The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – ABC

Created by Seaman Jacobs, Ed James, and Jim Barnett

Theme song written by William Lava and Irving Taylor

• 001. Scourge of the West – 9/14/1965
  • Near the end of the Civil War, bumbling Private Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry), a member of a Quartermaster corp and a proud Philadelphia military family, is sent to do the General’s (Barry Kelley) laundry. Along the way, he accidentally sneezes and causes a charge that ultimately leads to a Union Victory, earning Parmenter the nickname “The Scourge of Appomattox.” His family attends his ceremony where he is promoted to Captain, and awarded a Medal of Honor, followed by a Purple Heart, after being pricked with the Medal of Honor. He is also assigned to take over assigned to the remote Fort Courage. Upon his arrival there, he meets Sgt. Morgan Sylvester O’Rourke (Forrest Tucker), Corporal Randolph Agarn (Larry Storch), and Private Hannibal Shirley Dobbs (James Hampton), the bugler who can only play two songs. He also meets “Wrangler” Jane Angelica Thrift (Melody Patterson), the young attractive owner of the Trading Post and postmaster, who takes an instant liking to him. The men seem rather inept, especially when Agarn immediately fires the cannon into the lookout tour causing it – and the lookout Trooper Vanderbilt (Joe Brooks) – to collapse. O’Rourke and Agarn secretly run “O’Rourke Enterprises,” which makes money by selling war relics to tourists. They have also established peace with the Hekawi tribe, and often work with them on money-making ventures. Through their manipulation, the F troop is also collection rations for thirty men when they actually only have seventeen. Other than the Shug tribe, F troop sees very little action, but when they get word that Lieutenant Jefferson Hawkes (Jay Sheffield) is being sent by the Inspector General to check out the camp, O’Rourke and Agarn work with the Hekawi Chief Wild Eagle (Frank DeKova) to fake an attack to make it look like they are busy. They are instructed to attack when the cannon is fired. The defer to the elderly Roaring Chicken (Edward Everett Horton) on how to do a War Dance, but when they can’t figure one out, Agarn tutors them on how to do one. Meanwhile the Shug Indian Chief (Henry Brandon), decides to attack the fort for real. Just after the arrival of Hawkes, the Shug attack, and between Wrangler Jane’s crack shooting, Parmenter’s bumbling, and the name recognition of Parmenter as being the “Scourge of the West,” the Shug retreat, making it appear that Parmenter is a big hero. Later when Parmenter sets off the cannon for Retreat, the Hekawi make their fake attack. Alan Hewitt is Colonel Malcolm. 11/7/20

• 002. Don’t Look Now but One of Our Cannons Is Missing – 9/21/1965
  • O’Rourke and Agarn are working out their trade arrangements with Chief Wild Eagle, O’Rourke agrees to trade their blankets for the loan of their cannon for the Hekawi Festival of the Moon. Although Agarn is somewhat skeptical about sneaking government property out of the fort, he finally agrees to go along. They work out keeping Parmenter busy by setting him up to go on a picnic date with Jane. They sneak the cannon out of the fort, dressing it up like a hearse, and dressing Agarn up as a grieving widow. The Hekawi perform their ceremony of firing the cannon, a noise that Parmenter believes is in his head every time he kisses Jane. The next day, O’Rourke and Agarn go to retrieve their cannon, but Wild Eagle won’t give it back because the moon never came out from behind the clouds. When they are unable to bring it back for Reveille, they tell Parmenter that they sent it out to get it shines up. Colonel Donnely (Don “Red” Berry) shows up from the Inspector General’s office to announce that General Ulysses S. Grant will be visiting the next day, and when he notices that the cannon is missing, he demands that they get it back before the visit. O’Rourke then tells Parmenter that when Agarn went to get the cannon, the Hekawi stole it from him. He suggests that Parmenter go try and retrieve the cannon under a flag of truce. Parmenter tries to offer then a match, a watch, and an egg, thinking they will believe they are magic items. Agarn then shows up in a fake beard pretending that he is General Grant. He makes them believe that he has an army of soldiers ready to fire upon them if they don’t give up the cannon. When Grant shows up for his visit, they attempt to fire the cannon as a salute, but it is full of feathers and fires an arrow through Grant’s hat. Bob Steele is Trooper Duffy. Donald Diamond is Crazy Cat. 11/7/20
• 003. The Phantom Major – 9/28/1965
  • The British Colonel Leslie Willoughby (John Holland) meets with Colonel Herman Sanders (Willis Bouchey) and offers the services of Major Bentley Royce (Bernard Fox) to help train the met at Fort Courage on Indian warfare, specifically infiltrating through camouflage. Royce has become so good at this that he has been dubbed the ‘phantom major’ for his ability to seemingly appear and disappear at will. When he arrives at the the Fort, he suddenly appears in Parmenter’s closet. He shows the men how to disguise themselves as trees, stumps, and cows, and also charms Jane, much to Parmenter’s irritation. O’Rourke and Agarn visit Wild Eagle to warn him about Royce and solicit their help in getting rid of him. While on the reservation, they repeatedly check their trees, stumps, and cows to make sure that they are not the men in disguise. When the Hekawi send up smoke signals, O’Rourke interprets them to be hostile, and he requests that Royce go along with them using their infiltration disguises. O’Rourke and Agarn dress as one buffalo, while Royce disguises himself as a tree. However he doesn’t realize that the trees around him are Hekawi in disguise, and they manage to surround and capture him, sending him in the tree costume back to Fort Courage dragged by a horse. O’Rourke interprets their next set of smoke signals to mean they should disregard the last message. Jane uses one of the trees to disguise herself to neck with Parmenter in the fort. Bella Bruck is Wild Turkey, the old squaw. 12/15/20
• 004. Corporal Agarn’s Farewell to the Troops – 10/5/1965
