1985
|
 |
Daisies
Outside the store, Jodie is removing two large flat boxes of potted daisies from the back of her Chevy Chevette. Closing the hatchback, she carries them into the store.
Lurking in a nearby garbage can like Oscar the Grouch is a man with a pointed nose and a funny voice. He declares that Jodie's daisies are the last in town, and they would soon be his.
"Or my name isn't Greedy O'Grady!"
Meanwhile, Jodie has brought the daisies into the children's department. Remembering that Sam is allergic to daisies, she's relieved to find that Sam has taken his allergy pills and therefore, won't be sneezing all night.
Jodie realizes that the daisies are precious. She thinks she must have gotten the last daisies in town at the last open flower shop.
Daisies are so popular this night because of "Daisy Days." It's an event which includes a parade, during which all the businesses sell daisies. The money from the daisy sales goes to charity. Everyone has bought up all the daisies for decorating and for sale. Jeff is especially happy that Daisy Days will help raise money to help people.
Jodie tells Jeff it always makes her feel good to help others, and together they sing, "We've got to help each other carry the heavy load, Help each other travel the weary road, Help each other, each and every way, 'cause if we do we'll help to find a brighter day!"
Down in his computer room, Sam and TXL are talking about Daisy Days as well. Sam is going to be in the parade, and he's trying to show TXL his costume. It's behind the center door of his closets, and after a couple of false tries, it appears. Then the right door opens and a large artificial flower in a pot is revealed. When Sam goes to investigate, the flower squirts water in his face.
"Oh," he sighs, wiping his face, "Sometimes I just long for a quiet day during a typhoon on the Bay of Bengal."
Next TXL shows us a picture of a fireworks display with a crowd of people watching. She tells us there are some daisies hidden in the picture and invites us to find them. They're hidden in a bicycle wheel, a hat, and the fireworks themselves.
Meanwhile, Greedy O'Grady is trying to get into the store, but every door he tries is locked. Then, he appears to get an idea. He smiles. "Those daisies will be mine! All mine!"
Meanwhile, Muffy is trying on her costume for the next day's parade. "As you can plainly see yourself, I'm going to be a woodland elf!" She has an adorable elf costume and a little green peaked cap. She loves her costume, but feels it needs something, so she decides to go to the children's department and ask Jodie for a suggestion.
Sam is still trying to show the costume to TXL without any mistakes. He studies TXL's manual for a bit, but only succeeds in revealing some musical instruments in the left panel, inexplicably being blanketed with snow, and the squirting flower on the right. This time, he steps aside before the flower squirts him. One more try and the Daisy Days costume is revealed.
"It looks like a big daisy." comments TXL.
"Of course, what do you think I'm going to be in the Daisy Days parade? A petunia?" Sam answers.
Then the phone rings and as Sam picks it up, we can see Greedy O'Grady on a pay phone on TXL's screen. He tells Sam is Frank Furter from "Frank Furter's Flowers. You may have seen our ad, "Hot dog, we're good!" He has two boxes of daisies to deliver to the store and he wants to make sure a door will be open for him to make the delivery. Sam promises to buzz him in when he rings in at the delivery exit.
"Woo-hoo!" O'Grady says after he hangs up.
Sam returns to the task at hand, finding his costume. Once again the squirting flower appears, but this time, Sam has forgotten its secret. "There's that pretty flower!" he says, going closer, and then: Squirt!
In the children's department, Jeff is singing a heartfelt song about his affection for Jodie and Muffy.
"If I had a daisy," he sings to Jodie, "and you were walking with me, and you didn't have one, I'd share it there with you!" he hands her a daisy.
Now to Muffy, "If I had some ice cream, and you were walking with me, and you didn't have some, I'd share it with you too!"
"Take what you can get boy, it's easy so they say, but for me to get joy, I share things right away." Now he sings to them both. "And if I had forever, and you were walking with me, and you needed someone, I'll tell you what I'd do! I'd love to share forever with you."
Jodie looks somewhat dewy eyed over the lovely sentiments, but Muffy's got other things on her mind.
"Well, forever sounds divine, but really, ice cream's just fine!"
Back in the computer room, Sam is doing a crossword puzzle He's looking for a six letter word meaning noisemaker that starts with a "B."
While he's concentrating, the buzzer rings repeatedly, but he's too engrossed to hear it or TXL's verbal alerts.
"Could be BOOMER, I suppose." he muses, "or BLASTER maybe. Oh, no, it has too many letters."
"Mr. Crenshaw!" TXL tries to rouse him.
"Could be KABOOM, yeah, that would . . . Oh, no it has to start with a "B." - It could be, BAKOOM!"
Even Penelope is disdainful of that answer.
"Mr. Crenshaw!" TXL says more forcefully, "the buzzer!"
He thinks she's giving him the word.
"No no Mr. Crenshaw! Mr. Crenshaw! The door buzzer!"
He looks out on TXL's screen and sees Greedy O'Grady with a box of what looks like black-eyed susans. TXL and Sam both notice that he's not carrying daisies, as he said he would, but think nothing of it and buzz him in.
