American Playhouse

From a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. Christopher Walken is a shy hardware store employee. But whenever he takes a part in a local amateur theater production, he becomes the part completely--while on screen. Susan Sarandon is new in town, a lonely itenerant telephone company employee. On a whim, she auditions for and gets the part of Stella to Walken's Stanley when the theater group does A Streetcar Named Desire. Before anyone realizes the problem, she falls deeply in love with the sexy brute, not knowing what the real man is like.

Jean Shepherd the famous writer of "The Christmas Story", as an older "Ralph," recalls his memory of a particular Fourth of July from his high-school years in Hollman, Indiana. Ralph plays the sousaphone in the high-school band to the instructions of the baton-twirling drum master Wilbur Duckworth. Ralph is grudgingly set up on a blind date, only to find himself in the company of the gorgeous Miss Junior Corn Blossom, who rejects his advances. On the Fourth of July Duckworth causes a power outage by twirling his baton onto an electrical line during a parade; the town drunk Ludlow Kissel sets off an enormous firework that explodes under his own porch; and Ralph's father entertains the neighbors with his annual dramatic display of fireworks. "Ballad of Ludlow Kissel" is sung by Leigh Brown. Produced by Olivia Tappan.