The first episode, "Make Me Laugh," is one of those "Be careful what you wish for" episodes. It involves a horrible comic who has been doing some awful material for years. He is played by Godfrey Cambridge. Along with his sidekick, Tom Bosley, they have been in every dive imaginable. There is nothing quite as uncomfortable as a person trying to make people laugh and having them stare blankly at him. There isn't even a chuckle. He gets fired after one performance and is commiserating in a bar. A man in a ridiculous turban approaches him as he rants about how unfair the world is. This man is played by Jackie Vernon (one of the funniest comedians ever. He was also Frosty the Snowman). Vernon tells him that he can grant one request each month and he hasn't used one yet. When the comedian jumps at the chance, Vernon warns him that numerous others have made wishes but somehow paid a great price for them; he is even quite specific. Of course, our guy ignores the warning and makes his request: he wants to make people laugh. You guessed it. They don't laugh at his jokes. They laugh at everything he says. Even people on the street. His gift becomes a pariah to him.
The second episode, " Clean Kills and Other Trophies," concerns a big game hunter played by the great Raymond Massey. He is a very rich man and has spent his life killing anything that moves. He has a trophy room with the heads of numerous beasts. The biggest disappointment in his life is his son. A boozing, liberal thinking, passive young man whose father sees as a total failure. He is in the house with a lawyer who is going to do the final touches on a trust fund. Angry that this is too easy, Dad puts a codicil in the trust. The son must kill a deer in the next fifteen hours or the trust will disintegrate into worthless paper. There is a fourth character. A black man of African descent who is treated as a lesser human by the old man. This man patiently puts up with the racism of his boss, but has a certain aura of control about him. Of course, the hunt becomes the focus of the rest of the episode. Ultimately disappointing in my view. One reason, for me, was that the son may have good intentions but he is weak and ineffective.
