Two Hundred A Day - Episode 72: Dwarf in a Helium Hat

Episode Date: June 28, 2020

Nathan and Eppy get a look at the wild party scene of 70s LA in S4E17 Dwarf in a Helium Hat. Jim gets a threatening phone call, but to the wrong number! His conscience can't let this sit, and in trying to track down Jay Rockfelt to warn him of the impending danger, he gets dragged in to a life-and-death situation with a jersey mobster who just wants to be taken seriously. Though this one has a bit of a thing plot, it's a fun episode with some particularly amazing dialogue! We mention Gigi Garner's James Garner Animal Rescue Fund, check it out at jgarf.org! We now have a second, patron-exclusive, podcast - Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Brian Perrera Eric Antener Bill Anderson Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app Jay Adan's Miniature Painting And thank you to Dael Norwood, Dylan Winslow, Dave P, and Dale Church! Thanks to: fireside.fm for hosting us Audio Hijack for helping us record and capture clips from the show spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for other audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by game and narrative designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. In each episode we pick an episode of The Rockford Files, recap and review it as fans of the show, and tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Here's the tally, Jimbo. You had Atlanta at Even Money, tough break, and you got bombed in the Duke Wake Forest fiasco, and you split the Quinelle at Holly Park, so you're the book $4.50. Anytime before Friday, huh, buddy? Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. As always, I am Nathan Poletta. I am Epidio Ravishaw. And this time we are taking a hop, skip, and a jump to season four to talk about our episode. This was a choice of yours, Epi. What is it and why did you pick it? I picked it because I couldn't remember it.

Once I started watching it, I definitely could. I just couldn't remember it from the IMdb description so this episode is season 4 episode 17 dwarf in a helium hat which is uh a great name it gets explained it actually yeah it is it is given a line reading uh late in the episode yeah uh i feel like that part is a joke on something that I don't I can't quite get. But anyways, the one line pitch in IMDb was a threat to the wrong number has Jim scrambling to find out who it was meant for. And I was like, yeah, that's I'd watch that. Like that's so that's why I chose it.

I also didn't really remember it. I remembered the wrong number premise. Right. And that there was like something to do with a musician yes i also thought that it was in season five like i was looking through my season five discs and being like where is it uh based entirely on the title because it's of a piece with a lot of the season five titles where they start getting weird yeah with the french heel back is the naru jacket you know soon know, soon to come. Like all those.

Yeah. We've gone over this before, how they just started going crazy with the titles in season five. So unlike you, who has perfect recall about which disc you need. Oh, that was so good. So satisfying. I mean, I knew I knew I was going at season four. I pulled the top of the DVD set box off and I was like, okay, it's season four, which I think makes it just slightly more towards the end than the middle, but it's probably late

for. And I then realized that I didn't know which side of my DVD box was season one and which side was season six. And I just went for it and i got it first one out sorry this is the game i play you've done this before this is not the first time you've gotten it right on the first the first poll so i'm also getting smarter about replacing the dvds in the case uh if if if the listeners at home have the uh mill creek dv which is held together by, you know, construction paper, the sleeves cover most of it. So I've now put them in so that the listing is exposed every time you look at the disc so you could have a better idea. Because I just kept pulling them out, pulling the disc out, then putting it back in. Anyways, none of this is exciting.

DVD pro tips from Peppy. Well, what is exciting is this episode. Yeah. I'm interested for our conversation. I think I'm going to save some thoughts for the end. Sure, yeah. Yes, this is back half of season four. This is a Stephen Cannell and David Chase script.

And I think the thing that sticks with me the most upon this rewatch, because I have seen this before, is just some of the language, just the line. Just the lines. There's just so many lines. We're coming, at the time of our recording, we're not fresh off of, but just past our Malibu Madness stuff, where we got to talk about some of the best juicy lines or whatever. Because this one.

This one might have dominated that category. Well, yeah, it definitely... I don't know how it would have done against, say, you hand me an ice cream sandwich, but there are some you hand me an ice cream sandwich lines in this that are delivered by a villain. When we get towards the end and And we get to this villain. There's some just really good dialogue there.

The diction. Just the word choice of some of these. There's a lot of soliloquies. And now this character is going to talk for a while. Which is not super common in the Rockford Files. But they're judicious. And good. In this episode.

I feel like this episode. I feel like it's a response to a thing that is happening in a subsection of a culture. Yeah. So there's some moralizing going on. And I feel like there are a few key opportunities that they take to do that. I don't have a problem with it because I'm not the subsection of the community that's being moralized against. Right. Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Well, as we say, we'll get into it.

This episode is our second visit with director Reza Badiyi, who we first saw in The Becker Connection and then also directed Second Chance, which I didn't remember. in the Becker connection and then also directed second chance, which I didn't remember. So this is our third visit of his seven Rockford files episodes. Yeah. We'll be doing more of those. Oh yes. More towards the,

towards the end of the series. Also directed one, Mrs. Columbo episode. If I remember right, one of the structures claims of fame is that he's like directed more episodes of television than almost anyone over 200 episodes um including directing the iconic wave curl to the beginning of hawaii 50 oh nice directed more incredible hulk episodes than rockford files we'll leave it at that he died in 2011 i was gonna say uh he did

like all the way up into like baywatch and baywatch nights and uh into the 90s uh sliders sliders yeah yeah most memorably of course mortal kombat conquest yes which i did not know existed uh yep anyways there's a very storied history here uh the mortal kombat television show which ran for one season in 1999 uh the actor who plays kung lao is paulo montalban and i was like no but no no relation to to okay all right anyway uh back to the matter at hand um yes so we'll be seeing more of uh where's uh buddy's work uh as we get through the later seasons of the show um yeah all right i'll jump into the opening montage then yeah uh another very brief one i feel like we've had a couple very

brief preview montages recently there was a moment in the show where there was a little sped up action and maybe wonder if they will tight on time. But this one, I just have two notes. The first one is the line, and this line will come back. This is the party you don't come home from. Yeah. Ah, that's great. And then, of course, bus chase. Bus chase. Piano goes into a pool.

Oh, yeah. There's clearly gangsters involved. Or mobsters, I should say. Clearly coded mobsters. But, yeah, the big centerpiece here is the tour bus looking bus that Jim is whipping all over the place. The montage sold me on it. I mean,

they always do, but like, uh, from the, that line at all, this, this, this is the part of you don't come home from.

Yeah. I'd watch that movie. Hello listeners. We're going to take a quick break to say thank you to our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200aday. As always, we extend a special thanks to our gumshoe-level patrons. This time, we say thank you to Shane Liebling. If you play games online, you should check out his free dice rolling app, Roll For Your Party, at rollforyour.party.

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is right for you. So this episode, you don't realize I didn't realize the episode had started. So this episode, you don't realize, I didn't realize the episode had started. It's the phone gag is how they start. It's not exactly the same, but it starts with a pan. I noticed this just, I don't know, because it's Rocky. But it starts with a shot of the picture of Rocky on Jim's desk and the slow pan over his desk while the phone is ringing. So if you just walked in and turned on the TV, this very well could be the answering machine bit before the credits. But the credits are playing over this,

like as soon as we start the episode. But yes, this call does not go to the answering machine because this is clearly waking Jim up late at night and he comes shuffling out to answer the phone. Not as in some episodes with a phone in his bedroom. Right. But wait, we got to talk the picturesque Jimbo sleeping situation here. Yes, very much so.

Striped PJs that match his striped sheets. It's great. It's wonderful. It definitely has the look of like a department store catalog. Yeah, I definitely noticed the sheets as well uh and i also i wonder if this is a director thing or like a camera person thing or what but i feel like there are a lot of very visual like palettes in this episode like the sheets are kind of one because they have this stripy pattern and yeah and everything but there's multiple uh this is one where jim wears one of his uh i think uh trademark pale yellow shirts yeah um and there are multiple scenes where he's in like a dark

yellow sport coat over a pale yellow shirt on front of an off yellow beige background. It's like multiple. It's not like ugly or gross. I mean, it's a palette that I like, but it's like very, you know, was this just, it just worked out this way? Or was someone trying to make. Intentional or is this the 70s? Exactly.

