MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE PROJECT:
Project Trivia: Still no Imaging Chamber door in this episode. (MPB)
BACKSTORY NITS:
Al Backstory Nit: How could the 70s be
one of the happiest times of Al’s life? He was in a POW camp for three
to five years of the decade (depending on how you interpret "The Leap Home
II"), and came home to find out that Beth had left him. (MPB)
PCR: The rest of the decade more than
compensated for the way it started out. (MPB)
Al probably took to the disco era with
a vengeance in order to erase memories of Vietnam and Beth. (NM)
Sam Backstory Nit: While Sam showed reasonable
reluctance in making the drop from the building, he did not exhibit the
excessive fear of heights he later showed in "Leaping in without a Net."
(LW)
PCR: Maybe he swiss-cheesed his acrophobia?
(MPB)
Anti-PCR: Is it possible to forget a phobia,
as phobias are usually subconsciously rooted? (LW & MPB, after much
discussion)
HISTORICAL NITS:
Historical Nit #1: Time’s really screwed up in this episode. Sam Leaps in on Thursday, April 1, 1976. That evening, he and Chris and Shannon are watching "Saturday Night Live" on TV. Also, Chris is supposed to die in the fire stunt on Friday (or, sometime in the next two days, according to Al). But on Friday, Sam does the "Earthquake" stunt and Chris debuts at some bar’s amateur night. The fire stunt doesn’t happen until Saturday. (MPB)
Historical Nit #2: "Earthquake" came out in 1974, not 1976. (Internet Movie Data Base)
GENERAL NITS:
General Nit #1: The two stunts that Sam
stumbles through beggar belief. Surely an untrained person couldn’t have
survived the shotgun stunt or the big drop without injury. (LW)
PCR: Would you believe beginner’s luck?.
(MPB)
General Nit #2: How could Sam realistically
have pulled Chris out from under the table all by himself? It seemed nearly
impossible. (NM)
PCR: See PCR to General Nit #1.
DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS:
Detail #1: Sam is a Leo, but was Chad? (LW, MH) Did Tracy’s ability to read Sam’s sign mean she had psychic abilities, or was she just lucky? (MPB)
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:
Trivial Item #1: Sam will Leap into another April Fools’ Day for "MIA." (ARS)
THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY:
No mystery about this one: "Disco
Inferno" combines two of the 70s’ worst clichés: disco and disaster
movies. Why no one thought to cross "Saturday Night Fever" with "Towering
Inferno" before is a mystery. If "Disco Inferno" had been made, Chad/Sam
would have appeared on the dance floor in a white polyester suit a full
year before John Travolta. (MPB)
NAME THAT TUNE:
"That’s the Way (uh-huh-uh-huh) I like It" by KC and the Sunshine Band--a neat juxtaposition to Sam’s Leap in, since Leaping into a white polyester suit in the middle of a disco is obviously NOT the way Sam likes it. (MPB)
"Kung-Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas--appropriate for a family of stunt men, no? (MPB)
"The Hustle" by Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony--while Al is hustling his butt across the dance floor, just after Tracy’s tried to hustle Sam, and while Shannon hustles Chris--how fitting. (MPB)
"Wildfire"-- The title, if not the content of this song is a neat reference to the fire at the end of the episode. (LW)
"Out of Sight, Out of Mind" --The song Chris sings reflects Sam’s situation a bit--"Out of sight...out of mind...out of time...just another stranger lookin’ for the promised land." And, of course, Chris is also looking for the "promised land," isn’t he? (MPB)
FAVORITE QUOTATIONS:
Sam: "Disco--I’d rather be dead." (Of course, the subsequent shotgun blast is the real punch line.)
Tracy: "You’re crazy. I like that in a guy."
Tracy (drooling over Sam/Chad): "You’ve got king of the beasts written all over you."
Sam (about the 70s): "The Me Decade--where everybody has the morality of two dogs in the park." (Like they didn’t in the 80s and the 90s?)
Sam: "I’m the butt of some cosmic April Fool’s joke."
Al: "Sam, wake up and smell the seventies. You’re looking at genuine 100% high-grade virgin polyester. The only thing that got me more women was my spacesuit."
Sam: "Cross my heart."
Chris: "What heart?"
STILL UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:
Anyone know what the date was when Gerald Ford took that tumble?
And does anyone know if Kriss Kamm
did his own singing in this episode? The singer’s voice sure didn’t sound
the same as the actor’s speaking voice.