Today's Special - Episode Guide

Muffy is standing behind the counter in the Children's Department holding up a little clay mouse. Speaking into the air, she says, "Oh, thank you, thank you, what can I say, so many people have helped on the way. I must thank my director, a wonderful man, my mother, my father, and every fan..." As Muffy continues speaking, Jodie and Jeff come in to the department. Jeff is carrying a tall hat rack and Jodie is telling him where to place it when they notice Muffy. Curious, they walk over and listen. Muffy doesn't see them behind her until Jeff says, "Muffy?" She is startled. Jeff apologizes and Jodie asks what she has in her hand. Muffy explains that she is pretending that the clay mouse is a "Mouscar" that she might win someday.

"Oh! A Mouscar,' I presume, Muffy, is an award for fine acting," Jodie says grandly.

"Yes, it's true," Muffy explains, "but it's a prize that only mice can get. I've been trying hard for years, though I haven't won it yet." But when she does win it, she explains, she'll know exactly what to say, because she has imagined it all ahead of time.

"Imagination is a wonderful thing, isn't it Muffy?" says Jeff. "Waldo says it's like having your own magic wand."

Jodie agrees. "Oh! With your imagination you can go anywhere you want, Jeff, you can be anything, do anything..."

Jeff sings, "Imagine, and you're big and strong."

Muffy sings, "Imagine you're a tiny leprechaun..."

Jodie sings, "Imagine Paris, and there you are!"

"Imagine you're a famous movie star!"

They sing on, listing one fantasy after another.

"Imagine you can play the piccolo," sings Muffy.

"Imagine dancing in a Broadway show," sings Jeff, adding a few dance steps.

All together they sing, "Imagine what wonderful things you can do. What wonderful things you can see with imagination!"

Sam comes in pushing a cart in front of him. "Hey, now," he says, "What's all this singin' about?"

"Oh we're just imagining things, Sam," Jodie answers. Sam wonders what about.

Muffy pops up in the cart. "Like being movie stars! Driving fancy cars!"

Jodie says, "Or flying like a bird."

Jeff adds, "Or dancing on Broadway!"

"I think you've all flipped your buttons, that's what I think," Sam answers.

"Oh come on, Sam. Sam, haven't you ever pretended to be someone else?"

"I mean, haven't you ever wanted to do anything you've never done?"

Sam chuckles. "Yeah," he says. "Oh, it's so silly!"

Muffy takes a guess. "I'll bet I know, you want to be in a fashion show!"

"I do not, Muffy Mouse. That's something you imagine, not me!"

Jeff guesses next that he might want to be a swashbuckling pirate, but Sam says no, that he doesn't like swords. Jodie suggests he might want to be a movie director and follow people around with a movie camera.

"No," says Sam. Then he remembers, "Oh! Camera! Gosh, I almost forgot, TXL wants to see me, something about one of the cameras on the roof not working properly."

Jeff is gesturing in the background to Jodie while Sam talks. Sam is about to move on when Jeff takes a pirate pose and says, "Avast, me hearty! You'll be walking the plank!" Jodie is pretending to follow him with a movie camera.

But Sam is having none of it. "Avast, me Jeffy! Get out of my way or I'll be throwin' you overboard!"

Jodie says, "Oh, good, good! Now could I have that line one more time, Mr. Crenshaw?"

Sam mutters to himself as he moves off, "Oh, I'm tellin' you, all this tomfoolery, seems to me there's a lot of jokin' going on around here and not much work!"

"Work," they say. Jeff and Jodie look guiltily at one another and repeat, "Work!"

Back in the computer room, Sam is trying to see up on the roof with the computer. He is tapping away on the keyboard. "Dog-tailed dolphins! The one time we need the camera, and it's broken!" TXL says it was working fine when, a half-hour ago, it suddenly went black.

"Do you have any idea what's going on up there, TX?"

"Not exactly, but I know there's an intruder of some kind. I'll let you know as soon as I get any more information."