Exactly. No way to know. No way to know. Well, Jim picks up the phone and it is a curt demanding person on the other side telling him to look outside. Your dog is dead. You and the Lansing girl have 12 hours or something to that effect. So spoiler alert, the dog is OK. Yeah.

Let's just let our audience know if you haven't watched the episode, the dog ends up all right. Yes. Because I was definitely immediately thinking thinking what did i choose for an episode yes so the dog's okay but in this threat uh they say that your dog is dead look outside uh you have 12 hours you and the lansing girl etc etc um very threatening i i don't know anything about the history of this episode but i would not be surprised if they were trying to come up with answering machine messages. And one of them was like, what about this? Cause this almost fits as one of the joke answering machine messages where, you know, he gets a threat and it turns out it's

not for him. It's a wrong number. And we just blow that out to a whole episode. Yeah. And they're like, you know what? That could be an episode. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's make it an episode. Yeah. I have no wisdom to share on that account. It's certainly possible. So, Jim, you know, clearly this is not a call intended for him.

But we then see over the rest of the scene, just with his facial expressions and physical action, that this is bothering him and uh he's not going to be able to sleep until he does something about it um amidst his stripy 70s sheets as he wrestles with his moral obligation here and so we cut straight to lieutenant chapman giving jim a hard time at the police station oh it's a good one there's two things here the essential so plot wise uh jim goes to the police station to say hey i received this threat yeah you should do something about it chapman intercepts him in the like in the room and decides to yell at him and dress him down in front of all the other officers and uh while jim eventually gets to tell his story because it's chapman he doesn't believe him or doesn't think it's serious and you know ignores

uh what jim is trying to trying to do so the police are going to take no action that's the plot but yeah what happens in this scene yes is is a uh head uh head-to-head status clash of epic proportions one of the things i love about it is just how personal Chapman gets. It's not how personal he gets. It's because he's investing so much effort and let's say creativity into what he's doing. You realize his anger about Rockford isn't just this general like low level annoyance with his cops goofing off. Right. This is a personal thing for him right he's he's he

starts calling him jimbo let's put a five-man detail on it for you come on now rockford give me a break will you i mean for weeks no no months no years i've been looking forward to helping you with some of your police well no you know what i mean jimbo. That's what Becca calls you, isn't it? Jimbo, like in bimbo. Yes. It's not like he's trying to get Jim to go away. It's that he wants to just tear him down in public, right? Like, that's my feeling here is that this isn't a get out, we don't have time for you moment. This is a I am so sick of you.

Right. That I am going to make this the most miserable experience I can for you. Jim even says here, I'll tell you in your office. He's like, no, tell me here. Yeah, exactly. But then Jim being someone with an actual sense of humor is able to this is it's late at night. Right. So this is the swing shift.

So there's all these cops just like sitting at their desks waiting for something to happen jim is able to i think with little effort um turn chapman's overbearing sarcasm into laugh lines on yeah you know turning them against him with stuff like uh why are you practicing your material here you should be on carson like yes um he does call chapman a bag of gas and a three-piece suit which gets a big laugh i'm not sure if that particular laugh was like there's other stuff in the scene that i thought was funnier but i think this is the this was the scripted laugh yeah this is the one where we yeah we need that to happen so that so like chapman gets mad yeah uh one of my favorite bits in this scene so what do we come out of this with? A dead dog?

Maybe. Or maybe we just get lucky and we turn up a guy with a glassy grin or a lampshade on his head. Billings, put Mr. Rockford on a skateboard and give him a push toward the sidewalk. Perfect. When Jim looks at Billings and just waves him like, that's all right. You don't have to do that. Like, that is exquisite. The tiny bit of status play in that where Jim is literally overriding Chapman's orders. You know, Chapman's orders were made in jest. But, like, still, he's like, don't worry about it. I'll leave. Billings probably likes Jim more than Chapman.

Like, let's be real. Well, with nothing accomplished at the police station, jim goes back to his trailer where where rocky has appeared um to hear his tales of woe so jim of course is worried that this guy jay um because the threat was jay and the lansing girl right it's where this guy jay and lansing girl never got the message they don't know that there's a threat against them and he's also kind of running on empty because he was on some other job in denver or something it's like yeah up for 24 hours and just got back um so he tells his tale of woe and then you see him thinking while rocky tells his tale of woe which is that while jim was gone he hired someone to replant his lawn and paid him 400 but now it looks like it's dying and there's this

whole rigmarole where he's like i've been calling him and he has an answering machine like you do and i leave messages and he never calls me back you should call him he'll call you back but while rocky is talking jim has brainstormed a way to to figure out uh how to help these people and he's looking in the phone book and it it turns out that the name directly over James Rockford is J. Rockfelt. And so this person must have been trying to call this guy J. Rockfelt and dialed the wrong number because they were one line off in the phone book. So he calls that number. There's no answer.

But it's an address in Hollywood. And we have this great Rocky being like, Yes. Just because you can look him up in the phone book. So he calls that number. There's no answer. But it's an address in Hollywood. And we have this great Rocky being like, just because you can look him up in the phone book doesn't mean you're going to go over there. And Jim gets his coat and heads out the door on a, oh, I would never do something like that. Yeah. And it's so like, this isn't a joke in the cut kind of thing. No. Because he's clearly being sarcastic uh as he's saying it he's just sassing rocky yeah yeah up until now um there's this thing that's going on in that i'm

just loving which is how jim is just incapable of letting this go he gets the phone call goes right back to bed and then can't fall asleep. And like every step he's distracted. He can't think of anything else but what's happening, which is great because, you know, he did what he had to do. He told the police, but that's obviously not going to help anyone. And he knows that people are in trouble. And it's, you know, like this is that moral underpinning to Jim, where he's like, I just need to find a way to help these people out.

And he keeps trying to convince himself to forget it, that he's done enough or whatever. And obviously Rocky is trying to convince him as well. I just, I'm just really enjoying every time he thinks he's done it, something reminds him of it or brings him to just where he needs to be to keep going. This is an episode where Jim, it's not even that Jim gets into trouble. It's that Jim kind of pulls himself against his better judgment in the sense of his like. Sense of self-preservation.

Yeah. Like against his kind of like practical judgment. Gets himself deeper into a situation because his moral judgment won't let him walk away. We do cut from there to jim uh arriving at this house in hollywood there's no answer to the bell he tries to knock and then he kind of shrugs and starts to leave and that's when we hear the sad sounds of a crying dog coming from off camera and so jim goes over the bushes and there is a there is indeed a flush fluffy kind of collie-ish uh dog lying on the ground clearly in distress. And

Jim, absolutely no hesitation here as Jim picks up this poor buddy and gets him into the firebird to go to the vet. The firebird in all this scene looks green. It does. I noticed that too. We were like, oh, it's a new firebird from now. This is shot at night, so

who knows what they had to do. This whole episode, it does. It's interesting because I think you might have something about how they might have had to adjust for time because of some of some spots. But also, like, they really had to contend with weather. There's a lot of stuff that's at night and there's a lot of stuff that's in the rain. Yeah. So I wonder if there was some kind of like, I don't know know maybe i contributed to some editing choices also because they could only get so many shots or something anyway heads to an emergency vet uh at an animal

hospital and uh there's a very nice uh vet assistant not like the doctor yeah yeah you know the woman who's there actually dealing with uh the overnight stuff um they have a little back and forth where he's like oh it's not my dog she says, well, we need the owner's permission. Okay, it is my dog. And then later, this isn't your dog, is it? He does say that the dog's name is Chapman. Oh, that's one of my favorite moments. It is such a throwaway moment.

