Robbie is delighted to be receiving phone calls from various female classmates a few days before the upcoming Sadie Hawkins Dance. (In Bryant Park, unlike the rest of the world, it appears they do the girls-invite-the-boys dance in late April instead of the usual November date.) But Rob is ducking all the phone calls, making his family handle all the calls and just report to him who called. This is because he needs time to figure out which girl is the prettiest, so he'll know who to say yes to.
Mike tells his brother that he has a "scientific" way for Robbie to figure out his dilemma. Mike will ask each of the 8 girls who left messages a series of questions and their answers to these multiple choice questions will be scored. You just add up the scores and the girl who got the highest number is the one to go out with. He persuades Rob to give him one day to take his survey.
So Robbie doesn't return any of the phone calls and spends the next day at school ducking the girls-even trying to eat lunch in a janitor's closet-so his brother can do his survey and give him the results that evening.
But as the day goes along, Robbie finds out that some girls wouldn't wait-when he didn't call back, they got other dates. Others that called only wanted things like a phone number and weren't planning to ask him out at all. The girl he thought was least appealing is the only one left on his list to ask out-and it turns out she scored the highest on Mike's survey.
He goes out with her and has a really good time, complete with a good-night kiss that the girl orchestrates, taking all the pressure of Robbie.
Meanwhile, a friend of Mike's has done the same thing with some college girls only the "winner" there turns out to be the dullest date of Mike's life, making him think his system didn't work at all.
There were fewer laughs than usual in this episode-a couple of good quips from Bub and a bit where Chip is all tied up by his buddy Sudsy and when Steve can't untie him, he leads his youngest son hopping down to Sudsy's house so he can untie him. (He couldn't do it at the time because it was time for his piano lesson.) But this whole episode was tremendously unrealistic. Robbie thinking he was so super popular was just the start. He wasn't seeking a long-term steady girlfriend, he just wanted to go to a dance with a good-looking girl who wouldn't be boring. Since he knew all of them from school, it shouldn't have been a problem to call back his first choice and he'd have been all set. With the dance just days away (we never heard how far off specifically) to not return any of the calls was a dumb move.
Even this teen should have been able to figure that if he left a message for a girl in a similar way, that if she didn't return his call, or come talk to him the next day at school, that he wouldn't wait until the last minute, but would ask someone else to the upcoming dance.
I don't know how Mike could have surveyed these 8 girls that next day. He was shown visiting one girl who stayed home sick, but that didn't stop him from sitting right next to her as she talked a lot. We got to hear one of his questions, in what seemed more like an aptitude test than anything else: "If you had your choice, would you rather bake a cake, fly a plane, or read a book?" How does this have anything to do with determining a good date for a dance?
Mike trying to get together with the other 7 girls might well have found two of them went out shopping downtown after school, two others studying together, perhaps another with an after-school job (they did do this in 1963, sometimes), and maybe the others involved in some after-school club. Somehow, he had his results around supper time.
Probably the dumbest thing was Robbie going around school with sunglasses on, trying to hide from the girls. Surely he had class with some of them and they'd just go up to him just before or after class. They would likely know where his locker is and be able to find him there. I do believe any janitor at a high school, then or now, would be sure not to leave the door unlocked for a closet with cleaning supplies, knowing what sort of activities teenagers might do if they discovered a closet they could use.
The low point was that the girl Robbie went out with was considered quite unattractive. In typical Hollywood fashion, they took a very attractive actress, pulled her long hair back and put glasses on her, and that made Robbie and others all think she was not at all good looking. That led to Robbie being shocked at how pretty she was when she was dressed up nice for the dance.
It is true that a guy will think a girl prettier when she's not wearing glasses, but I'm sure in Robbie's time, as in mine, or decades later today, guys do not think a girl goes from being beautiful to ugly just because she dons a pair of glasses. To put it by the "number system" as practiced in this episode, some guys might rate someone a "9" without glasses, downgraded to an 8½ with glasses. Most would say it changes nothing, especially if they are good-looking glasses.
