Clem the Dentist – The Red Skelton Show season 7, with Amanda Blake
In Clem the Dentist, When a pair of con artists run a diploma mill, they make Clem Kadiddlehopper a dentist! And when the police show up …. The tooth will out!
Monologue
- I still have a little cold. I took a shower last night, I must’ve gotten my feet wet.
- Tonight our show has to do with school, and I got to say one thing. I loved school when I was a kid. I used to walk four miles to school every day, but I never learned anything. School was five miles away.
- I used to play hooky quite a bit, and one day a police officer walks up, and he says, “Haven’t you been missing school?” I says, “Not a bit.”
- Children like to learn, so one day I took Valentina over to the library, and I’m sitting there, I’m reading. And all of a sudden, she comes over. She put down a little piece of paper, and she goes away, in a couple of minutes puts down another piece. I says, “What on Earth are you doing?” She says, “There’s a book over there. It’s kind of big, I can’t carry it. I’m bringing it over one page at a time.”
- Red tells a joke as Junior the Mean Little Kid.
Clem the Dentist – Act I
Clem the Dentist begins with “Dean” Treadway giving a civil engineering degree – after two weeks of training! Not bad for a former paperboy. Clearly Treadway University is nothing but a diploma mill, separating the gullible from their money. And in comes Clem Kadiddlehopper!
They give Clem a pair of fake teeth to study, so he can take his final Dentist exam in the morning. And the audience sees that the Bunko Squad is investigating. Clem’s “final exam” is very funny, and keeps busting up Reed Hadley during the skit!
Clem the Dentist – Act II
After his “successful” training, Clem sets up a dentist office, wit the lovely Amanda Blake as his assistant. It’s very funny, with a log of prop humor. Examples include trying to hand up his dental diploma, clowning around with the dental chair, cranking his first patient through the ceiling!
In the meanwhile, Treadway and his assistant Heath are arrested by Frank Wilcox’s Bunko Squad. And they take Treadway to see Clem, after an offhand comment about how he’d go to Clem as his own dentist! And the laughing gas sets everyone into a laughing fit!
Cast of characters
- Red Skelton … Self – Host / Clem Kadiddlehopper
- Reed Hadley (The Dark Corner, Shock) … Prof. L. M. Treadway
- Amanda Blake (Gunsmoke, A Star is Born) … Nurse
- Benny Baker (Paint Your Wagon) … L. G. Heath Jr.
- Frank Wilcox (The Ten Commandments, Beginning of the End) … Police Capt. Turner
- Phil Arnold (Sing a Song of Six Pants) … Mr. Oliver
- Anne Dore (Space Patrol) … Mrs. Jones
- Jack Boyle … Detective Ward
- David Rose and His Orchestra … Themselves
- Art Gilmore … Self – Announcer
Funny quotes:
Treadway: How do you spell that name?
Clem Kadiddlehopper: C-L-E-M.
Treadway: I mean the last name.
Clem: Wrong, every time.
Clem: These are funny teeth — the upper just said to the lower, “We must be near Capistrano — I feel another swallow coming!”
Treadway: Where do we typically find silver?
Clem: Under the Lone Ranger!