It feels like he's trying to get that line in there before other action happens. And I'm like, oh, that's wonderful. That's just great. But with his trademark charm, he he he admits no he's not the owner but he'll pay for it the dog's in trouble can you just take care of him and she says that she won't tell the vet she'll deal she'll say that he's the owner you know they'll have to pump his stomach and he should be okay in a day or two the dog is going to be okay everyone the bit about the exchange that was uh i think kind of telling is just how non-expertly jim handled it

like he solved it with his charm but he he tried a little con but his heart wasn't in it yeah when he said that he was the the owner he just didn't he didn't sell it oh that was just a joke i'm i'm actually the owner it's like yeah so definitely uh yeah it's a good scene. So we cut back to the house and there's two goons waiting outside. Clearly, we're getting to some dramatic action. And there's a woman up at the front door. And we cut back and forth to see that the Firebird is in motion as this woman starts screaming and yelling as these two goons run up and grab her and start bodily carrying her off the porch. Jim pulls up as they're kind of halfway across the lawn and he just runs in and breaks it up and just starts throwing punches, including an over the shoulder, like throw of one of the guys, which is great. I wrote the flip into my notes because it was just so, uh, I'm not

saying that this is the best fight we've seen. It surprised me with how dynamic it was. I just expected a few punches being thrown, but there was that. And then she comes out with that rake. Yeah, she grabs a rake from next to the house and starts swinging it wildly and yelling. This is not a leaf rake. This is a garden rake. Yeah. This will mess you up.

Yeah. So all this commotion does cause a neighbor to come out and, you know, yell for his wife to call the cops. So the goons decide to flee. They run into the car and hightail it out of there. This woman, we will soon learn this is the Lansing girl. Carol is her name. She thanks Jim, says that she doesn't know who those guys were. But there's been a lot of burglaries in the area recently.

And Jay told me to be careful. Must have been those guys. But this certainly seemed more personal. And Jim quickly deduces that she's, you know, her name is Lansing and explains who he is and why he's there. And he wants to find Jay. And whoever made the threat, those goons clearly were part of it, right? Yeah. But he's at the paris at dawn party

at keith's house which is where she's supposed to be oh no but now her knee's all scraped up and yeah you know he's not gonna like that jim says if she can take him to to keith's house he'll he'll go ahead and provide the the transportation the paris at dawn party bit is that a thing if i were watching this in the 70s that i know what it was? But I think Jim definitely let me off the hook there. Like, he didn't know what it was. Right. Like, I can't remember the actual line, but he did have a line like, oh, you wouldn't want that at a Paris at dawn party. Right. So she's presenting it as if everyone would know what this was. Totally normal thing. He, along with the rest of us, is like, I don't know what that is. And it's weird that you're doing that. And there's this very clear priority divide that will get wider and wider as this episode goes along. So we have a brief scene in the car on the way to Keith's house. Carol says it's weird that anyone would threaten Jay.

He has nothing but friends, but maybe some kind of weird gag. The dog is named romanoff uh apparently a spiritualist told jay that he and the dog were both russian rulers in another lifetime she makes some mention about carbondale uh and jim asks if that's in i think in pennsylvania she's from some small town you know back east and she's come to la yeah to find a big break make some kind of find find her way into into the world and uh this is the second time that she's been invited to a party at keith's and the sun is almost up and they better get there because she doesn't want to miss the bus yes like ah the bus eh and at this point i'd already forgotten about the bus in the opening montage so when there was an actual bus i was like what oh okay but yeah uh

they arrive at a very fancy mansion uh in the morning light uh with the big it's basically a big tour bus um like the kind you would go on a cross-country tour in but not one that would take you all the way to paris unless it's like paris illinois it's not that important but i think we can construct the idea by the end of the scene of what the whole deal is yeah so it's this big fancy mansion there's all these people there um it's not like a crazy party but it's i think we're seeing this is like they have been here all night and this is like you know the partiers being here till dawn right uh they go in and there's this big paris or le bust uh banner on a balcony which is amazing and our first view of keith is uh outback where uh he is

guiding a group of his guests throwing a giant grand piano into his pool oh my god the conspicuous consumption here this is i mean again it was from the opening montage but it was still shocking to see right so this is like this is debauchery right yeah and uh keith is a mick jagger like stand-in and maybe we'll talk more about keith at the end of the scene right okay young debauched rock god with this party with all these hangers on he knows carol um they go to talk to him before they can learn where jay is there's a musical fanfare and there's an announcement that everyone has to get their ballots in because there's going to be the drawing for the for the paris trip uh they finally track down jay he's on the bus yelling at the bartender about ice all right so in my notes from here on out i refer to jay as angel yes

uh this is our first introduction to the actual character of jay he has a bit of that angel vibe as you say he's a bit yeah easily open collar chains um but he does not have the charisma i would say of an angel jim breaks into his yelling at the bartender explains about the call wants to know what the whole you know what the hell is going on anyway and he immediately starts going back and forth with carol because she forgot the bag she was supposed to bring a bag of some kind right in all the excitement because she was being abducted she didn't bring it and he has a line uh oh what's the bad news the bubonic plague jim of course thinks that his dog being poisoned might have been the bad news oh that's bad too

it's all bad news but he had it all worked out he had an antique derringer that he was going to give to the woman who was making the call the drawing to fix the drawing so that he and carol would win the trip i guess but now that's all all off because Carol didn't bring the bag. And then we cut back inside where she's drawn someone else's name right out of the hat. Yeah. And there's a thing about she wants the antique Derringer for a costume for another party. Or she wants it to have to wear to the Grammys or something like that. Oh, that's what it was.

Yes, yes. That's what it was. A fix at the Paris at Dawn party? Another myth shattered. Before we really learn anything else, we see the goons in their car pull up in front of the bus

and Jay also sees them and tries to dip out. But Jim thinks quick and starts the bus and just pulls out of the driveway past the goons with all the luggage falling out of the bottom of the uh the open tour bus and everyone in this scene just saying the word hey to everyone yeah like hey hey uh jim has a great line about the goons he refers to them as two steam shovels in mohair suits or jackets or

something like that and i'm just oh i just love the way this show finds different ways to couple of steam shovels yeah so the rest of the sequence is a low speed bus chase because the bus could really only go so fast yes well jay says he didn't know that this was going to get to the stage that it's going to get this bad. He needs to talk to Johnny. Not Johnny, as I wrote down originally, but Gianni. Ah, yes. But they clearly need to get away from these steam shovels first. So Jim knows where he is, of course, finds a tight alley that he can swing this bus into and drives up to the front of it where it's next to some boxes and so it's kind

of wedged in but just pushed out enough that the door is you know on the sidewalk so they can get out but the bus is blocking the whole alley and the the goons pull up behind it and then try to walk next to it and they can't get through and it gets them enough time to uh to get out of there again this is uh the strategic mind of jim rockford during a chase uh he tells him don't worry this is hill street or hill street's coming up or something like that or i get the impression that he knows that alleyway is up there yeah which is great it's just like and he's just telling them in the same way where they're talking to him about the uh paris at dawn party as if he should know he He's doing the same thing.

He's like, yeah, no, it's Hill Street. Like, that's fine. We've got a plan. That's no problem. So the whole time, basically, Jay is both panicking and also undercutting, like constantly questioning what Jim is doing and, you know, undercutting him and just being a big weasel. So yeah, I think we get an accurate introduction to Jay. Yeah, we should talk about Jay and we should talk about Keith.

First of all, Keith. So this was very much a, I don't know if you went down this path, but I was like, all right, Keith is clearly this, you know, standing in for this type, right? It's like, oh, who played Keith anyway? Yes. So I finished the episode. I get myself on over to the credits.

And well, what do you know? Keith is played by a very young Rick Springfield. Yeah. So I finished the episode. I get myself on over to the credits. And well, what do you know? Keith is played by a very young Rick Springfield. Yeah. So I watched this with Em and I didn't get a chance to go down that path. Like before he even uttered a word, Em's like, that's Rick Springfield. Oh, nice. For someone of my generation and musical taste.

Right. I then went, okay, I know he's famous. I don't remember exactly for what. Oh, Jesse's girl. Yes. But this was apparently between, because he kind of like started his musical career and also started acting kind of like at the same time. So this is after one of his early albums came out, but before the one where people started really knowing who he was, I guess. Oh, OK.

So it's not even really a cameo. He was just in these random TV shows while he was also like starting music. Yeah. And this is something I didn't know. But then when I mentioned it to Liz and she's like, oh, yeah, he ended up on General Hospital. So he had a hit single in I think Jesse's Girls from his like 79 or 80 album. General Hospital. Right. He had a hit single in, I think, Jesse's Girl is from his, like, 79 or 80 album. I forget. Yeah.

