Long John takes Jim Hawkins to the dentist and regards the "cash only in advance" sign with disdain.Plot synopsis: Long John has a toothache, and everyone suffers.
Thoughts:
Toothaches used to be the antagonist in many television shows, but not so much these days. I guess that the state of dentistry in the past made people far more reluctant to get their teeth looked after and the idea that someone would tolerate the pain of the ache rather than the agony of the dentist visit had verisimilitude. I recall that a toothache was a storyline (or part of one) in many of the television comedies of the 70's that I watched as a child (including M*A*S*H).
When Long John grows temperamental and yells at everyone, the pirates use superstition rather than logic to explain his change in behavior. They say that a devil has flown into his "craw". It somehow escapes their notice that Long John keeps grabbing at his jaw in pain. This is a nice little throwback to the times when there were thoughts of sea monsters and ghost ships.
Part of the story involves Long John sparring with a Scottish dentist and all of the cliches surrounding the cheapness and frugality of the Scots is trotted out for this episode. I'm not sure how Scottish folks feel about this, but it occurs to me that this is one of those long-running stereotypes that continues to be used. It probably was no fresher in the 50's when this episode was made than it is now.
Long John cradles a sock full of hot salt next to his aching tooth.Favorite moments:
Long John yells at Jim and blames him for doing his job badly. As Jim takes Long John's food to toss overboard, he looks genuinely downtrodden.
To soothe his pain, Long John scoops salt into a frying pan and heats it up. He pours the hot salt into a stocking and holds it against his jaw.
Favorite quotes:
Long John to crewmen: "When I order swabbin', swab!"
Long John to Jim: "The hammerin's beatin' so hard... I can feel the pain in the toes of the leg I ain't got!"
Mr. Ross: What good is your money to you without your life?"
Angus MacCallister: "What good is my life to me without my money?"
Long John to MacCallister (a dentist): "I'd rather take this tooth to me grave than give you a penny."
Stray notions:
Jim seems to have never actually had a toothache (though he has one at the start of the episode). When Long John complains about the agony he is in, he says, "but it's just a toothache." Anyone who has ever had a toothache knows that they can be excruciating. My father once got drunk and tried to shoot the tooth that was paining him out of his jaw. Fortunately, my mother stopped him before he blew half of his face off.
Long John's crew seem to have paper thin loyalty as they are willing to mutiny when he gets crabby from his toothache. Yet, they are willing to rescue a couple of British subjects from a heavily-defended Spanish fort on Long John's orders without any promise of reward to themselves. Being ordered to do something that could get them killed is fine by them, but not being bullied about swabbing the deck or putting up with some crabbiness.
Part of this episode involves attacking a Spanish fort, and the set is truly dreadful. It looks like it was made for a high school musical production. As well as cheap set construction served the episode Execution Dock, it undermines the already strained credibility of the action sequence in this episode.
Long John refuses to allow his crew to pull his tooth, but when the dentist pulls it, he says he won't need any pain killers. If he wasn't afraid of pain, why didn't he just let the crew take the tooth out rather than have the dentist do it?
Mold to Gold Rating:
My enjoyment of this episode was probably undermined by the fact that my disc was badly mastered and I watched the last 2/3 without realizing the beginning had been skipped. While I have no doubt that a lot of pettiness and bad behavior occurred on long sea voyages when people were in distress and cooped up together, I think the story just didn't work on the level of Long John troubling himself to rescue a dentist at the risk of his crew's life and his own just to have the tooth pulled by a professional.
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