The Danny Thomas Show (TV Series) The Practical Joke (1959) User Reviews

One of the best practical jokes movie!

[wanliqunn · 8/10 · 12 February 2015]

I like practical jokes. Practical jokes are also called pranks, and I've watched a lot of pranks at WWW.iPRANK.TV. Prank on your friend actually make a closer relationship between you and them, but don't go too much or it'll be a disaster.

After Danny realizes that, yet again, he's the victim of one of Charley Halper's practical jokes. Danny plots his revenge when he suggests to Charley that they engage Muriel Schultz, the Williamses chubby, temporary maid, suggesting to Charley that's she's beautiful and hugely talented. Muriel is a performer and takes her Copa debut very seriously and Danny soon realizes that she will be hurt by all of this and Danny and Kathy figure a way out of all of this. The only solution is to allow her to perform as scheduled and, ultimately, the joke is on everybody when she turns out to be a terrific singer and a huge success.

So The most funniest part of it is that it turns out everyone got pranked! :)

Really dumb episode

[FlushingCaps · 2/10 · 27 February 2015]

Caught this episode this morning. While the series overall was fairly funny, this represents one of the weaker ones. We start with a bunch of kittens being delivered to the Williams' residence. Supposedly this is a "practical joke" from Charley. How it is supposed to be funny is something I cannot answer.

Then we get Rusty and Linda telling Daddy how funny their new maid is. The maid comes out and does a couple of non-speaking impressions that are well done and amusing—to kids. She quickly tells Danny that those are just for the kids. She really is a singer and a dancer. All her life, she's been dying to break into show business. Danny can't shoo her away quickly enough, without hearing her sing a note. Then he gets the idea that he could convince Charley to hire this "singer" for the Copa by pretending she is already famous. He works the scheme to perfection.

But he feels remorse when learning the maid has heard about getting her chance and when she tells him how important this is to her, he decides he can't tell her it was a joke. He orchestrates it to keep Charley from seeing her until she performs, but that doesn't happen. She goes onstage and sings wonderfully—a big hit.

A good practical joke involves getting the victim to do something silly or foolish—like Rob Petrie "fixing" the phone, or thinking he was, anyhow. In neither "joke" here does the victim do anything foolish. Each only does something totally logical.

I saved the main part of the focus of this episode for now—Danny was sure the woman couldn't sing because she was somewhat overweight. When Charley saw her, he immediately fainted. Two times, without hearing a note. Throughout the episode, it was assumed she couldn't sing because of her weight. Now this makes no sense to anyone.

This rendered most of the episode as "dumb" because it was centered on the notion that this fat woman couldn't possibly sing. Apparently Danny nor the show's writers never went to the opera.