Classic Horrors Club

Patterns seem to be forming in episode three of World of Giants (WOG.) Two episodes in a row have opened with a scene in ‘the bureau’s’ office with, not a recap of how Mel Hunter (Marshall Thompson) was shrunk to six inches tall, but how he’s doing in the aftermath. For the second week, we hear a recap of what doctors have said about his condition. This time, though, Mel is there with Bill Winters (Arthur Franz), who, when asked, “How’s Mel?” replies, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Mel has accompanied his partner to the office in his briefcase.

It’s Commissioner H.G. Hall who asks the question about Mel. Played by John Gallaudet, the character appears in seven episodes of WOG. Another prolific (206 credits) character actor in movies and on television, Gallaudet has fewer genre credits than Thompson and Franz, who we’ve discussed the last two weeks. However, he has a couple of fun ones. He played Ernie Paul in The Strange Case of Dr. Rx (1942) and was uncredited as Police Guard in The Brute Man  (1946) and Reporter in Might Joe Young (1949.)

Interestingly, he was in Beginning of the End (1947) as Dr. Leo Szilard with another guest star in this episode, Richard Emory, who played Richards. (He was Lieutenant in Beginning of the End. Gallaudet’s most high profile role was probably that of Roy Church in In Cold Blood (1967.) That is, unless you’re a Batman (1966) fan. He played Brook Cortland in the season two episodes number five and six with The Minstrel (Van Johnson) as the villain of the week. He was also in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1965).

In some ways, ’Teeth of the Watchdog’ feels like a remake of episode one, ‘Special Agent.’ The week’s adventure once again takes Mel and Bill into the confines of an apartment where Bill is incapacitated and Mel struggles to send a message to the bureau. The primary variation is that there’s an angry dog instead of a cat. Mel calls it, “a rhinoceros on a leash” as he tries to climb the phone cord on which its sleeping and then avoid him while making his way across the floor from the tabletop to the window.

There are fun complications, though. For example, he crawls inside the “female jungle” of a woman’s purse to look for a coded message and becomes trapped beneath a pistol that rolls over onto him. Later, he tries to write a rescue note, but the pencil is “taller than him,” so he uses a typewriter to break off the tip. Then, he uses the carriage of the typewriter to stun the dog so he has time to get to the window and drop the note outside, hoping it will be found by someone who will call the bureau. Oh, but then comes the hardest part for Mel… waiting.

The villain returns to find the calvary. He exclaims when he sees Bill, “I had you tied up!” Bill replies in perfect 1950s-speak, “You couldn’t tie up traffic!” Breaking the fourth wall at the end like he has in every episode so far, Mel shares the episode’s lesson, “I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re six feet tall or six inches tall, it’s still the little things that add up to winning or losing. Reliving the episode as I write this, I don’t care as much now that the plot is familiar, because the delivery is just so darned fun!