User Reviews

A recurring theme of Mr. Ed is that since Ed only talks to Wilbur, Wilbur can't explain how he gets into crazy situations and looks eccentric at best, and sometimes downright crazy. Addison talks Mr. Foster into considering Wilbur for a job as his head architect. Foster is everyone's favorite curmudgeon, Charles Lane, who played many of the clients of McMahon & Tate on Bewitched.

Wilbur can't see himself working for this hot headed guy for too long, but wants the security of a high paying job. He has a 3:30pm meeting with Foster but takes Ed to the park to fly his kite. When the kite gets stuck in a tree, Wilbur climbs the tree to get it down and falls into the lions cage when the tree limb breaks. The lion chases Wilbur around his cage and each time Wilbur passes behind a large rock he loses an item of apparel. Ed can't summon help because he doesn't talk to other people and has no dime for a phone call, so he steals a ladder from a worker in the park and throws it over the fence(How?). Wilbur climbs the ladder in his underwear, only to be confronted by the client, the neighbors and Carol. The ending is strange.

Mr. Ed is alone at the end with just himself and the lion, and he asks (in English) if the lion is glad he is safely in his cage and not among the goofy humans. The lion roars his assent, and the viewer is left to wonder why Ed didn't just tell the lion not to eat Wilbur.

Wilbur has to choose between taking a high-powered executive job with a dyspeptic boss (played by Charles Lane, a specialist in sourpuss characters) and flying a kite in the park with Mister Ed.

It's the deeper themes of MISTER ED that make it something more than a silly fantasy-comedy. Looking back at the show today, one can't help noticing a subtle anti-establishment message, almost a foreshadowing of the "drop out of society" ethic of the hippies. But here the theme serves to assert the value of home and family. At one point Lane's character tells Wilbur that he has "no ambition, no drive, no initiative," to which Wilbur slyly adds "and no pills." Wilbur's wife and friends are insistent that he get the job - thinking only of the material benefits that will follow from it. But in the end, they realize that Wilbur's happiness is the most important thing. All the time, the mischievous Mister Ed has Wilbur "on a string" just like his kite, using every ploy to keep his master at home. As someone who works at home in a creative occupation, I find it easy to sympathize with and root for Wilbur and I am certain that he chose the better part.

Which would you consider the better life? To work "like a horse" at all hours for a corporation and "make it to the top," or to enjoy the simple pleasures at home surrounded by the people (and pets) you love? Which is the more meaningful existence?