  • Sgt. O’Rourke’s horse is ill, so the camp veterinarian Doc Emmett (Forrest Lewis) examines him and says he’ll run some tests. Likewise Corporal Agarn has stomach pains from the previous night’s stew, and Parmenter brings him to see Doc Emmett as well. While he is waiting for his results, he heads off to see medicine man Roaring Chicken, who attempts to cure him with marinated corn cob, but it only seems to make him sicker. Agarn later hears the Doc give the horse’s terminal prognosis to O’Rourke and he thinks it is his, making him believe he only has a few days to live. Feeling guilty about his sordid military career, he sends the Inspector General a confession about all of his shady dealings at Fort Courage. Finally he can take it no more, and tells O’Rourke that he knows that he wants to put him out of his misery. O’Rourke then tells him about the horse, and their first priority becomes retrieving the letter. Jane tells them that the outgoing mail has already left. O’Rourke gets the idea to pose as stagecoach bandits Bob (Robert G. Anderson) and Bill Colton (Vic Tayback), and steal the bag of mail so they can get the letter back. Meanwhile Parmenter has vowed to capture these bandits and predicts they will strike next in Coldwater Canyon. The real Coltons do in fact strike there, as do O’Rourke and Agarn. Parmenter and Dobbs arrive in time to arrest all four of them, although they have no idea why there are four. When they get back to the Fort, O’Rourke and Agarn claim to be working underground to catch the Coltons. While Parmenter is distracted by congratulatory kisses from Jane, O’Rourke rips up Agarn’s letter. Later Agarn discards the marinated corncob, and when O’Rourke’s horse eats them, he makes a full recovery. Buff Brady is the stagecoach driver. Georgia Simmons is the old bride-to-be on the stagecoach. 12/15/20
• 005. The Return of Bald Eagle – 10/12/1965
  • After Parmenter has a talk with Dobbs, and gives him some confidence to keep working at playing the bugle, Jane comes to tell Parmenter and the men that the infamous Bald Eagle (Don Rickles) has been spotted near Fort Dodge and is heading toward Fort Courage. They are afraid he will stir up trouble and incite the Hekawi to attack them, so they try to talk to Wild Eagle, who is busy with Sgt. O’Rourke making moccasins for the tourist trade. Wild Eagle wants nothing to do with Bald Eagle, and when he arrives, it is revealed that Bald Eagle is actually Wild Eagle’s son. When Bald Eagle cannot muster an attack, he decides to attack by himself… and is nearly successful until the lookout tour collapses under the weight of too many men and lands on him. Parmenter wants to follow the government’s directive to try and make peace with the Indians via Operation: Bury the Hatchet. All attempts at friendliness fail, as Bald Eagle is dead set against the white man. When he finds out it is Bald Eagle’s birthday, Parmenter arranges a birthday party for them, but when he gives him a knife to cut his own cake, Bald Eagle kidnaps Parmenter and takes him to hold him as hostage. As Bald Eagle and Parmenter begin to talk, they find out that they have more in common than they realize, and both felt untrusted by their fathers, and Parmenter actually comforts Bald Eagle from being afraid of the dark. When O’Rourke, Agarn, and Jane come to rescue him, they see him with a mound of dirt and fear he has killed and buried Parmenter, but he is actually roasting potatoes, and they all have dinner together when Bald Eagle tells them that he has ‘turned over a new scalp.’ Parmenter outfits a Bald Eagle with a new wig of hair for his birthday. 4/10/21
• 006. Dirge for the Scourge – 10/19/1965
  • When Jane and Parmenter walk into town together, Jane complains about how rough the saloon has gotten when they see Pete the Bartender (Benny Baker) throw Charley the drunk (Harvey Parry) through the window. Additionally, Parmenter inadvertently slams the door on the best shot in the west, Sam Urp (Jack Elam), so they think he’s drunk too. Since O’Rourke and Agarn have financial interest in the saloon, they see that it is renamed as Tinkerbell’s Ice Cream Parlor and is cleaned up before Parmenter can close it down. When they go to observe it, Parmenter again accidentally knocks Urp out with the door. This time Upr is fighting mad and vows revenge. O’Rourke and Agarn plan to try and break Urp’s shooting hand, but they wind up dropping a potted plant on Agarn’s hand instead. Urp hurts his own hand when he gets it stuck in the door, but it makes no difference because he proves to be just as adept at shooting with his left hand. O’Rourke then works with Wild Eagle to have Urp kidnapped, but when he sends his braves out to get him, they come back with Agarn instead. Back in town, Parmenter had no quarrel with Urp because he seems to be sober now, but Upr tells him that if he won’t fight him, he’ll be forever branded a coward. Parmenter agrees to a showdown, but O’Rourke and Agarn ride into town in the nick of time and fire their weapons, causing Parmenter to shoot a giant suspended box that catapults a fence into the air and around Urp. O’Rourke loads him on a wagon and him out of town. Later a pair of boys are fighting over whether Parmenter is the best shot in town, so Parmenter takes aim at a bottle, but winds up hitting the Trading Post sign that swings down and breaks the bottle. He and the men head to Tinkerbell’s for a sarsaparilla. 4/10/21
• 007. The Girl from Philadelphia – 10/26/1965
  • O’Rourke and Agarn are meeting with Chief Wild Eagle and the Hekawi about manufacturing souvenir peace pipes and breakaway tomahawks, and awaiting a shipment of arrowheads. Along with the arrowheads, a lady named Lucy Landfield (Linda Marshall) arrives from Philadelphia attempting to rekindle a romance with Captain Parmenter, whom she had rebuffed during their youth as he pursued her. She even offers to have her father finagle his transfer back to Philadelphia. This concerns O’Rourke and Agarn, who don’t want to have to break in a new Captain so they can continue with O’Rourke Enterprises. Lucy and Wrangler Jane become immediately jealous of each other, and Lucy makes it appoint to invite everyone to tea so that she and Parmenter can announce their engagement. O’Rourke warns Jane that she needs to step up her efforts to woo Wilton, so she shows off her sharpshooting and lassoing, while Lucy faints after each feat in order to grab the attention. O’Rourke and Agarn go to see the Hekawi to help break up the romance between Wilson and Lucy. Wild Eagle sends smoke signals to procure a dress for Jane from Carson City so she can dress up for the tea party. Roaring Chicken has another idea, so he calls on Flying Sparrow (Laurie Sibbald) to assist. When Jane shows up at the tea party in her new dress, Wilton is absolutely smitten with her, and has admits he has no recollection of ever proposing to Lucy. She continues to undermine Jane, until they nearly come to blows at the party. Flying Sparrow then shows up and claims that she is married to Wilton, and that her papoose belongs to him. Wilton winds up getting smacked in the face by Lucy, Jane, and then Flying Sparrow when he tries to leave with her. Later, Wilton admits the truth to Lucy and says their lives have changed, and he wishes her luck finding a civilian to settle down with. 8/4/21