Sam immediately decides it must be a burglar. "Oh, the villain!" he exclaims. "Well, he's in for a surprise if he thinks Sam Crenshaw won't put up a fight!" He gets a big thick rope from under his desk and a pair of "trusty handcuffs" and he's ready to confront the burglar.

Meanwhile, in the Children's Department, Muffy is still thinking about her career. "Well, I know for a model, I'm kind of small," she tells Jodie, "but I can imagine that I'm tall. If I'm going to be an actress some day, I should know how to walk. Gee, don't you want to play?"

Jodie agrees to play along. She'll do commentary as Muffy pretends to model. She invites us to applaud so Muffy will feel like she has an audience.

After Jodie welcomes us to the fashion show and describes the "confection of a hat" Muffy is wearing, Muffy struts out confidently. But soon, she trips and the hat is knocked askew. Muffy decides to "practice for a while till I can wear this hat with style!"

Jodie wishes her luck as she leaves, and then Jeff and Sam come in. Sam is carrying the big rope over his shoulder, and is telling Jeff, "I'm gonna catch that fella before he catches us, by golly!"

"Well, what fella, Sam?" asks Jeff.

Jodie interrupts, "What's the rope and the handcuffs for, Sam?"

"It's for the burglar, of course!"

"What burglar?"

"The one that's on the roof! He's got a big thick mustache and a big black mask over his eyes!"

"Oh, did TXL get the camera on the roof working?"

Sam admits she hasn't.

"Sam, are you just imagining all this?"

"Well, I might have imagined the part about the mustache and the mask, but there is a burglar on the roof!"

"How do you know, Sam?" Jeff asks skeptically.

"Well because TXL says that there's somebody up on the roof, and who else could it be?"

Jodie remains calm. "Well, let's see, it could be an emergency repairman, then again, maybe it's a chimney sweep."

Jeff adds, "Or it could be a raccoon, or a pigeon..."

"Well, yeah," Sam agrees, "but it could be a burglar too, couldn't it?"

"Yeah, it could be, Sam," Jodie says, "but don't you think before you let your imagination run away with you that maybe you should see if TXL's got some more information?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose you're right, Jodie," Sam says.

Jeff points out that you can't open the door to the roof from outside, anyway. "So we're perfectly safe in the store!"

This calms Sam down. "Good thinking, Jeff," he says. He's going back to the Computer Room, and as he leaves, he asks them to send Muffy along to help him.

Jodie looks at Sam, and with a laugh in her voice, asks, "Sam, would you like some help?" It seems Sam has somehow locked his hands in his own handcuffs. Soon, Jeff and Jodie are both laughing as they try to help him out.

The screen showing what's on the roof is still black when Sam gets back to the Computer Room, but Sam insists that it's a burglar with a woollen hat pulled down over his ears. Muffy pops up and scolds, "Oh, Sam, that's not so, you're imagining that!" She pats her head, still wearing the hat from her modeling practice. "By the way, do you like my flowery hat?"

"Your what?" says Sam. "Oh, Muffy, I don't have time for your hat!"

TXL interrupts. She has picked up some noises on the roof that sound like footsteps. She plays the sound. The footsteps are clearly those of more than one person.

Sam is beside himself. "There's a whole gang of them up there! They're probably going to tie us all up and dangle us out of the window!"

Muffy remains calm. "Oh, if Jodie were here, I know what she'd say. Don't let your mind get carried away."

"Oh well, yeah. That's true." He faces us. "She did tell me that earlier, you know. She always has good advice."

When Sam expresses his need to get his mind off of his worries, Muffy suggests she tell everyone a story. TXL offers to show the pictures, which she says she can do while still working on the camera.

"Let us know if you see or hear anything new," Sam says.

"Yes sir!" says TXL.