So he had this huge hit single, and he was on General Hospital in, like, the 80s. And those kind of, like, were his rise to being a name that people would know. So this is pre all of that. But also Australian, which I did not know. Yeah. But he's not putting on an Australian accent. accent no this is a i don't know it's not as broad as uh oh yeah the guy um from hawaiian headache and uh yeah queen of peru yeah it's not as broad as that but it is very much a playing up this again kind of yeah rolling stones yeah british invasion this was also where i was like oh right this is

the episode with this guy and i didn't have an image of what that meant for the rest of the episode and i remember thinking this the first time i watched it this episode is going to revolve around this guy and his orbit of weird music business right stuff uh it turns out that is not the case right like it definitely feels like that feels like this is introducing like oh here's who we're going to be yeah following and uh no it's important backstory to jay uh and to carol yes they're they're hangers on uh not just jay and carol though but also uh gianni as we'll find out but i want to talk as long as we're doing the imdb thing here i want to talk about jay because jay is played by a man who i think is named after

a rockford villain john plushette yes not freshette or any of the other many shets. If you have a chance to go and look up John Plachette on IMDb, it's worth it for his cover photo alone. A little bit of trivia. He has, I think, probably the most confusing credit for Rocky II. The director of Rocky II is the director of Rocky. It's Sylvester Stallone. But John Plachette plays the director of rocky it's sylvester stallone but john plushette plays the director in rocky two so he's credited as rocky two director uh he certainly seems like someone that we've seen before uh he was in one other rockford files episode that we haven't done yet

um so i think he just kind of has that air about him because i didn't really recognize yeah much of his other i mean he's kind of a character actor who's been in a million things but apparently he was in knots landing uh yeah he was in all of knots landing so if you've watched that show he was richard avery i have never watched knots landing yeah so his character here julius j rock felt uh whose name was transposed with Rockford's in the phone book. I wrote down Angel. It was based on the scene with him yelling at the bartender and not listening to Jim trying to tell him he's in trouble, right? Because I've seen Angel doing stuff like that. Right.

Lording his tiny amount of authority over someone. Yeah. There's more to the character than that, but I think a fundamental part of this character is that they have Angel, and they just suck the charming side of Angel out. We're not supposed to like this guy.

This is not a dig on John Plachette. I'm just saying that this character is supposed to get under our skin, and he does. The three of them end up back at Jim's trailer. We have a classic. now that we're here let's have the conversation that we could have had on the way over here uh which again i only notice when it happens because it's so it's actually pretty rare in a lot of the rockford

files i will i will say he puts his feet up on jim's desk and again like angel yeah because i'm gonna have to bleep your your profanities or you could call them i don't know poop angel poop angel i will i will curb my language trash angel trash angel yes trash angel so this is a background story reveal scene again a lot of good language a lot of kind of weaselly back and forth between jay and j, which I think is all leavened by the presence of Carol. Yeah. Carol's really interesting in this because she's like, she's the come to LA from the country to make her dreams come true, wide eyed, naive character. But she's also truly nice and is willing to forgive a lot of everyone's flaws, but without it being in a way that's going to hurt her.

We see a little bit of it more later, but like she knows when she needs to get out. Like she's not deluding herself, but she wants to see the best in everyone. So she's this like very mediating influence between Jay and Jim who are just going to like butt heads the whole time. She's attached herself to jay it's not super clear i mean i just assumed that they were in a relationship but it's not it's not really clear that that's the case there's a whole bit where she talks about how charismatic jay is like hmm like no no he's not like i'm not saying she has good taste. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so what we learn here is that Gianni, he's mobbed up. So Jay threw him a birthday party.

And we get a little bit more about Gianni's personality by the stories that he tells about, you know, breaking people's legs and throwing acid in people's faces. Yeah. So I think this lines in the preview montage where Jay says, nine tenths of that stuff is pure fabrication. Right. Apparently, he also deals coke, which they all enjoy, so why are we going to yell at him about that? Oh, the 70s. So Jay downplays exactly how this happened,

but he threw him this giant party at this fancy club, and then there was, quote, a mix-up, and he had to leave early, and Johnny ended up stuck with the $30,000 bill for his birthday party. 300 people! I had this huge ice sculpture made in the shape of a Rolls-Royce logo. That's what Gianni drives. It was Walter Waldon Perreo. You mean all this is over the fact that you stuck some Vegas Adagio dancer with a tab for his own birthday party? I don't see where

any of that can hurt me. You drop me a postcard. Let me know how it all comes out. You're not kicking us out, are you? You got a bullseye, JB. Baby, let me show you the door. I'm good. You're out of immediate danger. This clearly isn't something that's going to make me any money. Yep. Is there anything about this that can going to make me any money. Yep. Is there anything about this that can come back to me? Nope. Okay, bye. But Jim doesn't understand.

Jay doesn't have the money. And his parents cut him off. Then we get into the thing where Jay clearly has some issues with his parents. They make him sick. They speak with accents. Basically, he wants to live this like libertine lifestyle but he doesn't seem to have any actual skills or or not skills but he depends on getting money from other people and you get the idea that usually it's his parents yeah but uh recently that well has dried up uh and then we have a key line, which is they named me Julius.

Do I look like a Julius? And from now on, Jim is just going to call him Julius to get under his skin. Yeah, it's so good. So Jim hustles him out and Carol takes a beat at the end of the scene to say, you know, I'll say it because he didn't. Thank you for all your help. And Jim's like, well, I'm out of it. And that's all the thanks I need. Yeah.

End of episode. Happy ending. There was definitely a moment here in my notes where I'm like, you can't let Carol leave with Jay. Like, you can definitely turn your back on Jay, but you can't turn your back on Carol. You can't turn your back on Chapman, the dog. But as we'll soon find out, it's just not possible. Night, there's another phone call. They're still calling that wrong number. Yes.

I, oh God, I love this gag. I don't know why, but it's like they could have done this without that, I guess. It definitely has reason to exist. It definitely moves the story forward or whatever. But it just, it just, it's perfect, right? Yeah, of course they'll call Jim again. They have the wrong number. Right. They don't know that they're calling the wrong person. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, they'll call Jim again. They have the wrong number. Right.

They don't know that they're calling the wrong person. Yeah. And Jim can't get a word in edgewise and they wouldn't believe him even if he. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. It is probably the key. Like, I mean, it's it's the premise for the episode, but it's also like it is a key rock

for this of the of the episode, which, as we know, we enjoy. Rock-fritishness of the episode, which, as we know, we enjoy. So we get a shot of the other end of the line in our first look at Johnny on this call. And Jay's not taking him seriously enough. Now they have his sister. And we see this poor woman tied up with a gag in her mouth. And it's an ultimatum. You have 10 hours to get the money.

Be at this phone or they're going to kill his sister. So stakes ratcheting way up. Yes. We do go from that to a this. This episode has lots of like upbeats and downbeats. Like it has a really paced kind of sense to it. The beginning of it was very fast paced, especially like from the moment they meet Jay. Well, even before that. But there's definitely like I made a note of that, too, because there's going to be a part a little later on where to build the tension.

They do the opposite and they slow everything down. And I really, really enjoyed that. We kind of had like the upbeat of the chase and then the downbeat of Jim being like, I don't need like I'm safe. Get out of here. And then we have this upbeat of i mean you know up and down and sense of uh tension right not in like not in like mood so then we have this upbeat of the the threatening phone call with the sister and now we actually have another downbeat just because this is a slower quieter scene where jay has come back to keith and is asking him

for the thirty thousand dollars right and it's so it's like later that day or whatever, everyone's hung over. There's like random people like partially closed on the couch that like clear out so they can talk. Keith's asking for an explanation about the bus. You ruined the whole thing. Now, how are they supposed to get to Paris? So I guess like everyone's luggage was on the bus to go to paris because it was going to paris at dawn but i guess the people who won keith was going to pay for them or something was everyone else just going on their own i don't know it's never explained or maybe everyone brings luggage

just in case they're the ones who won oh yeah maybe yeah anyway no one's going to paris because uh jay ruined the whole thing but jay's he needs help and he knows you know keith's good for it he says that he'll take care of it and this is very much a i think i remember this again from the first time i saw it where i was like there there has to be some turnaround about this right because it's so slowly extended he's like i'll take care of it he gets the phone and he dials a number and he talks to norman norman's his business manager yeah and he tells him hey i need to help out my buddy he needs thirty thousand dollars yeah here you talk to him

directly it's like all right what's the turnaround tell you your business manager how to make the check out hey norman yeah it's jay rock felt uh yes uh listen mr rock felt uh as you well know if you know keith at all i mean he would really love to lend you that money. But he can't. Yeah, but Keith just said. Don't be mad at him. It's me. I can't allow it.