• 008. Old Ironpants – 11/2/1965
  • Captain Parmenter receives a letter from Army Headquarters telling him to report to Fort Riley for a command course in new techniques of military strategy. Everyone agrees they’ll miss him, especially Dobbs whom he is training on the bugle. O’Rourke and Agarn are looking forward to his absence, so they can explore a business venture in ordering mail-order brides for the men. Before he leaves, he also witnesses Dobbs knock down the lookout tower with the cannon again, and also sees Charlie the drunk stumble out of the saloon ten minutes after it opens. After he leaves, O’Rourke puts in orders for Agarn, Dobbs, Hoffenmueller (John Mitchum), and Vanderbilt. When a stagecoach arrives, they assume it is the women, but it turns out to be Parmenter accompanied by General Custer (John Stephenson) who inspired Parmenter to finish the course in less than two weeks. Parmenter is a changed and much stricter man, and is not only strict and rude with the men, but Wrangler Jane as well. He insists on regular inspections, closes the saloon, assigns work details, relieves Dobbs of his duty and strips him of his bugle. He orders the gun crew to fire the cannon without knocking down the tower, and they wind up firing through the water tower. Parmenter then confines the men to the fort until they can pass inspection. O’Rourke and Agarn visit Wild Eagle and ask him to attack the fort. O’Rourke then tells Parmenter that all of the soldiers are sick, and make it clear that it is the new Parmenter’s cruelty that has made them sick. When the Hekawi show up, Parmenter orders them to defend the fort, but they won’t move. O’Rourke, Agarn, and Jane remind him of the kindness he used to show, earning their loyalty. As Parmenter remembers all of the the kind things he said to them in the past, he apologizes to them all and changes his tune. The men then ‘fake fire’ upon the Indians, and Parmenter realizes that he can get more loyalty by being his old, kind self. He also earns a big kiss from Jane. The mail-order brides show up, but they are all old ladies, so O’Rourke sends them all to Fort Riley and starts giving the men their money back. Almira Sessions is Dobbs’ bride. 8/4/21
• 009. Me Heap Big Injun – 11/9/1965
  • After Captain Parmenter goes over the service records of his men, he notices that Corporal Agarn’s enlistment is expiring the next week. Agarn is ready to sign up to renew right away, but O’Rourke tells him not to sign, since it will be easier to have a civilian on the outside as part of O’Rourke Enterprises, and offers him the vice-presidency, making him responsible for interviewing dance hall girl in Dodge City. The greatly tempts Agarn to leave the service, but when Parmenter gives him a pep talk about his patriotism, Agarn is ready to sign up again… only to be stopped again by O’Rourke, who pretends he’s been counseling him to sign up again himself. O’Rourke suggests that he give Agarn a week’s leave to see how much he’ll miss the troop. Agarn sets out to visit Dodge City, but when O’Rourke goes to see the Hekawis, he finds that Agarn has decided to live among them and help them with their business, even negotiating them a new deal with Agarn for a larger percentage for the Hekawi. He’s also been driving them crazy by being a taskmaster of production of the Indian souvenirs. Roaring Eagle and Chief Wild Eagle are growing tired of Agarn already, and they tell O’Rourke that if he doesn’t get rid of him, their deal is off. O’Rourke convinces Parmenter to arrest Agarn for treason, but Jane suggest that it would be easier to force him to pass an initiation for him to join the tribe. They put Agarn through his pace by having him walk on fire, roll down a hill, catch a snake, and capture the head of a buffalo. Amazingly, he passes with flying colors… before fainting. Parmenter and O’Rourke decide to take drastic measures, and they both act as if they’ve too joined the Hekawi and start ordering him around again. Agarn decides to drop out of the Hekawis and re-enlist in the army. 2/3/22
• 010. She’s Only a Build in a Girdled Cage – 11/16/1065
  • Not long after Captain Parmenter takes off for a short period of time to the Inspector General’s office for a briefing, Hobbs gets a letter from his mother (Nydia Westman) announcing she is coming to visit him. She also encloses a clipping of an article about her retirement after thirty years as a nurse. Since O’Rourke is in charge, he sends Dobbs out for a his bugle duties, and winds up reading some of the letter, and checking out the clipping… but he looks at the other side with a photo of Union Troop entertainer Laura Lee (Patrice Wymore). Since the letter reads somewhat like a love letter, O’Rourke assumes that it is from his fiance Laura Lee. He gets excited at the prospect of getting her on the stage, so he oversees designing the saloon into an opera house. Parmenter returns to the base with Colonel Griswald (Bartlett Robinson), just in time to see Agarn putting up posters advertising Laura Lee’s performance. Griswald decides to stay during the performance and encourages Parmenter to invite several Generals. While speaking to Hobbs, Parmenter realizes that there was a mistake and Dobbs doesn’t even know Laura Lee. Parmenter thinks this will be the end of his career, so he concocts the idea to fake a letter from Laura Lee canceling the performance because she has to go to England and perform for the queen. However, when he fails to put enough postage on the letter, the postmaster Abijah Mimms (Charles Seel) takes the letter to Laura Lee to collect the two cents. When the letter fails to show up back at the camp, Parmenter thinks he’s sunk as the stagecoach arrives. However, instead of just containing Mother Dobbs, Laura Lee is on the coach, having read the letter and figured she’s try to help get the men who sent it out of trouble. After her performance, Parmenter thanks her profusely, and asks why she did it. She says she just likes to feel needed by people, as she boards the stagecoach to help out yet another man who pretended to be her fiancé. Ivan Bell is Trooper Duddleson. 2/3/22
