In which Doc Clayton is a wanted man.
A notorious bounty hunter called Luke Jones arrives in Handlebar’s tavern, and within 3.5 seconds, one of those stupid dingoes has picked a fight with him. This degenerates remarkably rapidly into a full scale brawl, which only comes to an end when BraveStarr shows up. BraveStarr doesn’t tell everyone to stop fighting; instead, he gets out his gun and shoots the fan down from the ceiling, and only after that does he bother to try to end the brawl. He’s either been hanging around with Thirty/Thirty too much, or he’s always hated that fan and just seized his chance.
With the fight ended, BraveStarr introduces himself to Luke Jones, who reveals that he is on New Texas in pursuit of a criminal. So far, so bounty huntery, but then Jones drops the bombshell: the criminal he’s after is Doc Clayton, wanted for thieving a shipment of medical supplies. BraveStarr hotly denies that Doc Clayton would do this, but Jones doesn’t care, and informs BraveStarr that he’ll be taking the Doc away – dead or alive.
BraveStarr whooshes out into the wilderness to find Doc Clayton, who tells him the whole story about the alleged stolen medical supplies. It’s not a terribly interesting story, the upshot being that the Doc isn’t a thief but he did run away from a problem, a revelation which predictably provokes BraveStarr into sounding off about how running away never solves anything. Before this touching scene can go any further, Jones shows up and tries to arrest Doc Clayton, but before that can really go anywhere either, a pack of dingoes arrive as well and start shooting indiscriminately at BraveStarr, Doc Clayton and Jones.
With BraveStarr and Jones occupied in fighting off the dingoes, Doc Clayton takes the opportunity to run away. Jones blames BraveStarr, and knocks him out before heading off to hunt the Doc down. When BraveStarr wakes, he and Thirty/Thirty follow Jones, only to find that both he and Doc Clayton have been captured by those bloody dingoes. I must say, for a bounty hunter, Jones is pretty useless at fighting off baddies.
BraveStarr rescues them both from the first dingo, but the four of them are then pinned down by three further dingoes. In the course of the shootout, Jones injures his leg, and Doc Clayton heals him, which is all the proof Jones needs to decide that the Doc is innocent of the theft after all. After the dingoes are defeated, Jones departs, promising to clear Doc Clayton’s name by hunting down whoever really did steal the medical supplies. Then BraveStarr comes up with a complete non sequitur, and everyone laughs as if it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Either that, or they’re just humouring him while they edge away uneasily.
In today’s adventure…
BraveStarr gives us the not unexpected moral that problems don’t get solved by running away from them. He is also good enough to make a joke that would have seemed stale when I was two and a half years old, and Thirty/Thirty rightly calls him out on this.
Character checklist
The main players this week are BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, Doc Clayton, Luke Jones and the dingoes, one of which is called Goldtooth and another is Dingo Dan. For those of you who really care, there’s also short appearances from Fuzz and Handlebar.
Insults
Today sees a number of relatively imaginative insults flying around. We start with a dingo referring to Jones as a “no-good bounty hunter” and a “snake”, followed up with Thirty/Thirty addressing the dingoes as “varmints” and “party poopers”. Jones considers BraveStarr to be “crazy” and addresses Doc Clayton as a “rotten thief”, while Thirty/Thirty refers to some giant sand crabs as “crazy critters” and, perhaps a tad redundantly, as a “couple of crabby crabs”. BraveStarr tells Thirty/Thirty that “for a horse, you talk too much,” and I could not agree more. Finally, BraveStarr comes up with perhaps the subtlest insult Filmation ever managed, when he says to Jones, “I don’t think you’re playing with a full deck.”
Ears of the Wolf
BraveStarr whips out the wolf ears quite early on, putting them to pretty sensible use to discover that he and Thirty/Thirty are being pursued by Luke Jones.
Eyes of the Hawk
The hawk eyes are also used sensibly, when BraveStarr needs to locate Doc Clayton, and again when he wants to find out how many dingoes are attacking them. It seems as though BraveStarr’s figured out appropriate use of his abilities at last.
Strength of the Bear
Shortly after making the worst pun in all of history, BraveStarr is seized in a giant sand crab’s pincer. He uses the strength of the bear to bust himself out.
Speed of the Puma
As so often, he doesn’t announce it, but BraveStarr uses his puma speed to put some distance between himself and Jones, allowing him to reach Doc Clayton in time to warn him. In case the lack of announcement upsets you, you’ll be pleased to know that later on, BraveStarr uses the speed of the puma again, for no particularly evident purpose, and this time he shouts about it first. This gives us a magnificent full house of animal abilities, and thus makes this episode truly special.
Starr Rating
I got the impression this offering was written by someone new to the series. BraveStarr and Thirty/Thirty seem ever so slightly out of character, though in a good way – they’ve become a bit sarky, which makes them a bit more interesting. I could have done without BraveStarr’s new penchant for making dreadful jokes, though.
The storyline itself was quite fun, though nothing out of the ordinary. I thought we were headed for a moral quandary wherein Doc Clayton had actually nicked the medical supplies, but had done it to save lives, thus begging the question of whether he was right or wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the first draft, but it had to be toned down and made less ambiguous. If so, that’s a shame, as it would have made it a very interesting episode indeed. Even without that, though, this one’s worth a watch.
BraveStarr Episode Review Site 