Because frankly, he can't afford it. You see, he's got this 90% tax situation in England that's almost driving him under. And you see, well, right now he couldn't touch any of his money if he wanted to. You know what I mean? Yes, I understand. Such a wonderfully strategic dick move as that happens i think you can see that whole time that keith was like i know this is this is what's going to happen right yeah yeah and jay even says like i can't believe you did that you must have given him a code word to to tell him to blow me off and i don't think that's true no i don't think he has

to yeah yeah like i think he legitimately doesn't actually have access to money because his taxes issue which again is a very yeah uh rolling stones kind of thing you told women's wear daily that i was one of your closest friends this is not the not the last time we hear about women's wear daily and i don't really know what that's all about. The finest publication for rock stars. Yeah. And finally, Keith has his enormous bodyguard kick Jay out of his house. WWD.com, Women's Wear Daily.

This is a legit magazine. I feel like there are lots of magazines that you would have interviews in in the 70s. Magazines were different back then. They were. They were. Found it in 1910. Is it digital only now, though? Probably. It's 110 years old.

Epi, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the Information Superhighway. I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to Twitter.com and search for at Epidia, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there. Otherwise, you can go to WorldsWithoutMaster.com, where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games.

And if you like role-playing games, maybe you want to check out DigAThousandHoles.com, where I publish all my other role-playing games. And if you like role-playing games, maybe you want to check out dig1000holes.com where I publish all my other role-playing games. Oh no, I dropped my calculator. Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't you tell the good folks where they can find you on the internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role-playing games,

including the Worldwide Wrestling, Pro Wrestling role-playing games, including the Worldwide Wrestling Pro Wrestling role-playing game, among many others. You can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpayoletta. Looks like you're back. You ready to continue the arithmetic analysis for this episode there, Eppie? I'm back. I have my DM-42 with me and I'm ready to dig down into Rockford's books again. All right. Well, I'm done with this delicious avocado taco.

Well, let's get back to the show then. So we go to Jim at the Vets. Jay never picked up his dog. Trash angel. Trash angel. Jim is there checking you know, checking on Romanoff. And here's where we have both the moral, I think he even refers

to, like, I'm not writing a term paper on this, but like, here is your Morals and Ethics 101 conversation with Jim in his yellow on yellow staying against a yellow on yellow wall. It's wonderful. So he's talking to the woman who was taking care of of

romanov and he uh spins out the basics of the story which is it theoretically if you got a phone call and you knew that someone was going to get killed if you didn't do something but you don't want to get involved right yeah uh she increasingly takes the position of if you if you know you have to do something and he's coming back with like, well, people die every day. Life goes on. I think we all know where this is going, right? He's not really arguing, but he's more making someone else talk him into it, into what he knows is is the right thing to do. I love when he presents it like he mentions Denver again.

I was driving in from Denver the other day and I had a real sense of a job well done. You know, I'm driving along singing a song. I rolled down the window, just belted it out. And then I get home. I get this phone call. And ever since I felt like Audie Murphy and six ways to sundown. You're not making much sense. You know that?

He had a whole plan. And I've had this feeling. You have a plan. You go through something. It's stressful or difficult or something. And it's over over and you have a plan for the next couple days you're going to take it easy you're going to enjoy a little time off or whatever and then that plan has been ruined and you're mad about it yes but you can't not address what's in front of you so she obviously says the right thing the same thing the rest of the audience is thinking what j Jim was thinking earlier when he kept coming back to it or like you said, he's looking to get convinced. But he has this great line when he's like, yeah, I'm very tired. I

hadn't had much sleep. Does that count for anything at all? Like, I know this is big philosophical moral dilemma here that has a clear answer. It's not really a dilemma, but also I'm tired. Yeah. here that has a clear answer it's not really a dilemma but also i'm tired yeah and that feels very i feel that as well we're all very tired um i i also like the aspect where she gets more and more like yes like at first she's like why are you asking me this and then by the end she starts talking about how i feel that we're all responsible for our fellow man and in that responsibility is the opportunity to serve and the service is a chance for the soul. Thank you very much. That's all really I mean, it was an idle question. I didn't plan to write a paper or anything. She branches into a whole philosophy at the end, which is fantastic. That it's not that she feels an urgency to convince Jim to do the right thing in a particular sense. But rather, she is discovering a truth about the universe as she's saying it.

Right. Like, no, no. No, wait. This is the way it is. Yeah. Well, and of course, we know that Jim's going to make the right decision. And we cut from there to him knocking at Carol's door. Yes.

He found out where she lives through talking to her parents in Carpendale. So, you know, set that up earlier, spiked here. Yep, well done. And she has a very Spartan apartment with, like, unpacked bags still sitting against the wall. So this is where we get a little bit of her story where she says that she met Jay the second day second day she was in la and didn't come back to her apartment much after that but she's there now because uh they like met for coffee or something and they were they were arguing um kind of about the whole situation i suppose i forget the details but she basically couldn't deal with him being so confrontational and not understanding why this was an issue and everything.

So she said that she went to the bathroom and then she just couldn't face seeing him again there. So she just left and came home. So I guess this is what I was saying. Like, she isn't blind. She just wants the best version of what someone's going to be. She can set boundaries if necessary. Well, Jim's been looking for him all over the place. He's not at Keith's.

He drove the strip for a little bit even and didn't see him, but wants to know if Carol knows where his parents live because Jim figures him for a jello mold that's going to go crying home to his mother. Such a good line. So many good lines in this episode. She remembers a couple details, a neighborhood and his father's name is Irving. And that is enough to track track down the Rockfelt home. We see Jay see them through the window. And then we follow Jay as he goes

downstairs when they knock and then doesn't answer the door. And then Jim eventually just opens it because it's unlocked and uh they have their uh confrontation uh in his parents house i like that he yells at jay why didn't you tell me the door was unlocked yeah um and this is where jim starts just calls him julius uh every time and at some point he's like well james like oh that good. But essentially, he can't get the money from his parents because they're not there. They went on like a Hasidic cruise to Mazatlan. Yeah. Which I love how specific that is.

But yes, so they go from Jim saying, you know, I'm telling the truth. The itinerary is in the kitchen to Jim and Jay waiting at a train station. Yeah. Where we discovered that apparently Jay called them, told them what was happening, that his sister, Amy is her name, she's in danger, and they flew back, but there was fog,

so they had to land in LA, or they had to land somewhere and then... Take a train. Yeah, we see clearly their tense relationship. They're certainly framed and played as first-generation Jewish immigrants who have worked really hard and come up in the world and are, you know, at the place where they are. And then Jay does not appreciate any of that stuff, resents them for not acting American enough. Right.

Right. The mother dotes on Jay a little bit and the father is clearly suspicious. I love that the father was like, I'm glad Jay has friends like you looking to Jim. Yeah. I think he means it exactly. It is exactly what it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah.

Friends like you, a person who clearly is not his friend and is forcing him to do things to do something right. Jim has a wonderful line in here that's like, I don't care if you don't like it. As a matter of fact, I hope you don't. He's talking about what they have to do. Oh, because he tries to get his dad to make the exchange in his stead. Yeah, that's a little later. Well, so here, so yeah, so Irving, he's going to need a little time to get thirty thousand dollars in cash together and yeah but you know he'll do it jim's like well jay will stay with me

and i'll set up the exchange while you get that sorted so we cut from there to the villain of our piece gianni himself at ernie's pizza house uh where he has the sister amy tied up and gagged and has his soliloquy about yes how evil he is oh he's got such a classic look yeah from the pocket watch to the mustache he didn't need a soliloquy we knew he was evil he so this actor's name is also gianni which i think is great oh good uh gianni tedesco being played by Gianni Russo, who we have seen before. He was in Local Man Eaten by Newspaper. And I think he was the mobster, I think, who had cancer. Oh. Right, because that was where it was like the mobster and his mom.