• 011. A Gift from the Chief – 11/23/1965
  • Captain Parmenter has been reading the Officer’s Training Manual and realizes that the troop should be running night maneuvers, so he wakes everyone in Fort Courage up at 2am to do so. O’Rourke, Agarn, and some of the men try to talk him out of it, but he insists that they march to the river in the middle of the night. O’Rourke can see that he’s heading toward the Hakawi camp, so he sends Agarn to watch the still in case Parmenter gets near it. Naturally after leading everyone in the wrong direction, Parmenter and the men wake up the Hakawi and meet up with Chief Wild Eagle and Roaring Chicken, who are not happy about being awakened in the middle of the night. Agarn accidentally knocks a boulder off of his location, which would have hit Wild Eagle if Parmenter hadn’t tripped and knocked him out of the way. Roaring Chicken insists that Wild Eagle now owes Parmenter a reward since he saved his life. Wild Eagle is anxious to get back to sleep, so he promises to send one the next day. The reward turns out to be one of his babies from the tribe, which Parmenter gives to O’Rourke and Agarn to get him to sleep. When the finally do, the whisper through their roll call the next morning, but wake him up when they once again fire the cannon and knock over the lookout tower. They continue to struggle with getting the baby to stop crying, so they bring Wrangler Jane in to use her womanly touch. She insists that the baby is returned to his mother, which they would love to do if not fearful of insulting the Chief. O’Rourke and Agarn go to see Roaring Chicken to see how they might give the baby back without delivering an insult. The only way is for Wild Eagle to somehow save Captain Parmenter’s life, so they plan to have Parmenter do a river inspection and negotiation for fishing rights with Wild Eagle, and then for Pamenter to fall in the river and have Wild Eagle save him. Things don’t go as planned when Wild Eagle returns with a wet Captain Parmenter unconscious on his horse. It turns out that Wild Eagle can’t swim, so it was actually Parmenter’s horse that dragged him out. While they are discussing this, another boulder nearly falls on Wild Eagle, but Parmenter pushes him away again… this time earning another baby, the brother of the one they already had. Finally, Wrangler Jane goes to see the babies’ mother and they discover another old Hakawi ritual, whereby a mother is supposed to cry louder than the baby when the baby won’t stop crying, thus waking all of the men in the tribe. Wild Eagle lets her take the babies back, and gives the men in F Troop full visitation rights. NOTE: Mae Clarke is credited for appearing as ‘woman’ but does not appear in the episode. 6/11/22
• 012. Honest Injun – 11/30/1965
  • O’Rourke’s latest con idea is to plant some gold in the area, and intentionally cause a gold rush in order to increase traffic in all of their local enterprises. Meanwhile, there is also a huckster elixir salesman named Professor Cornelius Clyde (John Dehner) and his partner Running Bull (Lou Wills Jr.) in town, and he overhears O’Rourke’s plan. The two steal the gold that they planted and use the same plan as their own. O’Rourke and Agarn convince Parmenter that there are rumors of gold being found in the at the food of Calico Mountain, so Parmenter sanctions bringing their men to go and search for the gold. Agarn tries to steer Parmenter to where the gold has been planted…but they truly cannot locate any gold since Clyde took it. They return to town and find all of the shops abandoned, with Wrangler Jane on her way out as well. She tells them that Clyde has shown up and sold off deeds to parcels of land in Laramie where he claims gold can be found, along with bottles of Running Bull’s Magic Elixir. During his spiel to the men of Fort Courage, he claims that Running Bull, who can now do backflips, is actually 123 years old. O’Rourke pulls Clyde aside and threatens to lock them up in the guardhouse, but Clyde counters by telling O’Rourke that he could have them arrested by the United States Calvary for salting claims themselves. O’Rourke tells them to get out of town, and on his way out of the fort, his bag of gold splits open and he leaves some behind at Fort Courage. Agarn then finds it and announces to the guys that there is gold on the Fort’s land. As Dobbs tries to find an alternative instrument to play instead of the bugle, practicing on the violin, the banjo, and the bagpipes, Parmenter calls O’Rourke and Agarn to his office to tell them that he figured out that the parcels of land he sold the men are actually for the land at Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. He orders them to track Clyde down and arrest them for fraud. O’Rourke doesn’t want to do that, because he is afraid that Clyde will tell Parmenter about what they did. They need to find a place to stay away for a couple of days, so they head over to the Hakawi camp. There they find that Clyde and Running Bull have won their confidence and sold the Hakawi the elixir. O’Rourke is furious and tries to apprehend them, but the Hakawi holds him and eAgarn back. Jane sees what is transpiring, so she returns to camp to tell Parmenter that they are kidnapping O’Rourke and Agarn. He plans a rescue mission, but when they attack overnight, they find O’Rourke and Agarn sleeping peacefully among them. Clyde is now disguised in Indian garb as Chief Thunderbird, and he claims that he has run Professor Clyde out of town. O’Rourke makes sure to take his money and gold back from ‘Chief Thunderbird’ and gives him credit for taking it from Clyde. Everything is back to normal in town… until Chief Thunderbird suddenly discovers gold and starts selling parcels to the men in town. 6/12/22
• 013. O’Rourke vs. O’Reilly – 12/7/1965
