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The Burns and Allen Show - The Property Tax Assessor
episode 1.3
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show - The Property Tax Assessor
USA 1950
produced by Ralph Levy for CBS
directed by Ralph Levy
starring George Burns, Gracie Allen, Bill Goodwin, Bea Benaderet, Hal March, Ellen Hanley, Bob Sweeney, Marilyn Clark
written by Paul Henning, Sid Dorfman, Harvey Helm, William Burns, musical director: Leith Stevens
TV-series Burns and Allen Show, Burns & Allen
review by Mike Haberfelner
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First, Gracie Allen drives a property tax assessor (Bob Sweeney) crazy
by constantly not understanding what he's talking about, as if on purpose.
Then she and George Burns are planning on going to a football game with
thier neighbours (Bea Benaderet, Hal March) - but she doesn't want to use
George's car because she thinks she has dentet it - and thus makes up an
elaborate plot with friend Bill Goodwin that involves him borrowing the
car, having i fixed and returning it before George even notices ... a plot
that ultimately comes to naught. Gracie then makes up excuse after excuse
as to why to not go by car to the game ... until George tells her it was
him who dented the car. Of course, the whole plot of this
episode is incredibly feeble (or as George Burns himself puts it,
"What did you expect, Shakespeare?"), still the show is kept
floating by funny dialogue, good character interaction, and making fun of
the sitcom format itself (like the deliberate breaking of the fourth
wall or breaking into sponsor messages at the least appropriate
moments), so the whole thing still seems remarkably fresh after almost 60
years, while many a sitcom from only last year has already grown
incredibly stale.
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