Yeah. Or something like that, or his aunt or whatever. I'm trying to remember. That was a while ago. Anyway, he was he was another mobster guy in logo manny but people might know him from from god from the godfather um he was carlo uh and he also i noticed this time was in laser blast oh laser blast oh it turns out he plays a lot of mafioso yeah what do you know a godfather's his first credit

on here he apparently there's a piece of trivia that he he was casting a godfather like straight from a screen test or something like that wow anyhow uh he is extremely slimy here and uh part of it is that he keeps on like yelling at Amy and telling her to answer him when she's like gagged. Right. Like it's like he's he's lording his power over her and she's clearly terrified. So not a lot of moral wiggle room for this guy. But his bit here, it's not about the money. 30 grand doesn't really mean anything to him. Who cares about 30 grand?

30 grand to me is butchers. What I care about is nobody should treat me like no jerk i'm dressed up in my best custom-made stuff down on a dance floor with a suede chick dancing up a storm and your brother's up with the restaurant manager making me look like a pool kid oh it's so good and uh so once he gets his hands on him he's going to give him a brain hemorrhage and then uh she will have a traffic accident he yeah there there's more but you know he's yeah basically very specifically letting her and us know that it's not about the money it's about getting back for his the slight on his pride essentially yeah um and he is going to kill them like that is the plan he this is approaching urban horticulturists and in fact he like because the pole cube thing was one thing that he said and i like again i

have no idea what it means to be made to look like a pole you can you can imagine it but he actually he asked why does he make me look like a well he says fruit peddler at one point oh yeah why does he have to make me look like a fruit peddler yeah it's just like what's wrong with fruit peddlers where do you get your fruit anyways oh yeah so he's bad news um but we we get the call he he finally loses patience calls back the number that he has for jay which is yes jim's number um he wants the money in an airline bag he's gonna meet him at the gumball machine at the train station yes our next scene is they they meet irving to get the money and it starts raining at the end of the scene yes there's a bit where

jay says he basically tries to get his dad to take his place he's like couldn't you do this and he and he's he's willing to i think you see that he's like kind of in the sense of like yet again i will yeah do the thing that my son won't but jim very specifically is like no jay has to do this that's part of the deal and that's enough cover for her for everyone to be like all right i guess guess jay's gonna have to do this i think his line here is at last you'll be paying for one of your parties yes and then i just noted this because they pull away and when the camera stays on irving and he puts up his umbrella because it starts to rain like right then yeah it lingers on him and we said before there's this moment with the bus chasing the bus where there's sped up footage like yeah no it's interesting that that this was this is a

beat that they chose to make and keep yeah uh and this is this is the beginning of when i felt like um the pacing deliberately slowed down to create more attention where before the the pacing is sped up to kind of get us through it to get us but no i shouldn't say that it's more like snappy it's more like go go go yeah yeah to not let us think too much about what's happening or what's at stake and now all we can do is think about it which is exactly what's happening with jay right jay is going through his whole life from one party to the next like his plan was i'll give this antique derringer to the woman pulling a name out of a hat.

So she'll call our name. So we'll be in Paris. So this guy, this Gianni won't get us. Sure, yeah. That was his plan. He's just not thinking things through. And now he's got, he just has to sit with it. That's just what he has to do.

And that's, yeah. Yeah. I really dig this moment here. And this is still, it's not like it's silent, right? This is just a little bit more time taken in this sequence where Jim kind of lays out what he thinks is going to happen. Like they're at the bus station. He's putting you by a corridor of some kind. So he's probably going to get you on a bus.

And that's the first rule of exchange. Isolate the man with the money. Jay doesn't like how this sounds, but really doesn't have any recourse. And Jim tells him to do exactly what he's told. Jim, as we know, he'll figure something out. Yes. And also Johnny doesn't know that Jim's involved, which I think is an important part of this whole

thing. And then he does get a description of Johnny's Rolls Royce before he sends Jay out in the rain with his airline bag to go meet his fate. Buttercream with a chocolate top. I think we might have skipped over this detail, but part of the $30,000 party was a giant ice sculpture carved in the shape of a Rolls Royce logo.

Yes. We then follow Jim as he lurks across the street and spots the Rolls Royce. Johnny gets out and then jim follows the car then we go inside uh where jay has been uncomfortably hanging out by the gumball machine looking around lots of nervous energy yes and we kind of cut back and forth a couple times like you said this slows down like we watch jay for a little bit and then we see jim find his parking spot then we watch jay for a little bit like there then we see Jim find his parking spot. Then we watch Jay for a little bit. There's some camera time spent showing him getting increasingly agitated as he's just waiting and waiting.

It's enough time for me to actually wonder if he was going to make a run for it, if that's what they were leading up to. So Johnny comes in, comes through the line, grabs him by the arm, and hustles him out into the bus depot. And Jay is trying to make nice and be like him out into the bus depot and uh jay is trying to make nice and be like i got the money what are we doing are we going to take a bus like he's trying to have a conversation and and johnny's having none of it shut up come with me um they go past the bus and get hustled into his rolls royce which had come around and was just like waiting by a loading dock uh so the car then exits and then we see Jim pick them up and follow so this scene with Jay and Johnny talking in the

rolls on the way to their destination is kind of the out of the meat the meat of the story yeah he's really sorry he has the money they'll be square and he doesn't seem to understand that it's not about the money yeah like it's not about the money and i'm going to kill you and your sister this isn't negotiable he makes no uh no qualms about it and and jay just can't hear that right like he does try to talk him out of it but he still doesn't realize that it's a possibility that's another place where j Jay and Angel very much differ. I feel like Angel would know that it's a possibility and not, you know, go. I guess they're neither going quietly.

Right. Yeah. He would be trying to negotiate for his life as opposed to not seem to understand that that's not what this is about. That's not where we're at. We get more, a little more from, you know, so Johnny explains himself and he tells his story a little bit and talks about how, you know, his dad came over here and worked himself up from nothing and people spit on his dad. And then Jay tries to like have a bonding moment. Oh, yeah. Hey, I'm a kid in New York, right?

My pop's an immigrant with no education and people spit on him, you know? Yeah, you think your pop's bad. You ought to take a look at mine. Bad? Bad. My pop was the sweetest man in the world they spit on him but i said nobody's ever gonna spit on me yeah oh it's so good it's so good so johnny came to la to be an actor and i think and jay calls him like you're like a young paul newman yeah he's like i came to la to be an actor he got some roles he starts palling around with actors and they think he's cute because he's like i came to la to be an actor he got some roles he starts palling around with actors and they think he's cute because he's all mobbed up but what he really wants he wants

them to be his friend he wants to be friends with them and like be in their world as like celebrities so this party this birthday party is his first party where he's involved inviting all of his friends his actor friends they want to be real friends with and it's ruined because jay stuck him with the bill so now he looks like a fool they think he set it up himself and he talks about the cake yes happy birthday gianni you're such a swell guy who writes that on a cake to themselves it's so good you actually feel embarrassed for him a little bit i think the casting for this is really good because I don't know how hard this is to pull off as an actor. But like we get the over the top kind of villainousness in his first scene. And then here this doesn't make him likable.

But we get the like, oh, I understand his motivation. Yeah. Like it's not just because he's evil. He does actually have an emotional motivation for what he's doing now and it makes sense given the context of what we know about this character yeah so it feels it makes him less two-dimensional i guess yeah but we do end this with the the line that you so uh astutely picked out from the preview montage this party don't get paid for with money honey boy this is the party you don't come home from

oh it's so good they pull up in some you know parking lot somewhere the rain is has stopped uh we're now you know just california daylight say we're gonna tie your hands to the wheel and you and your sister are gonna like are gonna go off a bridge or something yeah something like that we hear jay go i don't want to die in a rented car. Yes. Oh, perfect. And we have some quick action where they hustle him into a car. It's just this primer gray generic car.

