MovieChat Forums > Car 54, Where Are You? (1961) Discussion > Tragic, Ironic, and Grimly Prophetic Epi...

Tragic, Ironic, and Grimly Prophetic Episode

posted 14 years ago by antpaste
16 replies | jump to latest

There was an episode of this excellent and funny series that (hopefully) was either locked in a vault somewhere or destroyed. Toody and Muldoon were given the assignment to drive President Kennedy's limo in a parade. The intensity of the assignment caused Muldoon (Fred Gwynne) to have attacks of deep depresssion. He went to a doctor who recommended that he take anti-depressants.

At a briefing, a high New York City official was telling how it was imperative to protect the president at all costs, because he could be shot. Muldoon was so high on the anti-depressants that he started to laugh. Toody (Joe E. Ross,) whose heart was always bigger than his brain joined in the laughter although he didn't know what Muldoon was laughing about.

Every time I think of this episode -- although it was done long before the assassination -- I get sick at the irony of it.

EACH DAWN IS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LIFE.

[–] einsteinfile 14 years ago

Last year, I'd picked up some homemade dvds of the series. Some had been recorded off of Nick-At-Night, who knows when. That episode, the first episode of the second season was there. The scene you're describing was edited. The name "Johnson" is crudely overdubbed over, what was originally, JFK's.

[–] antpaste 14 years ago

Even with the editing, it was still a tragically ironic episode. After all, then-vice president Johnson was in the same motorcade as JFK.

EACH DAWN IS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LIFE.

[–] einsteinfile 14 years ago

LBJ wasn't there. It was then-Texas governor John Connelly who was in the motorcade. He was in the same car as JFK, and was seriously wounded in the attack.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] jgrv-1 13 years ago

<<Even with the editing, it was still a tragically ironic episode. After all, then-vice president Johnson was in the same motorcade as JFK.

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And he was likely involved in the plot to boot.>>

EXCUSE me?????????????????????

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Franny25 12 years ago

by - einsteinfile on Wed Mar 16 2011 21:53:27
"LBJ wasn't there. It was then-Texas governor John Connelly who was in the motorcade. He was in the same car as JFK, and was seriously wounded in the attack."

I realize this is two years later but just to set the record straight, LBJ and his wife were indeed in the same motorcade in Dallas. A Secret Service agent threw himself on LBJ when the shooting started and they followed Kennedy's car to the hospital.

I just watched an episode of Car 54 - a show I haven't seen since I was a child. The show is holding up better than I thought it would.

[–] tarmcgator 12 years ago

Just to be specific, Johnson was in the fourth car in the motorcade, behind a Dallas police car, the presidential limo in which the Kennedys and Connallys were riding, and just behind the third vehicle carrying the president's Secret Service detail.

[–] jejozi 12 years ago

LBJ was in the motorcade. His car was further back.

This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.

[–] shemp56 13 years ago

MeTV showed this episode last saturday uncut unedited. It is the first time I've seen it. They joke all the way through the show about what might happen to President Kennedy if Toody and Muldoon are in the motorcade. One secret service agent is told if anything goes wrong "you'll be assigned to gaurd Caroline's horse". Toody and Muldoon are shown laughing about what might happen to JFK. Then actual film footage of JFK and Jackie are shown in a parade riding in a convertable limosine. It is grim humor even before the assassination. What must they have thought after the assassination took place?

[–] Truman-11 13 years ago

BTW look closely at the Kennedy stock footage at the end, and you'll notice it's from the 1960 presidential campaign. You can see campaign signs.

I was able to laugh through the episode without thinking too much about the Kennedy assassination. (The DVD version is unedited. I suspect the episode may have been written and edited the way it was so the Kennedy references could be removed later in reruns, so as not to date the show too badly. Of course the cars themselves date the show.)

I was actually more hung up over the fact the cops actually went "doctor shopping" for tranquilizers, then Muldoon popped them while driving and fell asleep. In real life, that would've ended his law enforcement career forever and perhaps even landed someone in jail even on a normal day, never mind assisting the U.S. Secret Service on a trial run of a presidential motorcade route.

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[–] snoops 12 years ago

I wasn't even alive in 1963, but watching this episode is still beyond errie. There is also a sadness to it, as we know what was tragically to come.

[–] ExplorerDS6789 11 years ago

You're too sensitive, antpaste. Besides, something that NOBODY has pointed out is that the president is NEVER referred to by name throughout the whole episode. If not for the archive footage of Kennedy (or Johnson) at the end, it could be ANY president, so as not to date the episode. I noticed that they did that. They always refer to the President as "The President", never President Kennedy (or Johnson).