Now that he has BUZZER, Sam is looking for his next crossword puzzle word. It has three letters, it's an animal that gives milk, and it rhymes with "now."
"POW!" says Sam. "TOW!"
Greedy O'Grady, now in the store, comes across Mrs. P in the stockroom. She tells her the store is closed and he tells her he's delivering flowers. But Mrs. P thinks he looks familiar.
"Did you ever work for the Duchess of Montague?" she asks.
"Oh, no, never worked for royalty! Well, I'd better be on my way."
"Yes!" says Mrs. P, undiscouraged, "It was at her wedding. You took the pieces of the wedding cake and tried to sell them back to the guests! You are Greedy O'Grady!"
He has to admit it.
"Mr. O'Grady, I don't know what you're doing here, but I do know you're up to no good. I must alert our security guard!" she reaches for the phone.
O'Grady rushes up and grabs her hand.
"Sir," says Mrs. P evenly, "Let go of my hand."
"I'm afraid I can't let my plans be upset."
"If I were you, I'd let go of my hand."
"I'll let go, as soon as you get into that box!" O'Grady is indicating a big wooden crate with a window and a lock on the outside.
"Mr. O'Grady, I warned you!" says Mrs. P, and with a twist of the wrist she has him on his knees.
"I give, I give, I give. Uncle! Uncle!" he cries. She directs him to get into the box himself.
"I'm going, but don't hurt me, please don't hurt me!"
"You seem to forget that the Duchess of Montague taught self-defense. She had her black belt!" Mr. O'Grady closes the door and the lock falls into place. "Personally," Mrs. P says to us in an aside, "I thought she looked better in the brown."
Next she picks up the telephone and calls Sam. "I've just apprehended a villain by the name of Greedy O'Grady down here in the stockroom." She explains that he's perfectly secured in a box but she's leaving and wants Sam to keep an eye on him.
"You just leave it to Sam Crenshaw, Mrs. P. I'll be right over. Aye de aye!"
Mrs. P is impressed. She clutches the phone to her and touches up her hair. "What a wonderful man!" she breathes.
The mime lady is getting into the spirit of things by making a picture of a face out of flowers. The face has two daisy eyes and a daffodil nose, but the mouth looks ordinary. TXL objects, saying that the mouth isn't a flower, the mime lady points to her lips and holds up 2 fingers: "Two lips." Tulips!
Upstairs in the children's department, Jodie is watering and working on the daisies and Jeff and Muffy are helping her. Muffy is getting wet because the daisy leaves are wet. She and Jeff wonder why, so Jodie explains that it's dew. Water vapor in the air that liquefies in the evening coolness when it touches something like grass or flowers.
Jeff shakes the "hand" (leaf) of a daisy and says, "How do you dew?"
Muffy groans.
That reminds Jodie of a riddle story she once heard and she tells it to Jeff and Muffy. As she tells it, we see painted illustrations of the events in the story. There was once a field of beautiful daisies. One daisy was so beautiful that a magician granted her a wish. She wished to be a human being, so the magician granted her wish. But she could only be a human after sundown and be a daisy all day long so the magician could admire her. But when she fell and love and got married, she and her husband went to the magician to ask if she could be human all the time. The magician agrees, if her husband can pass a test. He would have to pick his wife from among two other identical daisies. He studied the daisies and then picked the right one. Alakazam! It was his wife. So he and his wife lived happily ever after and she never had to be a daisy again.
Now comes the riddle. How did the husband know which one was his wife?
Jeff and Muffy confer, and then Muffy comes up with the answer. She'd been inside all night, so her leaves were dry - the daisies that had been in the field were still wet with the morning dew. So the husband knew his wife was the one with the dry leaves.
Jodie is impressed with Muffy's correct answer, and a delighted Muffy bows to their praise - and knocks over the watering can!
"Oh! Oh!" sputters Muffy. "Just when fortune finally beckons, fame to fool in one short second!"
Next TXL shows a quiz in which she shows us three daisies, and asks us to pick the enchanted daisy. Remembering the story, it's clear that the dry daisy is the right one. Then TXL says, "Alakazam!" and the woman appears, just as she did during Jodie's story.
A bit later Jeff is in the stockroom looking for Mrs. P. He sees that her coat is gone and assumes she is gone for the night, but he hears a cry for help from the big crate that we last saw with O'Grady locked inside. But the cry for help is from Sam! When Jeff opens it, Sam is in his underwear, so he hurriedly closes it again. Sam asks Jeff to get him another set of clothes. "That rascal stole my uniform!"
Jeff immediately goes off to obey, "I won't be a minute, Sam!"
Meanwhile Jodie is putting a daisy on Muffy's little green cap. "Just the touch your costume needed." she says.
Just then Greedy comes in, in Sam's uniform, which is a bit short on him. "Just checking on the children's department," Greedy tells her. He says he's working for the first time tonight, part time.
Jodie thinks Sam will be glad to have the help. "Isn't he a wonderful man?" she asks.
"Oh, yes, ma'am, the best!" says Greedy, "He'd give a fellow the clothes right off his back!" He then offers whatever help Jodie might need.
