Do or Diet

Edgar comes home early, a few days off before his raise and promotion. Mother-in-law Dot Farley and brother-in-law Jack Rice worry that he's let himself get fat, and the boss may fire him, and what will happen to them then, the selfish brute? So they incite him into exercising so heavily that he's crippled in this funny episode of Edgar's long-running 'The Common Man' series from RKO.

It's broadly constructed and relies less on Edgar Kennedy's comedy of frustration, his his patented 'slow burn' takes and outbursts of temper. Instead, we rely more on the uncaring and selfish attitudes of Miss Farley and Rice, of screen wife Florence Rice's amusing spoonerisms, and even visiting comic Dick Wessel's strong man bits. Any series that lasts a long time must vary in its bits lest it grow stale, and this is a nice variation on the series' usual bits.