  • While O’Rourke and Agarn are working with the saloon’s bartender Pete to water down the whisky supplied by Chief Wild Eagle, a competitor named Lily O’Reilly (Lee Meriwether) is making her way through town, turning the head of every man while their bodies continue to walk and bump into things. Even Agarn is taken with her, and when she announces that she plans to open a competing saloon, O’Rourke’s brain goes into overtime thinking of a way to get her out, since he actually owns the existing saloon. At first she plans to lease the boarding house, and the owner leases it to her for 99 years with the option for 99 more. O’Rourke thinks he can convince Parmenter to not give her the liquor license citing rampant alcoholism, but when Parmenter suggests he stops all liquor sales, O’Rourke reminds him they need it for snakebites. Parmenter gives her the license for 99 years with option to renew for 99 more. O’Rourke then visits Wild Eagle to make him promise not to sell her his whiskey, but when he and his men are also smitten buy her, he offers to supply it for 99 years with an option for 99 more. O’Rourke tries to talk Lily from opening citing how rough the town can be on women, and then by telling her that a poor widow owns the saloon. However, Pete gives it away that O’Rourke is the actual owner, so Lily threatens to turn him in if he doesn’t let her have his existing saloon. With nowhere else to turn, O’Rourke organizes a sobriety crusade, trying to convince the town that liquor is keeping the folks out of church. He makes Agarn and Dobbs join as well, but when Agarn goes into the saloon to preacher, he winds up starting a brawl that nearly destroys the saloon. Lily comes out and tells O’Rourke he can have the saloon back, and also tells him that there was an easier way to get it… then gives him a big kiss. She says she’s heading to Dodge, and tells her that she may come back and run the saloon for him once he gets it cleaned up. Agarn and Pete clean up the saloon, while O’Rourke watches, the crusade of women that they stirred up comes by in a parade still crusading for sobriety. 10/3/22
• 014. The 86 Proof Spring – 12/14/1965
  • O’Rourke is able to read the smoke signals from Chief Wild Eagle that say that their still is broken so they cannot produce any whiskey. He and Agarn venture to see them and take the still so they can fix it, and they hide in the N.C.O. club. Meanwhile Colonel Watkins (Parley Baer) shows up at the fort, and tells Parmenter that the Indians in the area are obtaining liquor and he demands that Parmenter find the source of it and destroy it. Watkins even sees the still in the bags on Agarn’s horse, but he and O’Rourke tell him that they are designing a hot water heater. Parmenter has his men search all over town for the still, but cannot locate it, but Jane then recommends that it might be on the Fort since it seems to be nowhere in town. Parmenter then tells O’Rourke that he wants to search then N.C.O. but O’Rourke reminds him that only non-commissioned officers are allowed in there, and Parmenter is satisfied when Agarn and O’Rourke go in and search the place for the still… and come up empty-handed. He later however says he had better search the N.C.O. himself, as he found in the military guide that he is free to search it in the case of an emergency. O’Rourke then sends Parmenter on a wild goose chase throughout the manual to search for contrary rules that aren’t really there. While O’Rourke has him busy, Agarn goes and empties the N.C.O. club of the still and pours the whiskey down the well. The men start drinking the ‘water’ and enjoying so much that Parmenter and Watkins join them and spend the night drinking together. The entire outfit wakes up with hangovers the next morning. Parmenter then decides to double his efforts, and dresses up like an old man to go talk to the Hekawi. O’Rourke sends Parmenter on a shortcut route, but Jane finds him on the way and tells him that O’Rourke knows that he was sent on the long way. Like everyone else, Wild Eagle recognizes Parmenter in his costume immediately and tells him that the Indians aren’t allowed to have alcohol. Parmenter, who is now suspicious of O’Rourke and Agarn, also sees the medicine man (J. Pat O’Malley) give Crazy Cat (Donald Diamond) some of his truth medicine and force him to admit that he has stolen numerous things. Parmenter steals some of the medicine, and the brings it back and puts it in O’Rourke and Agarn’s drinks. O’Rourke avoids drinking it, but Agarn freely admits that he stole the still and it is hidden in the N.C.O. Club. When Parmenter goes in to find it, it is gone again, as some of the Hekawi men saw Parmenter steal the potion, and they went to retrieve the still, knowing how he would use the potion. O’Rourke gets his final idea to end the search, and he has Agarn and the Hekawi pour whiskey down a tube into a spring, and then shows the spring to Parmenter and O’Rourke, to convince him that his is where the whiskey is coming from. Watkins orders him to destroy it, so Parmenter blows it up with dynamite, sending Agarn into a tree. 10/3/22
• 015. Here Comes the Tribe – 12/21/1965
  • O’Rourke and Agarn pay a visit to the Hekawi tribe to pick up some whiskey, and while they are there, they witness Chief Wild Eagle’s daughter Silver Dove (Laurie Sibbald) kidnapped by War Cloud (Blaisdell MaKee aka Makee K. Blaisdell), the son of the Shug tribe’s chief. Wild Eagle doesn’t want to make war with the Shugs, but rather expects the U.S. Calvary to do it for them. O’Rourke and Agarn return to the fort and ask Parmenter permission to go retrieve Silver Dove. Parmenter agrees to help but disguises themselves as Indians to make the rescue since the Calvary shouldn’t get involved with Indian affairs. The sneak into the Shug reservation, but it is clear that Silver Dove is actually in love with War Cloud and is resistant to leave with them. When they return her to Wild Eagle, they have a celebration. Wild Eagle tells O’Rourke and Agarn that Silver Dove will now have to get married to her rescuer, Captain Parmenter. The guys tells Wild Eagle to let them break the news to him. They want know part of him marrying her as it will ultimately give away their business dealings with the Hekawi. Wild Eagle insists that they will fight if the tradition isn’t maintained, and he sends Silver Dove ahead to the fort to serve Parmenter during their one-week engagement. When Wrangler Jane finds out about her presence, she becomes furious and demands that Wilton get rid of her. After a week, the Hekawi send drum signals, ordering the guys to bring Parmenter for the wedding. Parmenter is still clueless that he is the intended groom, and O’Rourke and Agarn try to stall the proceedings. Once Parmenter becomes aware, he insists that he doesn’t know Silver Dove well enough to marry her. Wild Eagle won’t budge and continues with the ceremony. Suddenly a medicine man appears bringing a message from the great spirit of the Happy Hunting Ground that the spirit of weddings is very angry that this marriage is taking place without love between the bride and groom. Furthermore, he says the spirit of weddings will deliver the true husband for the bride. They return to Fort Courage, where Agarn finds O’Rourke in bed. He yells at O’Rourke for not helping diffuse the situation, and then brags how he stood up to the medicine man. When O’Rourke then pulls out the medicine man’s mask and puts it over his own face, Agarn faints. Jeff Lerner is the ibitty bibitty brave. 1/29/23