It starts pulling out. We see Jim pull up, get out of his car. See, there's a big wheeled gate to the lot. So he grabs it and then he slams the gate closed as the car is approaching so the car hits it and kind of punches a hole it's like a chain link right yeah and so kind of like bust through it but it's enough to stop the car because now it's stuck in a gate and jim is on the interior

side so he opens the passenger door and grabs johnny and grabs gun. And then we end the scene with, you know, Jim having control of the situation and saving the day as Jay and Amy will no longer need to die in a rented car. It happened so blindingly fast. It's so fast. I had to rewind because I looked down at my notes to write something down. And then when I looked up, I was like,

what, wait, what? But it was great. One of the things that I love about it is that as jim is pulling gianni out of the car it's just essentially making an arrest like it's just uh uh what's his name jay is still like johnny it was just a party yeah he's still trying to make friends with with johnny as we i think as we learn in our last scene here he's never gonna change no um as we go to our last scene here, he's not, we're going to change. No. Um, as we go to Jim's trailer where Jim is there with Carol and Romanoff,

who has fully recovered. Um, but it was a close thing. The vet said that another, another 10 minutes and, uh, Romanoff could have been a goner. So what's,

you know, so what's going on now? Uh, Jay is trying to get back into Keith's good graces, which Jim doesn't understand. Uh, yeah, he's throwing a party where everyone has to dress up like a character in one of Keith's albums. He's going to be a dwarf in a helium hat. Yes.

I looked up helium hat because I'm like, is that a reference? Is that a drug thing? Near as I can tell, it's all references to this episode. Okay. It's just a classic candle chase turn of phrase. Yes. okay it's just a classic cannel chase turn of phrase yes what they what they expect uh song titles to be you know what i mean like it's a definitely feels like a parody of maybe like a pink floyd song or something uh jay arrives um he's been looking all over for robinoff he didn't know that jim had the dog apparently yeah he's not looking for him. But it's not because he wants his dog back.

It's because he wants to lend him to someone for one of the costumes for the party. And we get a little bit of like a little more jokey-jokems about this party. And we learn that the guests of honor are actually going to be his parents, which was Amy's idea. Yeah. And like someone else is paying for it. Like I didn't catch who that was or who that was supposed to be. Basically like, you know, this is his version of turning over catch who that was or who that was supposed to be. Basically like, you know,

this is his version of turning over a new leaf. His parents are going to be there. They're going to be part of the party. He's like, it's so kitsch. It might work or, you know, something like that.

Uh, he's definitely more concerned about the party than his parents enjoyment of the party. Right. I couldn't help, but think in the beginning, his mom is going to love it. But by the end,

they're both going to be completely disillusioned with who their son has become this is what you're such a jerk about yeah to do this um so jim has one little matter to clear up it was 135 for the vet oh yeah and jay's like look i've been like doing battle with the the hardest caterers in la or something. or something like that. And like so starts making excuses. And this might be my favorite moment of just like facial and physical acting where we see Jim knowing a lost cause when he sees it. Yeah. You know what? Fine. It's on me.

Yep. And then we have our great, I don't know, is this is this pathos at the end? Where Jay wants to take his dog. He calls for Romanoff. Romanoff doesn't come to him. He grabs him by the ruff and takes him outside of the trailer. Door closes. He bit me! Why would he bite me?

And then Jim opens the door. Romanoff comes bounding back in. Come here. Come here. Oh, you rascal. Starts covering Jim and Kisses, and we freeze frame on Jim and Carol laughing as our good boy Romanov gives the hero of our story the appropriate reward. Aw, that was delightful.

Yeah, my notes follow this structure where I'm like, oh, don't let him take the dog. Don't let him take the dog. Oh, good. All right, good. Poetic justice, oh, don't let him take the dog. Don't let him take the dog. Oh, good. All right. Good. Poetic justice, I think, is what I was going for. Yes. At the very least, everyone that can has left Jay behind.

Right. Carol's not going with him. Yeah. She makes the decision before the dog does. Yeah. I don't think there's even a line about it. She's just there. And maybe he's like, you coming or something.

But she's just like, no. So good for you, Carol. Yeah, it was a fun episode. I was going to say something about, oh, the party culture. It's definitely a thing, right? Like, this is not a thing I know about, about adults throwing. I don't know. I feel like that this episode is probably a commentary on a thing that exists at that time and how the makers of this felt about it.

Like L.A. rock star party culture. Yeah. Okay, so Carol comes to L.A. wide-eyed, meets Jay. uh jay jay is he's got a connection to money and that's clearly why anyone keeps him around because he pays for these parties using his his parents money uh so jay has this sort of power over carol that's built out of just he can get her to these parties because in the beginning you know she's like this is the second keith party i've gone to or whatever. The parties are the most important thing. And then we meet Gianni and we think, OK, here's the badass mafioso that somehow got rolled up into this. And no, this is a guy who has mob connections, but wants to be part of this party scene.

Right. So he throws parties. Like everyone's of this party scene right so he throws parties like everyone's into this party scene everyone wants to get close to keith or the likes so definitely it like either this is a constructed culture for this episode in which case well done right or this is the thing that exists that uh i've not really encountered in other fiction otherwise i mean like i've obviously seen parties in other fictions but usually like this sort of party obsession is aimed at high school or college sure comedy movies right like not uh not a 1970s noir yeah i mean it's certainly it's certainly like lampooning that construct um i i mean i don't

know i believe it's a thing yeah i think rich people do lots of stuff that we don't think about and i think one of those things is is absurdly over the top themed parties so i wonder maybe if maybe if we knew more rich people we would have more context for this kind of thing yes i don't know maybe anyone who is uh you know hanging out in la in the 70s could help us out with the uh with with how true to life uh this stuff was um so we talked a little bit about how the the finale uh is really quick right like our climax i should say is really quick like that happened and then i was like oh is this the end of the episode right um and it was my, you know, while doing my notes and stuff, I came away feeling like this one is a little thin in a way.

Yeah. Does that make sense? And that's a question, not a, you don't need to agree with me about that. I'm just wondering if you felt something similar. I think so. I mean, like. I'm trying to think about why that is. Because there's certainly plot.

Yeah. to think about why that is because there's certainly plot yeah certainly like a lot of stuff but there's something about the solution to the problem being so straightforward and simple and quick that might that might be it okay so we got this thing the really tagline juiciness which is jim gets a wrong number and has to to deal with. And if you're told that, it doesn't matter if it's a Rockford Files episode. You're just like, it's a detective plot. Somebody, this detective gets the wrong number and it's a threat on someone's life. Then I suspect our imagination first goes to the whole thing being trying to find this person before the time runs out. Right. Sure. Yeah.

You put the clock in the corner of the screen you know how much time this person has left and you're just trying to solve a mystery the whole way but he figures out who this person is we get a little bit of that but then he figures it out then the plot changes to can uh can jim make it right i think what it is is just maybe that this bit at the end is it's not that it's out of nowhere, but everything else is set up like the beginning is like, oh, you have to find out who these people are. They're in trouble. And then the next part is this jerk won't do the right thing. So you have to make him do the right thing because you're the only point of contact they have. They're still in trouble, too.

OK, you're making him do the right thing and now now we just save a problem solved yeah problem solved i guess we don't get that last bit where it's like now if you don't do anything he'll die like the story tells us that but it doesn't tell jim that well i mean i think jim knows the score yeah that's true he took him in a car and is driving him somewhere like jim knows what that means um i think may there's something it's something related a little bit to how it's a it's an episode where jim like we said gets into it against his against his his ideal wishes yeah and then that kind of means that he's he's problem solving but there's no mystery, right? Right.

Like there's things that need to be fixed, but there's nothing that needs to be discovered. So there's no revelation that like satisfying like either here's what's going on all along or like finally this situation is revealed for what it always was. This is a little messy because I guess not every episode. It's not like every episode does that. But for some reason for this one, it just struck me as being a little bit. Cause I guess not every episode, it's not like every episode does that, but for some reason for this one, it just struck me as being a little bit like, Oh, Oh, that was it.

Yeah. But I think talking about it, I'm appreciating the other characters a little bit more. Yeah. And that's the other thing is other than Chapman at the beginning and then Rocky for like a very brief moment. Yeah. There's no other cast.