With a faulty premise and almost all of the characters' actions following total illogical thinking, I cannot help but give this episode a score of 3.
Mike tells his brother that he has a "scientific" way for Robbie to figure out his dilemma. Mike will ask each of the 8 girls who left messages a series of questions and their answers to these multiple choice questions will be scored. You just add up the scores and the girl who got the highest number is the one to go out with. He persuades Rob to give him one day to take his survey.
So Robbie doesn't return any of the phone calls and spends the next day at school ducking the girls-even trying to eat lunch in a janitor's closet-so his brother can do his survey and give him the results that evening.
But as the day goes along, Robbie finds out that some girls wouldn't wait-when he didn't call back, they got other dates. Others that called only wanted things like a phone number and weren't planning to ask him out at all. The girl he thought was least appealing is the only one left on his list to ask out-and it turns out she scored the highest on Mike's survey.
He goes out with her and has a really good time, complete with a good-night kiss that the girl orchestrates, taking all the pressure of Robbie.
Meanwhile, a friend of Mike's has done the same thing with some college girls only the "winner" there turns out to be the dullest date of Mike's life, making him think his system didn't work at all.
There were fewer laughs than usual in this episode-a couple of good quips from Bub and a bit where Chip is all tied up by his buddy Sudsy and when Steve can't untie him, he leads his youngest son hopping down to Sudsy's house so he can untie him. (He couldn't do it at the time because it was time for his piano lesson.) But this whole episode was tremendously unrealistic. Robbie thinking he was so super popular was just the start. He wasn't seeking a long-term steady girlfriend, he just wanted to go to a dance with a good-looking girl who wouldn't be boring. Since he knew all of them from school, it shouldn't have been a problem to call back his first choice and he'd have been all set. With the dance just days away (we never heard how far off specifically) to not return any of the calls was a dumb move.
Even this teen should have been able to figure that if he left a message for a girl in a similar way, that if she didn't return his call, or come talk to him the next day at school, that he wouldn't wait until the last minute, but would ask someone else to the upcoming dance.
I don't know how Mike could have surveyed these 8 girls that next day. He was shown visiting one girl who stayed home sick, but that didn't stop him from sitting right next to her as she talked a lot. We got to hear one of his questions, in what seemed more like an aptitude test than anything else: "If you had your choice, would you rather bake a cake, fly a plane, or read a book?" How does this have anything to do with determining a good date for a dance?
Mike trying to get together with the other 7 girls might well have found two of them went out shopping downtown after school, two others studying together, perhaps another with an after-school job (they did do this in 1963, sometimes), and maybe the others involved in some after-school club. Somehow, he had his results around supper time.
Probably the dumbest thing was Robbie going around school with sunglasses on, trying to hide from the girls. Surely he had class with some of them and they'd just go up to him just before or after class. They would likely know where his locker is and be able to find him there. I do believe any janitor at a high school, then or now, would be sure not to leave the door unlocked for a closet with cleaning supplies, knowing what sort of activities teenagers might do if they discovered a closet they could use.
The low point was that the girl Robbie went out with was considered quite unattractive. In typical Hollywood fashion, they took a very attractive actress, pulled her long hair back and put glasses on her, and that made Robbie and others all think she was not at all good looking. That led to Robbie being shocked at how pretty she was when she was dressed up nice for the dance.
It is true that a guy will think a girl prettier when she's not wearing glasses, but I'm sure in Robbie's time, as in mine, or decades later today, guys do not think a girl goes from being beautiful to ugly just because she dons a pair of glasses. To put it by the "number system" as practiced in this episode, some guys might rate someone a "9" without glasses, downgraded to an 8½ with glasses. Most would say it changes nothing, especially if they are good-looking glasses.
With a faulty premise and almost all of the characters' actions following total illogical thinking, I cannot help but give this episode a score of 3.