Muffy tells a story about a little girl named Sue, "whose friend was very small. So small in fact, no one but Sue had seen this friend at all." Sue carried this friend in her hat. She fed him cheese and sweet pickles for lunch and sometimes chocolate milk. She would put her friend in a boat on the water in a bucket "so he could row, and with two matchsticks in a pail, back and forth he'd go." At night, Sue tucked her friend in and ready him a fairy tale. Then Muffy turns to Sam and asks, "Can you imagine who could be the finest friend of all, a friend who eats a lot of cheese and is very, very small?"

"Friend that is very small," muses Sam. He turns to us. "Can you imagine what kind of friend Sue has?" he asks. "Maybe it's a grasshopper," he says. Muffy giggles. Sam corrects himself, "Oh, of course, they don't eat cheese, do they?" Muffy laughs again, and says, "It was a little mouse that was a friend for Sue. They were the very best of friends - just like me and you."

"Yeah, a mouse. I shoulda known, Muffy," Sam says. "That was a really nice story."

"Excuse me," says TXL, "I've picked up some more sounds from the roof!"

"What kind of sounds?" Sam asks.

"I'm not sure," says TXL. "Have a listen yourself."

The noises are strange, indeed, rhythmic vowel sounds that sound like "Aheee eeee!"

Sam thinks the sounds are spooky, like voices from outer space. "Muffy Mouse, that's it!" he shouts. "Voices from outer space! Martians have landed on our roof!" TXL advises that he wait until he can see what's on the camera.

Sam ignores her. "I don't need anything on the camera. I can see those little fellas in my mind's eye, yes I can! Look, they have bright green eyes, you know, and have long antennae instead of ears. Muffy, we're going to have to get ready for an invasion!"

TXL tries to calm him. "I really think that..." she starts.

Sam isn't listening. "TXL, you let me know if there's anything new."

"Yes, but..." TXL answers.

"Muffy, you follow me, we've got a lot to do to get ready!"

Meanwhile, in the Children's Department, Jeff is putting a crown on an elegantly dressed mannequin. He tells her that it's too bad she doesn't have a magic hat like his that makes her come to life. He turns to us. "Of course, I have to be a mannequin during the day, and I can't go outside the store." But he can imagine what it would be like. "Just being an ordinary person, walking along the street, seeing all the shops and the houses, saying hello to everyone." As he begins to sing, we see him, in his imagination, against the illustrated background of a street. "I'm just a regular guy, an ordinary person, strolling down the avenue," he sings. On his imaginary street there are a lot of friendly, smiling people and Jeff greets everyone. A woman gardening. A barber standing in his shop door. A boy skateboarding. He continues singing, walking, and "dancing down the town's main street. I'd visit each cafe, and stop at every shop, and tip my hat to everyone I..." As soon as Jeff takes his hat off, he turns into a mannequin in his imagination.

Back to reality, Jeff has indeed actually taken off his hat and has become a mannequin. Sam comes running in shouting, "The Martians have landed! The Martians have landed!" He comes up to Jeff, carrying a bow and arrow, not noticing that Jeff is not moving. "Jeff, didn't you hear me, I said the Martians have landed! Oh, all sorts of them with big noses and eight nostrils, and... oh, I gotta get a rope and make a lasso so I can throw it over their pointy heads! Oh, I hope they don't have laser guns," and off he goes.

Muffy comes in and bumps into Jeff. "Jeff, did Sam go by? He's excited, and do you know why? He thinks there's Martians on the roof! Although I think there's little proof." Finally, Muffy notices that Jeff isn't answering her. "Jeff! Why don't you talk to me? Oh, your hat is off, I didn't see!" But Sam calls for help before she can do anything for Jeff. "I'm sorry, Jeff, but I must go. Duty calls, and I can't say no!"

Exit Muffy, enter Jodie, carrying a load of boxes. "Oh, Jeff, am I glad you're here, could you please give me a hand with these boxes? Jeff, please! Oh!" Then she drops them all. "Forget it!" she says. Then she takes a look at Jeff. "Oh! He took his hat off again!" She carefully puts his hat on, she says the magic words and Jeff comes to life. "Hi, Jodie," he says a bit sheepishly.

