1.18: Lisa Bakes A Cake

"You want us to build you a lawyer stand?"
"What's that?"
"It's like a fruit stand but you sell law."

The show is inching forward. Lisa is in the Sweet Spot this episode. Oliver is stuck in a bit of Average Sitcom antics. But, even then, Jay & Dick raise it up.

Two plots:
1) Oliver is listed (thanks to Lisa) as Attorney-At-Law in the new Hooterville Phone Book. Now, he believes, everyone will be calling him and he'll never get any farming done.
2) Lisa bakes a cake.

Oliver does a lot of "Is that the phone?" shtick as he waits for people to call. He doesn't want them to call but he does and he goes a little too sitcomy here-and-there for my tastes. But, this is leavened with some very funny Alf & Ralph stuff (lawyer stands) and Mr. Kimball's appearance. He seems almost too rambling in this episode but he gets a funny bit where Newt Kiley calls for him at the Douglas place...and it seems like Hank is doing legal work.

Oh, Hank.

If Oliver gets a standard plot, Lisa gets her first real chance to shine and be nutty. Every time we cut to her, she is in the kitchen making what might be the world's worst cake. How she can get it so consistently and gloriously wrong I don't know? But, the writers thought so much of this subplot that they named the episode after it.

Another slight step back...Floyd Smoot reading the phone book. He doesn't understand Directory Style Listings and it's as eye-rolling as you might expect. So, maybe I was wrong last time: They haven't completely absorbed Petticoat Junction. Maybe they never will.

They take two standard sitcom plots and put just enough of the Green Acres-twist into them to bring joy. I've said it a lot but...with each episode, we are closer and closer to the Pure GA...the Classic stuff. Going one by one, it really is fun to see it shift and change.

And, I do love the way everyone crams themselves through the bedroom door because it's right up against the bed...when three walls are missing and you can just walk in there. Great stuff.