• 016. Iron Horse Go Home – 1/28/1965
  • Business has gotten bad, so O’Rourke and Agarn are arranging for the men to come into the bar to drink beer after beer before it goes bad. Captain Parmenter interrupts them to get the fort ready for a visit from his uncle Colonel Jupiter Parmenter (Allyn Joslyn), who is mapping out the transcontinental railroad that will be coming through the area. O’Rourke sees this as a great business opportunity to make thousands – even millions – in their saloon. However, when Col. Parmenter arrives, he tells them that the train will go through the nearby Fort Laramie instead. The men then set out to convince him that they will have trouble getting the tracks laid around many of the hostile Indian territories but suggest that the Hekawi tribe will be willing to negotiate. They all go visit the Hekawi and smoke a peace pipe with them, but Chief Wild Eagle refuses to relocate… until he is offered government money. They settle on giving up their 600 acres at 50 cents an acre, with the stipulation that they can move anywhere else they wish. The Hekawi take this literally and move inside the walls of Fort Courage, a move that Captain Vanderbilt doesn’t see from guard duty because he can’t see anything. Col. Parmenter is furious and tells his nephew that they had better be gone when he comes back in 48 hours. O’Rourke and Agarn take charge of this by trying to make life in the fort miserable for them by calling for reveille at 4am, filling the army food with pepper, and forcing them to march. It all backfires, as the Hekawi seem to enjoy all of it… but O’Rourke and Agarn overhear Chief Wild Eagle admitting to his men that the conditions are miserable, but to keep up the facade as it won’t be long before they are offered more money to leave Fort Courage. O’Rourke then gets the idea to pay hardball and simulate an Indian attack on the fort. This is compounded when the Shugs actually stage a real attack at the same time, forcing the Hekawi to leave the fort after all. Colonel Parmenter later returns furious at his nephew and saying he is going to send the railroad through Fort Laramie after all, although Wilton can’t understand why since the Hekawi are no longer inside the walls of the fort. It turns out that the Hekawi have relocated to the other side of Fort Courage, right in line with where the tracks would be laid to get out of Fort Courage. O’Rourke and Agarn decide to bring the men back to the bar to start drinking the beer again. Vanderbilt is late in arriving, claming that he was delayed by a train crossing in the middle of the fort. When they go to see what he is talking about, it is just a couple of kids driving a kids’ train. 1/29/23
• 017. Our Hero, What’s His Name? – 1/4/1966
  • After Jane hands out the mail, she drags Wilton on a picnic where they run afoul of a bear who has been destroying gardens in the area. Wilton tries to come up with a way to trap the bear, but winds up in his open trap suspended above the ground and in a hole. Meanwhile, Agarn reads his mail from back home in Passaic from his girlfriend Betty Lou McDonald (Jackie Joseph), who is breaking it off with Agarn in favor of the horsecar conductor Clarence (Robert Sorrells). O’Rourke tells him to become the hero again by telling Betty Lou that Agarn has killed Geronimo (Mike Mazurki). He sends the note home, and when she reads it, she becomes smitten with Agarn all over again. She gives the note to her father, who runs the information in the local Passaic newspaper, which gets sent to the United States Secretary of War (William Woodson). When his attaché (Robert P. Lieb) tells the Secretary about it, he plans to go to Fort Courage to give Agarn a medal and presidential citation. When Geronimo himself reads the headline, he tells his friend (Jamie Farr) that he plans to go visit his cousin Chief Wild Eagle, so that he can visit Fort Courage to kill Agarn. Parmenter, Jane, and Dobbs continue to try and find ways to trap the bear, but they all three wind up falling in their own hole. Dobbs later gets a report that the Secretary of War is coming to Fort Courage to deliver a medal. Parmenter questions the men to see who might have done something courageous anonymously. Geronimo tells Chief Wild Eagle his plans, and he tries to discourage Geronimo from killing Agarn since he is a valuable asset in business, but Geronimo is hellbent. Betty Lou shows up by stagecoach and tells Agarn that she is willing to marry him after he gets his medal from the Secretary of War. Agarn freaks out when he hears this, so O’Rourke hides him away in one of the buildings and says he is suffering from fatigue. When the Secretary shows up to make the presentation, O’Rourke tells him that Agarn has come down with something that seems contagious. He turns the medal over to Parmenter and tells him to present it to Agarn when he recovers. Agarn is hiding out in one of the buildings, and Geronimo attacks him with knives while he is in there. Geronimo chases Agarn out of the building, and the men of F Troop pursue him. As Geronimo falls into the hole dug for the bear, O’Rourke tells the Secretary of War that Parmenter orchestrated the entire ruse to smoke out Geronimo and capture him, and he winds up being presented with the medal. As Parmenter and Jane are celebrating with a picnic, the bear reappears, and as Wilton is caught in the suspension trap, the bear falls into the hole. 7/10/23
• 018. Wrongo Starr and the Lady in Black – 1/11/1966
