It wasn’t a dream, Auntie Em, I was there!  It was a real AHP episode called The Little Man Who Was There.  This strange fellow dressed in black came into an old west bar and started doing tricks just like in TLMWWT.  Then he started turning folks against each other just like in TLMWWT.  But it wasn’t a dream!  Arch Johnson was there, and Roscoe Ates, and Clegg Hoytt, just like in TLMWWT.  Maybe this episode is even set in Kansas, who can tell these shitkicker frontier towns apart?

Tony Lorca strolls into the saloon whistling a jaunty tune.  All eyes are conspicuously on him.  He tries to break the ice by asking how they like the weather.  Unfortunately, it is as icy outside as it is inside and they don’t cotton to this stranger’s glib comments when they have crops and cattle freezing.  AHP fans know it does not pay to piss off someone with a corral full of frozen lamb-chops.

He says he just came in over the North Trail.  Bart McCormick is quick to point out that such a passage is impossible during winter.  Lorca asks if it really matters he got to “their miserable little shit-hole metropolis.”  This devolves to a gunfight.  But when McCormick reaches for his pistol, he discovers that Lorca has stolen it from him.  This feat so amuses McCormick, that he takes a liking to Lorca.

Lorca meets eyes with Shasta Cooney across the bar.  He regrets that he has no more cash to buy the widow a drink.  She buys him a small beer and one pretzel.  But then he pours the beer down her back. The widow Cooney storms upstairs.  Lorca remains in the bar; for a second, it looked like he was going to Mount Shasta — heyyyoooo!

Lorca puts up his pistol to get in a poker game with the gang.  In no time, he has lost everything.  One of the locals IDs him as Tony Lorca aka The Whistling Kid.  They read off a long list of crimes on his wanted poster.  The Widow Cooney comes downstairs just in time to hear his true identity and says he is also the man who killed her husband.

On this very clever series, they come up with one of their most original twists.  Lorca has been caught and once the snow clears, someone is going to turn him in for the cash.  The next turn of events is so great I’m not going to spoil it because, paradoxically, it just didn’t work for me.  I can’t figure out why.  It is a great, original idea, the execution was fine, the performers are mostly great, and there is a funny escalation of the idea.  Maybe I’m having a bad day; I don’t want to spoil anyone else’s fun.

The episode is not flawless.  The anachronistic score might be the worst I’ve heard outside of the 1980’s Twilight Zone.  Shasta just isn’t particularly attractive or interesting, not even achieving Fanta levels.  However, Arch Johnson is a hoot, and Ricardo Montalban is awesome as Lorca.  In the 2nd twist, the Sheriff even says of him, “He’s not a man of violence.  He’s more of a CONNNNNNNN man!”

I guess what I’m trying to say is you can search all over for happiness but there is really no need to look any further than your own front door.