Original subtitles

(jaunty music)

- Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your flattering introduction.

And thank you, fellow members, for your warm welcome

and your not so warm chicken croquettes.

(laughter)

I'll be sure to pause here and take a casual sip of water.

- If you are planning on getting a laugh at that point

you are liable to get waterlogged.

- It's not intended to be what you Earth people call

a yuk or a boffola.

The members of the Martian Anthropological Society

have a much more subtle sense of humor.

- Oh, the Martian Anthropological.

Uncle Martin, you found a way to get back home?

- No, but Omar M. Keck has found one for me.

- Keck?

- [Martin] Mmm hmm.

- The bacon and knockwurst king?

- [Martin] Yes.

- What's he got to do with it?

- Tim, don't you ever read the front page of your own paper?

- Well you know how I am, Uncle Martin.

Once I get passed the sporting page and the comics,

well I get intellectually fatigued.

(laughter)

- [Martin] Well you don't mind listening, do you?

- No.

- All right.

Omar M. Keck, founder of the Keck Foundation,

announced here today the completion of a spacecraft

capable of landing on Mars,

the first privately-financed project of its kind.

The astronaut will be chosen tomorrow

from an elite group now in training.

- Oh, well that's nice.

You're not planning on being the astronaut?

- Well now can you think of a better representative

from Earth to Mars than a Martian?

After all, who can explain your people better up there

than I can?

- Well granted but aren't you overlooking one small point?

- [Martin] What's that?

- Well, generally speaking, astronauts are somewhere between

the ages of their 20s and their 30s,

and you are just a teeny weeny bit older.

- Thank you for putting it so delicately.

Well then.

There go my hopes of getting back home.

My home.

The best laid plans of mice and Martians, gang aft agley.

- Well now let's not start agleying yet.

You know I don't know that there's any law

that says an astronaut has to be a certain age.

- Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but it's no use.

Although it would have been to their advantage

to have a mature, steady hand at the controls

instead of a youngster who might just push the panic button.

- Yeah it's too bad somebody can't tell Keck.

- Well I can't.

I can't get in to see him.

- Well wait a minute.

Why can't I tell him?

- You tell him?

(Martin scoffs)

- I'm a reporter, I can get in to see anybody.

- Tim, if only you would.

- It's as good as done.

I'll call the Foundation and I will make an appointment.

(jaunty music)

- Don't bother, I've already made an appointment for you.

Mr. Keck will see you at nine o'clock tomorrow morning.

(jaunty music)

(soft music)

(electronic beeping)

(upbeat music)

(instrumental music)

(man imitating monkey)

- You Earth man, me Martian.

You give peanuts.

Me take you to my leader.

- Oh, how do you do?

I'm Professor Crenshaw, director of the training program.

I presume that you're the father of one of these boys?

- No, I'm a competitor of all of them.

Martin O'Hara.

- You're the man that Mr. Keck called me about?

- [Martin] Yes.

- Forgive me but did he actually see you?

- No, but I assure you he knows

that if I needed medical attention

I wouldn't go to a pediatrician.

My goodness that looks complicated.

Must take a combination of Buck Rogers and Einstein

to operate it.

- Oh indeed it does.

In fact this entire book

is just landing procedures, entirely.

The boys have been working for two months

and they mastered it yet.

(instrumental music)

- Well I'm sure they're doing the very best they can.

That thing over there, whatever it is.

I didn't see it in the diagram.

- You certainly are observant.

But those, let me tell you this,

actually these are all signaling devices here, you see,

and if the simulated landing is correct,

then all these indicators light up, you see,

and then these master lights show a perfect score.

Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet.

- Well I know it sounds ridiculous but do you mind if I try?

(instrumental music)

(laughter)

- That's unbelievable.

You came through that entire sequence perfectly

and in less than five seconds.

- Well I would have done it faster

except I've got a hangnail on my thumb.

- Uncle Martin, this is Mr. Keck.

- Oh.

I don't often meet millionaires.

Is a deep salaam or a simple curtsy in order?

- Well let's just settle for a howdy and a handshake.

- Well howdy.

(Omar chuckling)

Thank you for the opportunity

of allowing me to apply for the job.

- You know I'm sure you're just goofing

about becoming an astronaut.

And I'll tell you what, we've got an opening at the plant

for a sausage stuffer.

- Thanks again,

but a sausage casing is not the opening I came here to fill.

Excuse me.

- Mr. Keck, that man mastered that control panel in seconds.

I never saw anybody like him before.

- Yes, and if he gets to Mars you won't again either.

- Well now wait a minute, not so fast.