  • Captain Parmenter gets word that Private Leonard W. Starr, better known as “Wrongo” Starr (Henry Gibson), is coming to Fort Courage as a replacement soldier. Both O’Rourke and Agarn are both worried because bad luck seems to follow Starr everywhere he goes. When he arrives on the Overland stage, which lost one of its wheels en route, it also contains a lovely lady named Hermione Gooderly (Sarah Marshall), who has come to town to open up a shop called Gooderly’s Goodies. Parmenter has a meeting with Wrongo and is told that a medicine man put a curse on him. Parmenter tries to convince him that curses don’t exist, telling him to refer to himself as “Lucky” Starr instead. Agarn and O’Rourke take him to see Chief Wild Eagle, who tells them that the curse is a phony, but he starts to believe otherwise when his still blows up. Meanwhile, Jane believes that Ms. Gooderly is actually the Happy-G0-Lucky Widow, who she hears about on the wire regarding a widow who was married to servicemen four times before they died under mysterious circumstances. When Agarn goes to see her, she able to seduce him with wine, and by the time Agarn leaves her shop, he is ready to marry her. When O’Rourke gets wind of this, he gets the idea to make it appear that Wrongo has just inherited a fortune from a late uncle. When the widow gets wind of this, she quickly forgets about Agarn and begins her pursuit of Wrongo. Agarn gets in a fight with Wrongo and gets hit on his head by the shop sign, making him completely forget his infatuation with Ms. Gooderly. O’Rourke then announces that the inheritance was all a mistake. At this point, Ms. Gooderly tells Wrongo to scram and decides to get out of town. Agarn knocks out Wrongo temporarily and when he awakens, he has forgotten that he was ever engaged to Ms. Gladderly. Wrongo manages to fire off the cannon in the fort, just before Parmenter is able to have him transferred. As he is getting ready to leave, his coach horse pulls the driver loose and begins dragging him out of town. Clyde Howdy is the other man arriving on the stagecoach. 7/10/23
• 019. El Diablo – 1/18/1966
  • Parmenter announces that the new medical office in the territories, Lt. George Anderson (Hal England), is coming to give the troops their annual physical. Agarn has a whole list of ailments he believes he has, including hoof and mouth disease. Anderson is as clumsy and incompetent as Parmenter. During the inspection, Jane shows up with a letter from the War Department and a wanted poster for a famous Mexican bandit named Poncho “El Diablo” Agarnato (Larry Storch), whom Agarn identifies as his cousin. He wants to lead the troops on a manhunt for El Diablo in order to capture him on the behalf of his family, who has always disapproved of Agarnato. Parmenter gives him permission to go on a search with the troops while he, O’Rourke, and Dobbs stay back and guard the fort. El Diablo and his men Pedro and Felipe (Tony Martinez) ride into the Hekawi camp, where Iron Eagle and Crazy Cat tell him that he’s the spitting image of Agarn. El Diablo decides to stop by Fort Courage to greet Agarn, and then rob the bank so he can show his cousin that he’s not failure. Back at camp, O’Rourke drinks in the saloon alone with Pete, since the men are all on the manhunt and everyone else has heard about El Diablo and is staying home. Even Pete abandons his post and runs off. Just after Parementer, Hobbs, and Jane show up at the saloon, El Diablo and his men show up and hold them hostage to wait for Agarn to return. He insists they have a siesta, eat, drink, and play music. Out in the desert, the men start to rebel against Agarn, who has forgotten the ammunition, the food, and the map. Parmenter and O’Rourke attempt an attempt to summon the troops, and then try to ambush El Diablo, but fail on both counts. When Lt. Anderson shows up to show them his diploma, El Diablo wants the doctor to examine him as he has the same psychosomatic tendencies as his cousin. O’Rourke tells him that he must have hoof and mouth disease like his cousin. He demands that the doctor take him to the dispensary, but they actually take him and his men to the guard house. Agarn and the men all return to find that O’Rourke has captured his cousin. While Agarn is taunting El Diablo in the guard house, El Diablo tells Agarn that he has a red blotch on his face. He invites him into the cell so he can look at it closer, and one he enters, Diablo and his men overpower him and escape. Larry Storch also portrays his Granny Agarn, his Uncle Gaylord Agarn, and his cousin Carmen. 11/8/23
• 020. Go For Broke – 1/25/1966
  • Parmenter tells Agarn that the Inspector General is coming to check on F Troop’s pension fund, but at that moment O’Rourke is playing poker with Dapper Dan Fulbright (Del Moore)… and losing it all. When Agarn tells O’Rourke, he sends Agarn to try and raise money to the troops, but he can only raise $3.85, as most of them have lost their money to O’Rourke. Agarn tries to sell the Indian blankets back to Wild Eagle, but he reminds them that they made up the sales pitch for them in the first place. Meanwhile, Wrangler Jane’s cousin Henry Terkel (George Gobel), a talented inventor, is visiting to help Jane at the shop. He shows Agarn some of his inventions, including his talk-a-box, a primitive type of walkie-talkie. Since Agarn only raises $6.85 total, O’Rourke starts betting other items around town including the saloon. Agarn turns to Jane to see if she can front some further gambling money, but she is reluctant… until Agarn tells her how Captain Parmenter will lose face if he can’t produce the pension money. Parmenter stops by the store and meets Henry, who shows him some of his parlor tricks, including his ability to memorize cards. When Henry tells Parmenter that Jane and Agarn are gambling in the saloon, Parmenter orders everyone out of the saloon since gambling is not permitted in the territory. He then orders O’Rourke and Agarn to stop gambling and tells them that he wants the $2000 in his hands the next morning. They continue to gamble to try and get the money back, while Henry comes in to watch and tells Agarn that he can follow the cards and the odds and knows whenever O’Rourke makes a mistake. He also shows off his model for a motorized carriage that runs on oil. Agarn tries to get Henry to help with the card game, but he tells Agarn that he doesn’t gamble. Parmenter overhears Agarn telling him that they’ve lost all of the pension money. Agarn talks Parmenter into posing as a famous gambler named Beauregard Clayton and to challenge Dapper Dan. Parmenter doesn’t want any part of it, but then they all overhear Henry’s talk-a-box that he planted in the saloon and finds out that Dapper Dan has a confederate (James Drake) who is signaling him with O’Rourke’s cards. Parmenter, in the guise of Beauregard Clayton, an overbearing riverboat gambler, marches into the saloon and challenges Dapper Dan. With Henry’s help, Parmenter starts winning and doesn’t stop until he has completely wiped-out Dapper Dan. Having earned more than enough money to cover the pension fund, they give the extra money to Henry to build his horseless carriage. Unfortunately, as he starts to take off in it, the vehicle only moves a few feet before the carriage falls off the wheel. 11/8/23
