Duration: 0:59

Views: 1347

By: fuzzymemories

Description: Here's a funny sketch from Popeye with Steve Hart on WSNS Channel 44, with Mr. Hart appearing as "Farkus Melby, M.D., D.D.S., Ph.D." (the title of which spoofed that of the 1969-76 medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D. which starred Robert Young and James Brolin), and Nancy Boyle as the nurse who serves as his assistant.

The voiceover (by Bob Hoffmann?) starts off this skit by mentioning that Dr. Melby, the "Challenger of Modern Medicine," is "back from the State Pen [Penitentiary] for a long list of malpractice suits." The good (?!) Doctor is decked out in a yellow afro wig along with other accoutrements, and the nurse is repulsed by all that's out there; his talk is supposedly about giving first aid.

First, he attempts to demonstrate how to put on a Band-Aid, while dealing with the nurse going on about her "pretend" injury, but forgets at first to administer the mercurochrome; when doing so, he ends up painting her arm in a pattern as a setup for a Tic-Tac-Toe game, before being brought back to the subject of putting on the Band-Aid. He then goes overboard by putting gauze all over her arm, then at first around her eyes (as a de facto blindfold) when she says she has a headache - er, head injury; Dr. Melby then says the bandage can be used alternately as a kind of bandanna.

Afterwards, he shows a medical bill to be sent to a Linda Frost (an in-joke, given that she was one of Channel 44's key announcers of the time), specifying the various fees for doctors, radiologist, X-rays, and even such items as ice cream; at which point a sped-up recording of "There's No Business Like Show Business" is played briefly. He also promotes Hugo van Lawick's book "Solo: The Story of an African Wild Dog," and a get well card for Linda.

This aired on local Chicago TV circa 1975.