Pop the Astronaut – The Red Skelton Show – elderly Pops the janitor becomes a stowaway on a mission to Jupiter! With Peter Graves
Pop the Astronaut, with Peter Graves – The Red Skelton Show season 19, broadcast September 23, 1969
Monologue
- I feel good tonight – I feel like a million dollars! Of course, with he price of meat the way it is, ham’s gone up — why shouldn’t I feel like a million dollars?
- You know, nowadays the price of meat is like Ann Margaret — you see it but you just don’t believe it!
- Red finishes with a pantomime about a butcher shop
Act I – Pops the Astronaut
Red Skelton’s old man character, Pop Stevens, is working as a janitor at NASA. Where he can at least be a small part of the space program. And he has a slight case of hero worship on Commander Morgan (Peter Graves), who’s about to leave on a historic trip to Jupiter. And Pops, given an opportunity, decides to take the place of one of the other astronauts and become a stowaway!
Act II – Pops the Astronaut
“What do you mean, ‘can I sit still and do nothing’? I’ve been working for the government for years!”
[Pops has found a screw on the floor, and woken the sleeping astronauts to see if it’s “important”]
Morgan: We’ve got a loose screw up here.
Ground Control: What’s he done now?
Act III – Pops the Astronaut
Morgan: So far, no sign of life.
Pops: Yeah, it’s like Pasadena on a Saturday night.
[on letting Pops plant the flag on Jupiter]
Morgan: I figure we owe your generation something.
[Looking through a telescope from the surface of Jupiter]
Pops: What’s that big green and blue ball?
Morgan: That’s the Earth.
Pops: And what’s that big brown ball?
Morgan: Los Angeles.
On Stage
Silent Spot – The Silent Movie Kop
Red mimes a silent screen policeman chasing bank robbers – a very funny spoof on silent films and the Keystone Pops in particular
Songs
- Iron Butterfly sings ‘In a Gadda-Da-Vida’ and ‘Soul Experience.’
- The Tom Hansen Dancers perform the love theme from “Romeo and Juliet”
Cast
- Red Skelton – Self – Host/Self – Pop Stevens, the Janitor/Self – Gertrude and Heathcliffe/Self – Silent Movie Kop-Silent Spot
- Eric Brotherson – Minor Role
- David Rose and His Orchestra – Themselves
- Bob Duggan – Minor Role
- Walker Edmiston (Land of the Lost) – Capt. George Wilson
- Art Gilmore – Self – Announcer(voice)
- Peter Graves (Mission Impossible; Red Planet Mars) – Mission Commander Morgan
- Iron Butterfly – Guest Vocalists
- The Jimmy Joyce Singers – Singers
- James Lemp (War Games) – Minor Role
- Ysabel MacCloskey (Yours, Mine and Ours) – female accomplice in the Silent Spot
- Bill Shannon – Minor Role
- Tom Hansen Dancers – Themselves
- Bonnie Evans – Dancer(uncredited)
- Edward J. Heim – Dancer(uncredited)
- Ed Kerrigan – Dancer(uncredited)
- John King – Dancer(uncredited)
- Currie Pederson – Dancer(uncredited)
- Ted Sprague – Dancer(uncredited)
Trivia
- With this show, the series title reverted to “The Red Skelton Show” despite it still running an hour. The title was set in semi-psychedelic “groovy” type for this season which would turn out to be its last on CBS.
- For the science nerds: since Jupiter is a gas giant with no solid surface, the astronauts must have landed on one of its’ many moons instead.