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Wilbur (Alan Young) couldn't be happier when he notices the old tenants
of the house he and his wife Carol (Connie Hines) have just moved into
have left their horse behind in the house's stables - and he always so
wanted a pony. But Carol wants to sell the horse, which is of course the
sensible decision concerning their financial situation. Then though the
horse - Mr Ed (Allan Lane) - starts to talk to Wilbur, which of course
puts the affair on a whole new level. Thing is, Mr Ed doesn't talk to just
anyone, only to Wilbur, so he can't convince his wife to keep Mr Ed. But
the horse does a pretty good job scaring a potential buyer (Jason Johnson)
off himself by pretending he's ailing. So everything should be alright -
except for Wilbur running around the neighbourhood telling everyone he's
got this talking horse ... and soon enough he's regarded a loonie, even by
his wife, but especially by his next-door-neighbour/landlord Addison
(Larry Keating). Fortunately, Mr Ed has a way out of this situation by
telling Wilbur to call his realtor (Howard Wendell) to call the whole deal
off - which he could without financial loss on grounds of insanity (hey,
whoever hears a horse talk just has to be insane, right?). And in the end,
Addison takes quite a large sum off his initial asking price just to make
Wilbur and wife (and horse) stay. When it comes to vintage
sitcoms, Mister Ed has an almost iconic status as "that
series with the talking horse" - but watching this first episode a
bit more than 50 years later, one can't help but notice that it hasn't
stood the test of time quite as well as some other series. Basically the
whole thing is just too rooted in conservative values even earlier sitcoms
have long questioned and even made fun of, and Alan Young is consequently
a bit too clean-cut a lead, plus, while some of the jokes work just fine,
quite a bit of the humour of this is rather childish whichever way you
look at it. Now that said, this is of course still a must for fans of
vintage sitcoms - it's just at best half as funny as you'd expect it to be
...
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