User Reviews

This is a bit of a rewrite of "Of Mice and Men" with the "Arnie" character as "Lenny," and Hoss as "George." The "Mongo" character from "Blazing Saddles" is also remarkably similar to Arnie. Alex Karas may very well have drawn from this for his role.

Arnie's fondness for baby pigs mirrors Lenny's penchant for rabbits, though he ironically points out that they are hairless as opposed to Lenny's furry rabbits.

Sheribelle the saloon girl toys with Arnie just as did Curley's wife in "Of Mice and Men" and she meets a similar fate.

Arnie's fate is also similar to Lenny's. Hoss catches up to Arnie as he runs from the posse and they have scene similar to Lenny and George's final scene, except that Hoss doesn't pull the trigger to save Arnie from the wrath of the posse. While George "takes" Lenny to his dream farm via his imagination just prior to his death, Hoss also literally takes Arnie to it post mortem.

I think that anyone with an acquaintance of modern American authors will recognize the influence of John Steinbeck on this Bonanza episode, The Ape. If you know the story Of Mice And Men , you'll know how it all comes out.

One twist on the Steinbeck plot is the Mutt&Jeff characterization of the two leads Lennie and George is done away with. Cal Bolder plays the Lennie part, the big over grown giant with limited education, a short temper and a man who doesn't know his own strength. Instead the idea in this story is that another big man, in this case Dan Blocker as Hoss Cartwright is the only guy who can truly understand what makes the other big guy tick.

Playing the parts of the two who bring the big guy down are Leonard Nimoy as a saloon faro dealer and his woman Karen Sharpe who plays up to the big man because it's her job. Like Lennie in Of Mice And Men, Bolder's character Arnie has not developed too many social skills where the opposite sex is concerned.

The Ape is a good reworking of the story Of Mice And Men and allows Dan Blocker to carry this Bonanza episode. I'd be willing to wager something that this episode must have been a favorite of Blocker's.

Here's yet another example of "If you can't think of a new idea, swipe someone else's".

Peter Schickele said of a work by P D Q Bach that its principal theme bore a certain relationship to a theme by Beethoven. "That certain relationship is 'identity'." Here we have a direct lift of a famous Steinbeck novella. One cannot, in principle, copyright plots. But "The Ape" is so close to "Of Mice and Men" it's amazing Steinbeck didn't sue.

The teleplay is by Gene L Coon, who would later write for "Star Trek". (Coincidentally, "The Ape" includes an appearance by Leonard Nimoy.) Coon had a reputation as a fast writer, and one can easily imagine him knocking out this script over a long weekend, simply by "filling in the blanks" in Steinbeck's template, with only minor adjustments to accommodate the regular "Bonanza" characters and TV censorship. (The "mercy killing" resolution of Steinbeck's novella was a no-no.)

The most-interesting aspect of this episode is the casting of Cal Bolder as the eponymous character. Poor Mr Bolder is, unfortunately, best-remembered as the gunslinger-turned-monster in the infamous "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's (Gran-) Daughter". Though the floozy (whom he eventually kills, to the audience's great relief) describes him as "the ugliest man I've ever seen", he's obviously quite handsome. And he seems to be a competent actor, so it's strange he wasn't cast more often. (He appears in a "Gunsmoke" episode where he gets to beat up Matt Dillon, which only groups of people or large, muscular men were allowed to do.)

"The Ape" would have benefited from Mr Coon spending more time coming up with less-trite dialog. The predictable ending (Bolder shot down by the outraged citizens) only provokes laughter -- "Why aren't they carrying torches?".

Of all the episodes that have the Cartwrights banding together to help someone this episode feels off to me. I understand the Mice and Men references of course but I didn't like the direction of this episode. Hoss is determined to help Arnie but Adam and Joe try to discourage him. They all could have helped. The Cartwright's were often ahead of the time they lived in always willing to help the misunderstood or mentally challenged but here Hoss is completely on his own. Arnie of course was strong and didn't know how harmful he could be but the cruelty of the people using him for their own amusement add to the problem. Where is Ben's sage advice and powerful connections that usually come into play and find a better way?

Depressing episode.

I would rate it lower but Dan Blocker gives a performance that saves it from being truly awful.