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Movie Summary  Short: Johnny At The Fair:  In the short, a lad named Johnny flees his parents at the Canadian National Exposition. His becomes a life of ease and glamour, as he cracks wise with Joe Louis and Prime Minister Mackenzie King. The thrill-crazed boy even accepts a ride on a heliocopter aeroplane! But then: His parents take him home. Will Johnny's arms ever again surround pantingly hot skater Barbara Ann Scott?  Movie: The Rebel Set:  The Rebel Set feature beatniks and Edward Platt, the chief on Get Smart. He plays Mr. T (not that Mr. T), a con artist who easily manipulates a bunch of writers and actors into helping him rob an armored car. His plan is do the job in Chicago during a brief layover on a cross-country train trip. Mr. T's ham-handed double cross screws it all up. Big dumb actor Johnny (by default the main character) is the only survivor. — Paul Chaplin Host Segments  Prologue:  Joel terrifies Crow and Servo with Life's Little Instruction Book. "Number four—enjoy real maple syrup." "Aaghh!!"  Invention:  Frank demonstrates TV's Frank's Quik-Primp Kit, a full-length mirror and makeup kit he hangs on Forrester, for use while standing in line. The SOL has invented a "paint-by-number" Mark Rothko kit. (Mr. Rothko's canvasses often contain only one color, see.)  Segment 2:  Crow's all excited when the mail brings his recorded acting lessons: "Costarring with Scott Baio—youl"  Segment 3:  Everybody, especially Crow, details what they'd do with a four-hour layover in Chicago. Crow: "...It would be Tuesday, so admission is free at the Art Institute. My uncle's membership card gets me into the members' cafeteria, where I would dawdle over a delicious fruit cocktail. Then I'd stroll down Michigan Avenue..."  Segment 4:  Joel and pals write short stories based on Writing Down the Tracks by Merritt Stone (who we believed, at this point, to be playing the conductor). The stories don't conform to Merritt Stone's perspective: "I'm sure he'd ask you why there's no scene where a ticket gets punched?"  Segment 5:  Servo as Hercule Poirot tries to dissect the Great Merritt Stone Mystery. (We all thought the conductor was Merritt Stone. Turns out the conductor was probably Gene Roth, who's been in several of our movies. There is a Merritt Stone, and he's indeed appeared in our movies, but we're still not clear who he is.) It's confusing, so Servo's head explodes. Frank tries and fails too, and weeps bitterly.  Stinger:  Beat poet with a patch over his eye. Reflections While running amok at the fair, Johnny is corralled by two wacky guys identified as "the Hellzapoppin boys, Olsen and Johnson." Olsen and Johnson were a vaudeville-era comedy duo. They go way back, having appeared with The Ziegfeld Follies in 1922, and in a show called Sons o' Fun at the Winter Garden Theater in New York in 1941. That same year saw the release of their movie Hellzapoppin, which (according to The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film) featured "Mad magazine-type gags about potted plants and a character yelling 'Mr Jones!' for no apparent reason." Plus, Trace's dad once saw them at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis. Trace says his dad says they were funny. For his double cross, Ed Platt's Mr. T. character disguises himself as a priest as the train resumes its trip to New York, and then kills his coconspirators one at a time. It's a confusing plot twist, since his "disguise" consists of a priests collar. Other than that he's exactly the same guy: We didn't even realize, watching, that he was supposed to be in disguise. Of course it fools the clods he's chosen to help with his crime, but all he's really done is change his shirt. Take a situation (and this does happen) where Trace shows up at work wearing a different shirt than he wore the day before. Do I say to myself, "Who is that?! I have no idea who you are!" Yes, I do, but for only a few seconds, and then I settle down and I realize, it's just Trace. He's wearing a different shirt. It can't properly be called a disguise, and he means no harm. Frank explains his invention as ideal for when you're "on line" to see a movie. At the time I figured he was having a tiny seizure. "On" line? It's "in" line, right? But apparently "on" line is an eastern thing, and I've got to object. To me, and this is correct, anyone claiming to be "on" line would be lying on the line, sprawled across the hapless souls standing properly "in" line. That's it. That's the only way you could ever be "on" line. I don't want to hear any more about it. — Paul Chaplin