So maybe that's part of it. I'm just, I'm just kind of like used very brief moment yeah there's no other uh cast um so maybe that's part of it i'm just i'm just kind of like used to it's because we did a really meaty rocky episode recently so i'm like missing the like weight of that stuff i don't know it's well i don't i don't think your instinct's off though i do think that the ending and this has happened with a few rock for filed episodes where they're like okay we've built all this but now we have to stop it. Yeah. And the cops come in because Jim, you know, set it up so that they would come in at the right time and justice is served kind of ending. Yeah. And I think that that's probably, because I do, I do know where you're coming from or

rather, I can't say that I know where you're coming from, but I have a similar feeling about the ending because the rest of it does feel like, you know, there's, there's a mystery. There's, there's something happening where you're you're, you know, at first you're trying to figure out what this phone call's about. And then you're trying to figure out, like, what is Jay's deal? Like, what's going on? And, yeah, and the last bit, you know, you don't have to have a mystery all the way to the end. But the last bit is just Jim trailing them and then running up and closing a gate right you know maybe it would have been just as simple as having some other action grabbing like that last bit be a chase instead of just like yeah i don't know

it's it's uh yeah again not a complaint just kind of an observation yeah on the other hand i will say that going through this again i think think this episode is a really, really good example of conflict that comes from character choices and not from not knowing things. Right, yeah. The central conflict or conflicts, because there's multiple conflicts, none of them are from, I didn't know that this happened or I don't know who you are or I don't know why you want this. this happened or I don't know who you are or I don't know why you want this. It all comes from character. This character made this decision and that interacts with this other character's decision and they will not be reconciled because of who they are and what those decisions were. And that's where the conflict comes from.

I mean, the show does that pretty well most of the time, which is why we like it so much. But this one is so much that that i almost didn't really notice it until we went through it and talked about it and it's just like we know everything like i mean yeah it's revealed to us because it's backstory but like we know all the stuff that happened and we know all the motivations and it makes total sense that this is how this all had to go down because of these characters and their personalities and their choices um yeah so it's a really good example of that and keith and gianni are great characters they are good side characters even though they're central but yeah uh the whole bit to to uh jay's that you have to hate him and it worked just worked yeah uh carol I did have this problem where I kept thinking Amy was Carol.

I was like, wait a minute, how did they get? Oh, right. And then again, I was like, wait a minute, how did they? Oh, right. Yeah. His sister. Yeah. We don't really know anything about Amy other than she has a, she's going to school for

library science and she gets kidnapped. Yeah. I love how dismissive he is about that, about her going to school for library science. Like this guy. What a jerk. Feels like the whole world agrees with him. Yeah. Miserable.

Yeah, I do agree. Okay, for instance, there's the scene where his dad is putting the umbrella up. It's this long lingering scene. And rain does come. I don't know if it's just they were filming and they had rain. And so they needed a scene to show us that rain was coming that was a thing that they decided later on or if there was this weight or meaning to this moment of you know what's the symbolism in the umbrella right his dad protecting

himself from his eventual downpour brought on by jay or i don't know whatever but like uh the family like his parents really texture the back half of the episode. Um, cause I mean, they are kind of that type, like they are that stereotype, but they're kind of being used in order to show why that stereotype exists, not just mindlessly.

Right. Uh, I have a, a final point slash question for you. And this is again, kind of thinking back over the episode. So we talked about, you know, the great scene with Chapman, um, and then how kind of in retrospect, it's a little weird that Jim has this like full scene with Chapman. Right. This episode in

particular, is it just a setup for the dog joke? I mean, I appreciate it if it is. Yeah. So, uh, I was looking at the entry for this episode in ed robertson's 30 years of the rockford files oh yeah um and it doesn't really give any insight into what you were talking about about party culture or anything like that it does talk about rick springfield but uh mostly it talks about how rockford he's an anti-authoritarian character, right? Like he doesn't respect authority, whether that authority is the police, the FBI, the mob as an authority, right? Anyone who has like power, like social or kind of sociological power, Jim like rejects that, right? Yeah. It struck me because it's kind of like this also doesn't really seem this kind of write up.

It's interesting. It doesn't really seem to this kind of write-up, it's interesting. It doesn't really seem to come out of this episode, other than the fact that Chapman's in it. So in the same way that there's a big scene with Chapman that's kind of like, why is that in this episode? There's this quote here, which I like, but it's also not really coming from this episode. This isn't an anti-authoritarian, except for that moment. But there's a great quote here, which makes me think about something that you always say. So it's a quote from Juanita Bartlett.

We always tried to give Rockford worthy opponents because his triumph wouldn't mean much if it wasn't against a formidable foe. There's no triumph in outwitting a stupid person. And then the next line is, the one exception would appear to be Lieutenant Chapman. Not a quote, just that's the text. That's great.

But then Bartlett says, the Chap character is is hardly stupid at all he didn't like rockford but a lot of police don't particularly like private investigators chapman wanted to run things his own way because he was on his own turf he also knows that whenever rockford's on a case he's making a hell of a lot more money than he is and he's putting in less hours and he can quit whenever he wants to and he doesn't have any of the restrictions that a cop has rockford doesn't have to go by the book he just has to stay out of trouble chapman wasn't stupid by any means but he could be impossible to deal with nice little little chapman insight yeah a little chapman insight it does seem a little weird to be like put into this episode yeah i mean it works in the part of the i think that's the thing

about this episode is that they're you can cut it up into chunk i don't know if they follow like an act break or anything like that but you can cut them up into chunks and as a whole those chunks work and it's not that they don't work put together it's just that they definitely like that chapman bit doesn't echo out yeah it is part of that chunk which is a great chunk which is the i got a call in the middle of the night and what am i going to do about it oh the cops are going to not help me right because of this because of chapman like that and i the the last bit isn't as chunky yeah the bad word and again it's a little ironic because jim doesn't really outwit anyone in this one yes but the point stands of and that's i think we see that much more in

other episodes yeah it feels really good when jim when jim ends up figuring something out and being just a little bit ahead of his foe whether that's he's ahead in planning or he is ahead in having a solution or you know whatever yeah you know i think back again to like you know some of the great villains we don't need to talk about uh uh david anymore than i think we already have but uh yeah yeah but like the but like the mobster from uh rosendahl and gilda stern are dead yes abe pagoda like it felt like a like a win even though he ended up literally taking himself down right yeah but like he was such a threatening presence that that felt like a really significant win it felt like all the work that and and uh danger that jim and rita had put in and been through really paid off because

he was uh because they've got his character uh, Phil the dancer. Yeah. Was so threatening and had so many resources at his disposal. Yeah. And so in this, like, Gianni's very threatening, but Jim doesn't deal with Gianni. Like, he ends up, like, winning, you know, saving the day. But they never interact. Gianni's always interacting with Jay. I mean, I guess it technically talks to him on the phone or hears him on the phone. So it's just a weirdly, kind of a weird episode to talk about that.

Because Johnny's more pathetic than threatening. That's the thing I really like about him is how he starts off as just, he's just like, you think that he's a big mob boss. And then it starts rolling downhill. And then as it's starting to roll downhill, you like right it's a weird he poisons the dog like he's doing these really weird petty things which makes sense if you realize oh he's just a wannabe as well yeah yeah he's just a wannabe who's willing to do the worst he yeah he he plays up how tough he is to the woman who literally can't talk back to him yeah exactly it's a

interesting episode yeah Yeah, definitely. And we got to see a piano get thrown into a pool, so who doesn't like that? You got like a dog fight going on in the background there. There's a really angry Pomeranian that lives next door and barks at other dogs. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. So if any of those dog barks come through, there's only so much I can do. Speaking of dogs, also in also this episode one of the

joys was seeing just how much uh james garner seemed to enjoy interacting with roman yes because who wouldn't and so maybe it's a good time to throw out that uh if anyone started listening to us recently and uh didn't hear our interview with gg garner over the last summer uh gg runs a pet rescue charity in james garner's name um and she's also a lover of dogs and so was james um i know these are tough times for everyone but if there are if there's room room for a little charitable contribution you could do worse than checking out jgarf j-g-a-r-f. org. James Gardner. Animal Rescue Foundation? Fund. Fund?

I think it's the fund. Gigi coordinates animal rescues with multiple facilities through different states, I think. So, you know, if that's something that speaks to you, maybe throw a little cash that way. Help the dogs. It's worth going to the page just to scroll through all of the pictures of the dogs and James. Jgarf.org um and uh so we will leave you to scroll through some pictures of good good dogs but we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rocker files

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