• 021. The New I.G. – 2/8/1966
  • While Hobbs is attempting to give his first shave to Captain Parmenter, Jane stops by to remind him of the upcoming date of the 23rd. She is referring to the 6-month anniversary of when they met, but Parmenter remembers that is the day that their treaty with the Hekawi tribe expires. Meanwhile, back at headquarters General Harvey Morgan (Ed Prentiss) expresses his fear to the new Inspector General, Major Chester Winster (Andrew Duggan) that Indian tribes are attacking as their treaties expire. As the inventor of the ‘gun that will win the war’, the Chesterwinster ’76, Winster is sent to Fort Courage to ensure that the Hekawi don’t attack the American soldiers. Meanwhile, Agarn and O’Rourke are working with the Hekawi to develop toy guns that shoot flags with sayings on them for the gift shop. Parmenter asks the guys to arrange a powwow with the Hekawi to renew the treaty. Before they have a chance to, Major Winster shows up and berates Parmenter for the condition of the camp, telling him that he walked right in, and no one even gave him a second look. He is also in favor of letting the treaty expire and then attacking the Hekawi. Parmenter isn’t in favor of this and thinks that it is unethical to attack them. Winster sees it his way and tells them that instead of taking, he will make the new treaty so difficult that they will refuse to sign it. Among the stipulations are that no Hekawi can carry any sort of weapon, even those they use to hunt, they will have a curfew to be in their tepees by 7pm, and they can venture no further than twenty yards from their camp. Chief Wild Eagle has no interest in any confrontation, so he agrees to sign anything. Winster is annoyed that he will be unable to attack them, but when Captain Parmenter trips into one of the tents, a box of the novelty guns is revealed to Winster. He again believes they should attack the Hekawi, and he orders the troops to be ready to follow him in battle. Agarn and O’Rourke then inspect the men’s guns and determine that they need new ones. He assk for permission to arm them with the new Chesterwinster ’76 rifles. The men then rush into the Hekawi’s camp that night, but when they attempt to fire the guns, flags with signs come out of all of them. Under Parenter’s direction, they wind up surrendering to the Hekawi. Parmenter re-instates their original treaty. Major Winster is furious with the gun manufacturer, not realizing that it had been O’Rourke who pulled the switcheroo. O’Rourke takes credit for saving the Hekawi by switching the guns, but then his rifle actually goes off and fires, causing Chief Wild Eagle and Crazy Cat to faint. As Winster leaves the camp, Hobbs attempts to fire off a cannon salute, but once he gets it lit, a flag comes out of the cannon telling Major Winster “Good-Bye Major.” Marilyn Fisk is the kissing Squaw. Ben Frommer is Smokey Bear. 3/15/24
• 022. Spy, Counterspy, Counter Counterspy – 2/15/1966
  • Captain Parmenter gets a letter from the Attorney General’s office letting them know that they will be involved in a top-secret operation. Meanwhile the Secretary of War (William Woodsen) explains to his assistant (Robert Lieb) that Fort Courage will be testing a new bullet-proof vest that could be the turning point in their war with the Indians. They want to make sure that it doesn’t get into enemy hands, so the government is also sending a counterintelligence agent to oversee the process and protect the information. The men send for an orderly to remove the mannequin with the vest, and the orderly takes special interest in everything they are saying. Back at camp, Agarn and O’Rourke are busy entering a deal with the Hekawi to manufacture moccasins to sell. The stagecoach arrives with a crate full of the new ‘weapon’ vests, and along with the box comes a new schoolteacher named Lorelei Duval (Abbe Lane). An old woman shows up at Parmenter’s office and reveals himself to be the counterintelligence spy that was sent to guard the secret of the vests. His name is B Wise (Pat Harrington Jr.) and he was also the man posing at the orderly in the Secretary of War’s office. Lorelie comes to asks Parmenter if she can hold classes for the soldiers under the watchful eye of Wise. Later, disguised as an elderly bullfighter, Wise tells Parmenter that his number one suspect of a spy is Lorelei. Agarn develops a crush on Lorelei and takes her out that night. She spends much of the evening trying to get him to reveal everything he knows about the new ‘weapon’. Wise is posing as the waiter and overhears most of the conversation, then, dressed as an Indian squaw, takes it back to Parmenter and O’Rourke and reports that she is trying to get information out of him. Parmenter head over to the saloon to see them, and when he arrives, she insists on having a drink with him. When she leaves after helping him clean spilt champagne off of himself, Parmenter realizes that he’s missing the most recent instruction from the Attorney General out of his shirt pocket. The next day, Parmenter finds out the nature of the test and brings most of his men back to help test the vest. He looks for volunteers, and O’Rourke jumps at the chance for a 14-day furlough to Dodge City… until he finds out that it is a bulletproof vest he will be testing. Agarn winds up getting volunteered, but before they can test it, both Lorelei and Wise show up, each of them accusing the other of being the spy. Parmenter suggests that they lock both of them up until they can find out who the real spy is, but Wise reveals himself when he pulls his shoe gun on them. Parementer recalls that his actualy shoe gun was on the left foot rather than the right, so he attacks and overpowers Wise. He then realizes that his right shoe was a gun as well. With B. Wise revealed as the actual spy planning to turn information over to the Indians, he is handed over to the authorities. The men all fire rifles at Agarn to test the vest, and he wind up completely unhurt. In fact, the men miss him entirely and hit the lookout tour, which falls over once again. 3/15/24

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