It wasn’t your ordinary offering of Bleep My Dad Says. Because, in this one, I almost got caught up in the tale of Vince (Will Sasso) and Bonnie (Nicole Sullivan).
It was a bit of an unexpected turn in the usual construction of the episode. The secondary story line centered around Vince and Bonnie’s (thus far) inability to conceive a child. Bonnie, in an attempt to pad her sorrow and need with the adoption of a new dog, failed miserably after an oddball scout visits their condo to assess the viability of a future adoption. What she discovers is Bonnie’s (not so) underlying desire to anthropomorphize a pet. Some of the comedy was there, but the subtext was such that you felt something might be coming round the mountain to tug on a heartstring or two.
Intermixed between Ed’s (William Shatner) twenty-some-odd-year battle with his neighbor Mr. Campbell (Charles Robinson) over property lines and sheds and possessions, the conclusion of the episode brought the reveal of the softer side of Ed to the forefront. (And, in many ways, the real story, as it turned out.) Realizing Bonnie’s crushing desire for a child, he comforted her by purchasing a brand new bulldog, at which she immediately melted and thanked him. All was well with the world at that point … right down to the “Aawwwwwww!!” moment when the bulldog came out of the box.
But the icing on the cake came at the hesitation of Ed in putting his loving touch on Bonnie’s shoulder as she pondered and cuddled her new dog. Ed tried … stopped … tried again … and finally rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder in fatherly understanding.
And, in this instance, it wasn’t the Bleep My Dad Says that is the norm on the show:
It was the Bleep He Kept To Himself that spoke volumes.
Is this episode out of sequence?
Isn’t the dog called ‘Rootbeer’, the dog they have had for a few episodes now? and didn’t they move in with Ed in the last episode after selling their condo?
Going to watch this tonight but am just slightly confused by this.
that’s exactly what i thought. maybe they thought noone will realize it. aside from that, veeeeery boring episode. didn’t laugh once.
Thank heavens someone else noticed this; I thought that cuddly dog was around earlier in the series.
The episodes are not running smoothly! Didn’t Bonnie and Vince move in because they were selling their condo!? And didn’t they already have a dog!? I was starting to like the show and they now are screwing things up!!
yeah i thought this episode was out of order too. i recall an earlier one when Ed was dogsitting and he fell in love with the bulldog. i thought i was going crazy, thanks.
*POST AUTHOR*
. . . . .
CBS has indeed mixed up the order of the various airings.
It may have had something to do with the lunar eclipse and the winter solstice happening on the same day.
(Sounds reasonable to me …)
This episode is actually the 6th according to the production order. They should pay attencion to these things. In some episodes this type of thing would go unnoticed but that was a major shift in the show, with Vince and Bonnie moving in, not to mention the dog Ed gives them is Root-Beer wich has been a big part of the show and even the focus of a previous episode. Let’s hope a future DVD release has this in the correct order.