Muldoon's Star

Fifty years later, I didn't remember much of this story but I sure remember the name "Tessie The Torso!"

She was the blonde bombshell, a la Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield, who wound up staying at Muldoon and his mom's house!

This classic episode has some very funny material in it. Lisa Loughlin does a very nice job of playing the harassed movie celebrity "Teresa Tangiers" and the expressions on Muldoon's face were priceless. Fred Gwynne's (Muldoon) acting is excellent. Some of the cast usually got more laughs but Gwynne was an underrated comedy actor.

It also was interesting to see the rest of Muldoon's family, something that wasn't usually seen.

Lisa Loughlin does a great job as a beautiful movie star that is kind of nutty. She plays the part pretty much perfectly,purposely overdone but with finesse,she nailed the part down and made it hers! (I can't believe she wasn't in a bunch of tv/movies after this,at least none that I remember) Fred Gwynne is thin as a rail,man that guy was a beanpole! As the character Muldoon he plays a very memorable part,he was a solid actor for sure.

It's tough to find a bad "Car 54" show, and this one is definitely not a bad one. Hollywood pretty blonde bubblehead Teresa Tangiers wants to get away from Hollywood, so through the usual crazy circumstances, ends of crashing out at Muldoon's home (turns out his mom rents rooms).

In one funny sequence, Muldoon takes Teresa to a dance that his two pretty cousins are attending, and Gunther and his wife Lucille (a big Teresa Tangiers fan) also attend.

It is at the dance where something even slightly unexpectedly profound happens. A young man asks Toody's wife for a dance, instead of Hollywood vixen Teresa Tangiers, sitting right next to her, after he checks them both out. This makes Toody suddenly very attracted to his own wife, and from then on to the end of the episode, he can't keep his hands off her. There's even one risque (for 1961) scene where Muldoon is driving them home in the police car, but you can't see Toody and his wife, because they are getting down in the back seat!

This is relative to the human nature of liking what other people find attractive in a mate. That isn't to say you have to like a person because others do - but when someone is 'wanted' we often tend to look at them more appreciatively, and want them more. When the young man chose Toody's wife over the sexpot, Toody didn't see the woman he sees every day - he instead saw what the young man saw, and went nuts over his own wife. This little extra in the plot was, dare I say, even a bit intelligent for a show which relies on (hilarious) goofball antics.

All in all, another decent episode in the fantastic Car 54 series.