Cool Hand Dave (Parts I and II)

Air Dates: 17 Nov 1987, 1 Dec 1987, 2 Aug 1988, 9 Aug 1988

Synopsis:

Three episodes ago, Maddie called David to tell him that she had left Los Angeles for Chicago, and she begged him not to follow her there, because she needed some time alone. Then, in the last episode, Maddie first learned that she was pregnant, and she left an answering machine with Agnes, telling her about the baby, but asking her to promise not to tell anyone – "especially not Mr. Addison."

But that didn't last long. Agnes receives the message at the start of this episode, and although she tries her best, the secret slips out to Bert, who promptly spills his guts to David, and next thing you know, David heads to the airport, bound for Chicago.

The trouble is, all the planes are booked, and he'll have to wait. In an airport bar, he tells his story to the guy sitting next to him, a friendly looking fellow named Scott Hundley. David mentions that he'd "like to trade places with just about anybody right now." And Hundley is happy to oblige – because Hundley, as it turns out, is a convicted felon. Before David knows what has happened, Hundley does switch places with him. Suddenly David is handcuffed and carried away to prison in Hundley's place, and Hundley escapes. David tries to explain that he's not Hundley, that he is a free and an innocent man, but no one will listen.

While David is missing, no one can find him. Bert and Agnes go looking for him. Even ABC doesn't know where he is, so they send out a casting call for a replacement, and lots of David Addison wannabe actors try to do some of his famous scenes from past episodes. But of course no one does David Addison like the real David Addison.

Desperate to get to a phone and call for help, David digs himself an escape tunnel. ("Escape from Alcatraz, The Great Escape, Hogan's Heroes – they've all got escape tunnels.") While he's escaping, he gets caught, but not before he discovers that the captain of the prison guards has been using prison labor to make illegal license plates which he has been selling on the black market. When David learns that the warden has been looking the other way, he persuades him to take action to end the captain's corruption.

At last, Hundley is caught and brought to prison, and David is set free. He returns to his apartment and immediately begins packing his suitcase, once again determined to go to Maddie in Chicago. But as he does so, he listens to the many answering machine messages that were left for him while he was gone, one of which is from Maddie, thanking him for respecting her wishes and not coming out to Chicago. She is "grateful," she says, "for letting me have this time. Thanks for showing me how much you really care. I love you David."

David's expression says it all. Without a word, David replays the message and listens again to her say, "I love you David." And after a long silence, he begins to unpack his bags.

Directed by Allan Arkush

Written by Roger Director and Charles H. Eglee

Guest Stars:

Memorable Dialog and Additional Links:

• See Christine Graves's Moonlighting Madness page for Part One and Part Two of this episode.

Music:

• Part I:
  • At the start of the episode, Ethel Merman sings When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along.
  • Bert performs Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing
  • In response to Bert's singing, Agnes lets him into her apartment, during which is played the theme from Love Is A Many Splendored Thing
  • The can-can music that's playing during the prison food fight is by Offenbach from "Gaite Parisian"
• Part II:
  • David sings to himself What's Your Name by Don and Juan at the start of the episode
  • While the prisoners are working out in the sun, they sing and dance. The music is adapted from "When I Was a Lad" from the Gilbert and Sullivan musical HMS Pinafore. The new lyrics are very difficult to discern, but – with a thousand thanks to Moonlighting fan Christine Graves, who rewound her tape a million times to figure them out – the lyrics are:

    (spoken)
    True, we are heinous felons, not a one of us is nice
    But you'd do well to hearken to our sage advice.
    Forget Sam, your wounded ego, and the rest of that baloney
    There's a woman and a baby, say yes to matrimony!
    

    (music starts)
    This wench so fair who he calls Maddie
    is the blonde and buxom owner of the agency.
    The epitome of virtue, a lady of rare grace
    and this Dave is always straining for a glimpse of lace.
    He begged and pleaded for her sugar and spice
    but she blunted his desire with a glare of ice.
    

    Hearing sly innuendo and allusion to his bed,
    she looked at him and told him that he ought to drop dead.
    But he pressed his case so diligently
    that he and Maddie now enjoy a pregnancy.
    A blessed event save for one niggling bother:
    the guy is not certain he's the baby's father.
    

    Seems Maddie took a tumble with an astronaut.
    Now a jailhouse brother, he is overwrought.
    But a man worth his salt, a man of any mettle
    would rescue his fair lady from this awful fellow.
    Though she's fled to Chicago, the relationship a mess,
    you sir hold the key to her happiness.
    

    You'll be happy as a psycho on a killing spree
    once she's an honest woman and you're on bended knee.
    

    Call collect Chicago, area 312
    and don't you dare hang up until she says I do!
    

    And you know what to do!

  • A prison guard whistles the Moonlighting opening theme as he checks on the prisoners while they're sleeping
  • The Raiders March, from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, composed by John Williams, as Scott Hundley explains David's disappearance to Bert and Agnes
  • David whistles Three Blind Mice as he leaves the warden's office
  • The theme from Captain Kangaroo during the ice cream party
  • The theme from Dragnet as David finally leaves the prison

Notes:

• In Part I, when Bert learns from Agnes that Maddie is pregnant, he makes a single, brief reference to the Anselmo case. This case will be brought up again ten episodes from now, in Between a Yuk and a Hard Place, and from then on it will become an ongoing Blue Moon event. We never learn what it's about, nor do we ever meet the Anselmo family, but we do learn in the final episode, Lunar Eclipse, that "the Anselmo case was never solved."

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Date of last change: 3 November 2003

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