"You took your hat off again," Jodie says.

"I know," Jeff answers. "I was just being friendly and saying hello to everyone."

"Well, how about being friendly and helping me to pick up all these boxes?" Jodie asks playfully.

"Yes, ma'am!" says Jeff, reaching up as if to tip his hat.

"Jeff!" Jodie warns.

"Only kidding!" says Jeff.

Later, Jeff and Jodie are picking up the boxes that she dropped. She is wondering where Sam and Muffy are. Jeff thinks that perhaps they passed when he was a mannequin and couldn't see them.

Muffy pops up. She's glad to see Jeff has his hat back on. She explains Sam's latest theory. "Martians, he says, are all over the place! We've been invaded from outer space!"

"Oh, Muffy," Jodie says, laughing. "Sam's just imagining those things!"

"Maybe he is," says Muffy, "but then maybe it's true. I think we should find out, don't you?"

Jodie agrees, but wonders where Sam is. When Muffy says she thinks he has gone to the roof with his rope, Jeff gets worried.

"You know, I think we should find out what's going on," he says. "Sam might need our help."

Jodie thinks so too. "I'm really kind of curious to find out who is up on the roof?" She turns to us, "Aren't you?"

Now we see Sam opening the door to the roof. The first thing he discovers is the reason why he can't see anything on TXL. Somebody has hung a coat over the camera.

Three people, a man and two women, are around a piano, not noticing Sam at all. They say they should rehearse the song they're going to sing in the store the next day. They decide to pretend that there's a real live band, an audience, and a stage. They begin singing, and suddenly we're seeing the band, hearing an audience, and seeing the three people on stage, singing "Side by Side." At the end of the song, we're back to reality and we see only the three singers, gathered around the piano.

Sam comes over, rope in hand. "Excuse me." He says, "I just enjoyed your song very much. But who are you? And what are you doing here?"

The man speaks up. "Well, that's Sharon, that's Lois, and I'm Bram, and we're singers. We're just rehearsing for our concert tomorrow," they explain. The store manager said it would be all right for them to practice right up there.

Sam says, "Now that you mention it, he did say something about a group being up here tonight. I guess I just plumb forgot. I've got quite an imagination. You know I thought there were Martians up here!"

"And the rope was for them!" says Lois.

"Yeah, I was going to capture them!"

They all laugh. He puts the rope down and introduces himself all around.

Lois says they're so glad he liked their song. Sam says he did, and he sometimes wishes he could be a singer. "Maybe the lead singer in a group!"

Bram says he sounds like he's got a good voice. "If you want to sing with us, we'll be your backup group."

Sam pushes Bram playfully. "Oh, go on! You're kidding me! Really?"

Sharon hands him a pencil. "Here's a microphone," she says. Lois adds, "And Sam, the audience is right out there, and they're very friendly!"

"Friendly?" Sam says.

"Uh-huh."

He speaks into the pencil. "Testing, testing," he says until there's a whistling sound. "Oh," says Sam, "sounds like I've got a little 'feedbag' around here." Sharon laughs, and Lois shakes her head, putting her face in her hand.

Next, the Mime Lady makes an appearance. "Can you imagine how she's feeling?" TXL asks us. The mime lady is mopping her brow with a sweater and fanning herself. It's clear that she's hot. Then she mimes turning down the heat, and is clearly relieved.

Back on the roof, Sam is ready to sing, so "Sharon, Lois, Bram and Sam" sing "Side by Side" again, this time with Sam as their "lead singer." It sounds fine, and when it is over, Sam excitedly says, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, that was terrific! And now how's about a hand for my great backup band, Sharon, Lois, and Bram!" They all shout hooray, and just then, Jeff, Jodie, and Muffy come up to see if Sam is all right. Sam is happy to do the honors of introducing everyone all around, all thoughts of burglars and Martians forgotten.

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