Just because a man's got a head stuffed full of brains,

that don't make him an astronaut.

Frankly, Tim, your uncle looks a wee might scrawny to me.

How are the other boys doing?

- Well fine.

Come on, come on.

- Hiya, Mr. Keck!

- [Omar] Oh howdy, Baker.

- This one's gonna separate the men from the boys.

(suspenseful music)

- You're in great shape, Baker.

- [Baker] Thank you.

- Well that looks like fun, do you mind if I try it?

- Are you kidding, pops?

You're liable to snap your garters.

(laughter)

- Oh Baker, this is Tim O'Hara, the Los Angeles Sun.

- Hi there. - Hi there.

(triumphant music)

- Mr. Keck!

(jaunty music)

- The man's gone plum loco!

He'd better stop that!

- I'll just get rid of this.

(laughter)

- I know I saw it but I can't believe it!

Why he's not human!

- My goodness, he's out of this world.

- You can say that again.

- He's out of this world.

(laughter)

- Excuse me.

(jaunty music)

- Pretty good.

- Thank you.

May I?

- Mr. O'Hara, I'm really man of few words.

How would you like to go to Mars?

- I'm a man of fewer words.

The answer is yes.

- You mean it, do you really mean it?

- Yes, I really mean it.

(instrumental music)

(Tim chuckling)

- This is gonna cover the whole front page.

- Ah, don't forget your byline.

- Oh I haven't forgotten anything,

starting with the fact that you were chosen as the astronaut

and that you visited the capsule today at Burbank

and that you had lunch with Mr. Keck.

- That reminds me.

Tim, you didn't have to go so far as to pick up the check.

- Well I didn't want him to think he was dealing with pikers

and besides, you noticed that he didn't struggle very much.

- Yes, I've noticed that about you people.

The only time you don't mind coming in second

is when it comes to picking up the tab.

(laughter)

- Boy this is really great copy.

Burns is just going the love me for this.

- Well from what you tell me about him

even if he doesn't hate you quite as much

that will be a triumph.

- Oh with this scoop

I'll have him eating right out of my hand.

As a matter of fact with the bonus I get

I am going to buy a stereo tape system for my car,

you know, the one I've always dreamed about.

- Mmm hmm.

Tim, bonuses are like chickens.

Don't count them before they're hatched.

- Oh it's in the bag.

Why old stone-faced Burns, he couldn't.

(laughter)

(Tim stammering)

- Well?

- Just talking about Charlie Burns, the butcher.

Well feast your eyes on this journalistic gem, Mr. Burns.

(Tim chuckling)

Well what do you have about that?

- The only thing I can say.

- Well.

- O'Hara?

- Yes?

- You are without a doubt the most incompetent, blundering,

inept reporter it has ever been my misfortune

to be associated with.

- What?

- While you were out wining and dining

we were scooped by every other paper in town.

(instrumental music)

- Mr. Burns, it wasn't completely Tim's fault, you know,

what with the excitement--

- Mr. O'Hara, I congratulate you on being chosen

to go to Mars and I envy you.

- You do, why?

- Because you are able to put 200 million miles

between yourself and your nitwit nephew.

(laughter)

(instrumental music)

There you are.

(instrumental music)

- Hi, Martin.

- [Martin] Hi, Tim.

(Tim sighs)

- Uncle Martin, what are you doing

sitting and reading that magazine?

You have to go to Mars in a couple of days.

Now wouldn't you be boning up

on your takeoff and landing procedure?

- Tim, would you have to study a 200-page manual

on how to tie a shoelace?

- Oh.

Well you just found my one weakness.

That's why I wear loafers.

- How'd it go today?

- Burns is still giving me the treatment.

Do you know what he assigned to me for this afternoon?

The weekly meeting of the WLTBFS.

- What's that?

- That is the Westwood Ladies

Thanatopis and Bobbling Fancier Society.

- Unconstitutional.

Cruel and unusual punishment.

- Even for a bobbling.

- Tim, you know for the first time since I landed on Earth

I'm rather sorry that you're the one who had to find me.

Well what I mean is that I seem to have complicated things

for you a great deal.

- Oh no, of course you haven't, Uncle Martin.

I mean, well it's had its compensations.

- I hope you really mean that.

- Well of course I do.

Until I met you I knew nothing about baroque music,

pre-Columbian art, or that my Martian uncle

snores just as loud as the rest of us.

- Tim, would you say that again?

- Pre-Columbian art.

- No, no, that your Martian uncle snores.

You know, you've got a story that just might win

the Pulitzer Prize.