As a kid nothing choked me up more than LASSIE...from LASSIE COME HOME to JEFF'S COLLIE (which I think was actually LASSIE before they renamed it TIMMY AND LASSIE), it was almost guaranteed I'd end up in tears watching this amazing pooch on screen big or little.
A couple moments I'll never forget that were emotionally devastating (and I may be wrong about which episodes or shows these moments were from):
In a two part JEFF'S COLLIE - Lassie has either gotten lost or been kidnapped. Either way, she's left home. Jeff (Tommy Rettig) broken hearted, resigns himself to the loss of his beloved dog. He decides its best he bury all of her toys at the bottom of a hill. Just as he's scooping the final shovel load of dirt, Lassie bounds up over the hill, the music swells and the two embrace in unbridled reunion joy ...
In the late 60s, there was a LASSIE show where she was owned by - I think - a forest ranger (ring a bell anyone?). In a multiple part episode, a hurricane sweeps through, seperating Lassie from her owner. Of course, just when all is lost, in the final part, Lassie comes running down the storm swept streets and into the arms of her owner, who had given up all hope of ever seeing his Lassie again...
Any Lassie memories lurking out there?
| QUOTE (Chris Barry @ Aug 14 2007, 02:33 PM) |
| In the late 60s, there was a LASSIE show where she was owned by - I think - a forest ranger (ring a bell anyone?). In a multiple part episode, a hurricane sweeps through, seperating Lassie from her owner. Of course, just when all is lost, in the final part, Lassie comes running down the storm swept streets and into the arms of her owner, who had given up all hope of ever seeing his Lassie again... |
I remember this (just). Lassie as the Fugitive, more or less. I think it ran for a full season (at least it seems that way now)? The near misses drove me up a wall.
My fondest memory of the tv show is when she performed an emergency appendectomy while holding off a pack of rabid marmots.
It's got to be the episode called "The Refrigerator," when the Martin family gets rid of their old-fashioned ice box and replaces it with a new-fangled plug-in refrigerator. Lassie, accustomed to accepting her food from the ice box, stops eating and starts whimpering and sleeping in the workshed, where the disused ice box has been moved. Lassie just doesn't understand. It's a tear-jerker.
I saw one where Lassie desperately dug a hole under a chainlink fence and squeezed under so she could rescue a squirrel trapped in the trunk of a car headed for the junkyard crusher. The suspense was unbearable.