A TV WESTERN JOKE

When I first began exploring the internet 21 years ago, I used to get a lot of jokes via e-mail.  And I would copy them into files before adapting them to be either about my family or about TV characters.

I get my jokes via Facebook nowadays and my cousin Coco shared this one last August.  All I had to read was the first line ("An old woman walked up and tied her old mule to the hitching post.") and I knew exactly who this would be perfect for - all three roles in it, as a matter of fact!

Since my Inner Toob dance card was already full for last year's August showcase for the TV Western, I set it up to be published now at the end of the 2016 TV Western showcase........

"DIRTY SALLY" FERGUS WALKED UP AND TIED HER OLD MULE NAMED "WORTHLESS" TO THE HITCHING POST IN DODGE CITY.  AS SHE STOOD THERE, BRUSHING SOME OF THE DUST FROM HER FACE AND CLOTHES, A YOUNG GUNSLINGER BY THE NAME OF CYRUS PIKE STEPPED OUT OF THE LONG BRANCH SALOON WITH A GUN IN ONE HAND AND A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY IN THE OTHER. PIKE LOOKED AT DIRTY SALLY AND LAUGHED, "HEY OLD WOMAN, HAVE YOU EVER DANCED?"

SALLY FERGUS LOOKED UP AT THE GUNSLINGER AND SAID, "NO,... I NEVER DID DANCE... NEVER REALLY WANTED TO."

A CROWD FROM THE LONG BRANCH SALOON HAD GATHERED AS CYRUS PIKE GRINNED AND SAID "WELL, YOU OLD BAG, YOU'RE GONNA DANCE NOW," AND STARTED SHOOTING AT HER FEET.

DIRTY SALLY -- NOT WANTING TO GET HER TOE BLOWN OFF -- STARTED HOPPING AROUND AND EVERYBODY BEGAN LAUGHING. WHEN HIS LAST BULLET HAD BEEN FIRED, PIKE, STILL LAUGHING, HOLSTERED HIS GUN AND TURNED AROUND TO GO BACK INTO THE SALOON.

SALLY TURNED TO HER PACK MULE WORTHLESS, PULLED OUT A DOUBLE-BARRELED SHOTGUN, AND COCKED BOTH HAMMERS.

THE LOUD CLICKS CARRIED CLEARLY THROUGH THE DESERT AIR, AND THE CROWD OUTSIDE THE LONG BRANCH SALOON STOPPED LAUGHING IMMEDIATELY.

THE YOUNG GUNSLINGER HEARD THE SOUNDS, TOO, AND HE TURNED AROUND VERY SLOWLY. THE SILENCE WAS ALMOST DEAFENING. THE CROWD WATCHED AS THE YOUNG GUNMAN STARED AT THE OLD WOMAN AND THE LARGE GAPING HOLES OF THOSE TWIN BARRELS.

THE BARRELS OF THE SHOTGUN NEVER WAVERED IN THE OLD WOMAN'S HANDS, AS SHE QUIETLY SAID, "SON, HAVE YOU EVER KISSED A MULE'S ASS?"

CYRUS PIKE SWALLOWED HARD AND SAID, "NO M'AM... BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO....."

O'BSERVATIONS:

• I changed all the references to the "old woman" to the variations on the name of "Dirty Sally" Fergus.
• I changed all the references to the young gunslinger to Cyrus Pike.
• I gave the mule the name of Worthless.
• I identified the saloon as the Long Branch and situated it in Dodge City.
• This makes the joke a prequel to the 'Gunsmoke' episodes "Pike: Part One" and "Pike: Part Two".  And those episodes served as a backdoor pilot for a TV Western that would debut a few years later - 'Dirty Sally', which starred Jeannette Nolan as Sally Fergus and Dack Rambo as Pike.
• 'Gunsmoke' - "Pike: Part One" makes it obvious that Sally and Pike's paths first crossed in this storyline.  But I think it's easy enough to claim that their paths crossed before the bank robbery and played out exactly as it did in the joke.  Neither character saw fit to mention the earlier encounter for their own reasons.

From the IMDb:

Riding away from Dodge after a $2800 robbery, four bandits escape into the windy night. With one of them wounded, it seems like a three-way split until Pike, the wounded one, surprises the other three.

Dirty Sally becomes smitten with the outlaw Pike as he continues to heal up and the gang begins tracking Pike down.The friendship between the two grows as Pike is faced with leaving or standing his ground with the gang.

Jeanette Nolan played Sally; a toothless, tobacco-chewing old woman who lived in a shack about ten miles out of Dodge City.

Scratching out a meager living by picking up the droppings from passing wagon trains and selling them in town, Sally was often teased for her ragged clothing and soiled appearance. One of her finds on the trail-a wounded gunman-would end up changing her life.

The plot is very simple: a very poor aging woman named Sally (Jeanette Nolan) lives on the prairie and collect all sorts of trash. She is really fond of glass and her yard and house is scattered with her bottle which is all of her belongings. The only thing of value she really has in a mule that she dresses in a hat.

Cyrus Pike (Dack Rambo) is an outlaw that stolen money and is being tracked by Marshal Dillon and Festus. Pike stumbles up on Sally's old shack with a gun wound. Sally, being alone and wanting company, tends to the wounds and also throws Matt off his track when she advises that she has never seen him. But Pike also has some other outlaws chasing him and they are not just going to ride on when Sally says she had not seen him.

In Pike's last scene with Sally after he's put in jail, he tells her to wait until he gets out in "September." This was obviously a reference to the producers' hopes that "Dirty Sally" would be picked up as a series for the fall schedule; the producers were unaware that CBS was going to purge almost all of its rural-appeal shows from the schedule instead. "Dirty Sally" did finally reach the air two and a half years later.

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY:

• Although he didn't know it, Cyrus Pike's father was the gunslinger Jim Sonnett.
• It is from the lineage of Cyrus Pike that the family tree of Christopher Pike can be traced.

Thanks, Coco!  This is your birthday present, by the way........

BCnU!