how imperfect he is compared with Mike, gives him some good advice without lecturing at all, or losing his temper.
Then Mike comes home and tells about how he failed at getting the job. Seeing how Mike is NOT perfect seems to get Robbie to realize things aren't that bad.
This was a fairly good, realistic episode. There were two side things that stood out to me, mostly because of things in my past, which I'll briefly share here. First is a line Bub used that made me think of an old teacher of mine, who loved to ask when students were slow to line up to go somewhere in the school. He'd call out in a booming, deep voice, "Would you like a written or engraved invitation?" Here, Bub said, I think, "What do you want, an engraved invitation?" to one of the boys. The connection made me laugh.
The other thing was the correct, realistic line Chip used in answering his Dad's question about why is the garage so messy today? Chip said, "We were playing Army."
Now my buddies back in the day played "Army" all the time. I would sit down to watch "Combat" on TV, wearing my army uniform, helmet-which I painted part of to simulate camouflage-plastic mess kit and canteen attached to my belt, with my toy pistol and machine gun at my side. What makes the line stand out is, almost every reference I've ever seen in print or on TV when they mention games kids used to play, says they played "Soldier" or "War" or some other term. Chip called it exactly what we called it-so there!
I believe this episode funny but not hilarious. That's what most of them were like. It might be a great example of a typical episode in this series-at least, before everyone grew up and everything. I give it an 8.
The story was well-written because we could see different things happening to Robbie and see how this resentment kept building up in him over several days. He was observed grumbling by his Dad and Bub but they figured he'd get over it.
I also liked the main action of the story-a garage full of things making it hard to get out of the car-as demonstrated by Steve coming home from work one night. He takes lots of time moving things out of the way, and setting them back inside the garage as he squeezes his way out of the car and the garage, only to realize he left his briefcase on top of his car.
We learn that Steve actually drew up plans for some shelves to solve that problem and ordered the wood so Mike and Robbie could build the shelves and that within the past couple of weeks the wood had arrived. The boys couldn't find time when they were both available to work on it together, so Steve arranges for Mike to do half the job one evening when he's available, and Robbie to finish the next day when he is free.
Mike wasn't available the next day because he was auditioning for a job at a local sporting goods place, being given a one-day try out, in competition with another high school student. Whoever did the best, would get the job.
On that Saturday, Robbie is doing his best with the shelves, but gets a phone call from a girl who invites him to a barbecue. On some TV series, he would have ditched the shelves for the girl and figured he'd do the shelves later. Here, Robbie knew he had to do his work first. He may have tried to do it a bit too quickly-not measuring accurately, for example-but he did put the shelves up and thought they were fine.
Mixed in with scenes of Robbie struggling with the shelves, we see Mike at the store trying so hard to sell things to customers they didn't want, and accidentally knocking things over in the store that we knew he wasn't going to get the job. So we see Mike doing everything wrong, then Robbie grousing about his "perfect" brother, then back to another blunder by Mike, etc.
Of course, Steve comes back from a golf outing and is happy to see the shelves all finished. He parks his car but before he gets to the house, after closing the garage door, he hears a clatter that he knows means trouble-the shelves collapsed spilling things all over his car. He listens to Robbie's explanation and whining about how imperfect he is compared with Mike, gives him some good advice without lecturing at all, or losing his temper.
Then Mike comes home and tells about how he failed at getting the job. Seeing how Mike is NOT perfect seems to get Robbie to realize things aren't that bad.
This was a fairly good, realistic episode. There were two side things that stood out to me, mostly because of things in my past, which I'll briefly share here. First is a line Bub used that made me think of an old teacher of mine, who loved to ask when students were slow to line up to go somewhere in the school. He'd call out in a booming, deep voice, "Would you like a written or engraved invitation?" Here, Bub said, I think, "What do you want, an engraved invitation?" to one of the boys. The connection made me laugh.
The other thing was the correct, realistic line Chip used in answering his Dad's question about why is the garage so messy today? Chip said, "We were playing Army."
Now my buddies back in the day played "Army" all the time. I would sit down to watch "Combat" on TV, wearing my army uniform, helmet-which I painted part of to simulate camouflage-plastic mess kit and canteen attached to my belt, with my toy pistol and machine gun at my side. What makes the line stand out is, almost every reference I've ever seen in print or on TV when they mention games kids used to play, says they played "Soldier" or "War" or some other term. Chip called it exactly what we called it-so there!
I believe this episode funny but not hilarious. That's what most of them were like. It might be a great example of a typical episode in this series-at least, before everyone grew up and everything. I give it an 8.