Jodie asks him to keep an eye on the daisies while she's gone for a few minutes. "I know it sounds silly, but I wouldn't want anything to happen to them. They must be the last two boxes of daisies in town!" she says with a laugh.
Then she's gone.
"Now they're mine. All mine!" rejoices Greedy.
Jeff is back in the stockroom with clothes for Sam, mopping his face with a towel. "I'm sorry, Sam, that's the only thing I could find. And next time, Sam, warn me if there's a flower that squirts water in people's faces!" Then he asks, "Are you all set? Let's go find this guy!"
"Wait a minute," says Sam, "is the coast clear?"
Jeff scans the stockroom and assures him that it is. And Sam emerges from the box in his Daisy Days costume, feeling ridiculous.
Jeff says it could be worse, Sam could be a skunk cabbage or something. Sam is not amused.
Greedy has the daisies and he is hiding with them on the roof. He's planning to hide there until the store opens. But then his greed gets the best of him. One of the daisies is missing! He remembers seeing it in Muffy's cap.
"I must have it! I must!"
So once again, he poses as a security guard and goes to Muffy's door. He offers to trade something for the daisy so he can wear it in his uniform. Reaching into Sam's pocket, he offers her what he finds inside. "Looks like a peanut butter and sardine sandwich." he says, picking lint off of the bread.
Muffy isn't interested, and hiding behind her door from this person she doesn't know. "What do I say? No way, Jose!"
Next, he offers a dime. This is tempting, but before she agrees, she remembers: "I never take things from strangers. That could put me deep in danger." So instead, she calls the children's department.
Sam, Jeff and Jodie are there, looking at the empty pots and scattered dirt where the daisies once were, and remarking how amazing it was for someone to go to all this trouble for two boxes of daisies. Then the phone rings. It's Muffy, telling them he's at her place. Sam and Jeff hurry to apprehend him. They find him outside Muffy's door, still trying to strike a deal, this time for the dime, the sandwich, and a dollar. Jeff comes up behind him and grabs him by the shoulder. Sam grabs his sandwich.
They bring Greedy up to the children's department, but he refuses to admit he stole the daisies. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
But then Jeff notices something. "Wait a minute, Sam. Look at this!" he says, picking up Sam's hat which is still on Greedy's head.
"It's a hat!" says Sam, his voice full of drama.
"Yeah, but it's wet!" says Jeff.
"It's a wet hat!" says Sam.
"It must be dew!" concludes Jeff. With dew on his hat, Jeff knows that Greedy has been outside. "I'll bet the daisies are on the roof."
Greedy O'Grady quickly admits that's where they are, but asks them to let him go since they're getting them back.
"Why did you do it?" asks Jodie.
Well, that was easy to explain. He knew the daisies would be in demand the next day, and since these were the last daisies in town, he could sell them at inflated prices and make a fortune. He suggests they all make a deal to sell the daisies and make money.
Muffy is indignant. "That money's meant to help the needy, not to make you wealthy Greedy!"
"What I don't understand is why are you so greedy anyway?" Jeff asks.
"Because when you're rich, people look up to you. They like you! That's how I want people to feel about me!"
"Well, if you ask me," Jodie retorts, "people like people because they help! Because they share."
"They do?" asks Greedy.
"Of course they do!" says Sam, still looking like a big daisy.
"Greedy people end, without a single friend!" says Muffy.
"They do?"
"Of course they do!" says Sam.
"Everyone likes people who share," adds Jeff.
"They do?"
"Of course - oh, never mind," says Sam.
"Well. I'm going to share then," says Greedy, with a look of enlightenment on his face. "I won't be greedy anymore. Why, everyone in town will like me. I'll keep on sharing; Why, everyone in the whole country will like me. Why, then, everyone in the world! I'd have all the friends in the world - they'll all be mine, all mine!"
Jeff and Jodie shake their heads disapprovingly.
"Well," shrugs Greedy, "at least it's a start!"
As the credits roll, everyone sings: "We've got to help each other carry the heavy load! Help each other travel the weary road. Help each other, each and every way. 'Cause if we do we'll help to find a brighter day. So let's all help each other to find a brighter day!"
As the song ends, there's a close up shot of Sam, the Big Daisy. "Excuse me, Mr. O'Grady. Could I have my uniform back now? Please?"
Quizzes:
Nursery Rhyme:
Notes:
- When Greedy O'Grady calls the store, we see him in a phone booth on TXL's screen, evidently for clarity's sake, although it's possible there's a camera looking right outside the store. Interestingly, even after he hangs up, we can still see Greedy on the screen making a celebratory "Woo-hoo!" when he realizes he's going to get into the store.
- Jeff's "If I Had a Daisy" song is one of the sweetest songs ever on Today's Special. It joins "I Have You," from "Tears," "Just Because You Are My Friend," from "Friends," "Because You're My Friend," from "String," and "Sam, Sam You're Such a Dear Man" from "Rich and Famous," as beautiful friendship songs sung by one or more of the cast to each other.
- When Sam is working his crossword puzzle, there are some things already written in that can be seen in the close up shot. "SAM," "MUFFY," and "ADRIAN."
|
|
Today's Special - Advertisement
|
