Original subtitles

(bright music)

- There!

Now, let's see you get out of that.

And if you can, you are Houdini.

- Checkmate.

(audience laughs)

Tim, do you realize that you have fallen for that same trap

27 times now?

- Well that's just great.

Not only do you beat me, you also keep box score.

Well, I think I will go drown my human frailties

in a glass of chocolate milk.

(knocking)

(sneezing)

(knocking)

- Good morning, Martin.

I wonder if you'd do me a favor.

- Dear lady,

if there is a loose, monstrous fire-breathing dragon

you wish me to slay,

I'll get right into my shining armor.

- Well maybe some other time,

but right now I wonder

if you could just fix my television set.

Every time I turn it on, I get nothing but sleet.

- I believe the term is snow.

- Well, sleet or snow,

it has no business on a set in California.

Would you have time to fix it now?

- Certainly!

(sneezing)

- Gesundheit!

- Thank you.

- Well aren't you coming?

- Coming?

Where?

- Downstairs to fix my TV set.

- Why, is there something wrong with it?

- Oh Martin, you're such a tease!

Look at that!

(beeping)

(bright music)

- Now Tim, stop playing those childish pranks.

He's practicing a magic act for his office party.

- Oh, Tim!

I'll simply burst with curiosity

if you don't tell me how it's done!

- Oh yeah, well, ask him, it's his trick.

- I hate to take the mystery out of it, Lorelei,

but actually, they're suspended from the ceiling

by an invisible thread.

- Doggone, you gave it away.

- Now Tim, we can trust Lorelei to keep a secret.

I'm sure she wouldn't want us expelled

from the Amateur Magician's Society.

- Mum's the word.

Are you coming, Martin?

- You go ahead, I'll be right down.

- Uncle Martin, why can't you just eat grapes

out of your hand like everybody else does?

How could you have pulled such a goof?

- Must you use colloquialisms?

I prefer to think of it as a momentary aberration

of the kineto-cyphalic processes

that resulted in an unfortunate manifestation.

- Oh, like I said.

Goof.

- Fortunately, there's no damage done.

Lorelei feel for our little fable

hook, line and invisible thread.

- And she's liable to mention it

to her snoopy detective friend Brennan,

and he's liable not to be as gullible as she is!

- She's not going to mention it to him or anyone else.

I'll erase the entire episode from her memory.

I don't like to use

my electro-magnetic brain-cleaing machine promiscuously.

But discretion is the better part of valor.

- Well that's not the brain eraser you used before.

- Well, it's an all-transistor pocket-sized model

that I've developed.

I'm quite proud of it.

- Hey!

Don't point that thing at me.

I have a few warm, star-studded memories

that I would like to keep.

(audience laughs)

- Your television sets are becoming much more intricate.

It took me almost two and a half minutes to fix it.

Of course I did lose 30 seconds while the tubes warmed up.

- Well did you erase the grape caper from her mind?

- I'm proud of my marksmanship.

Lorelei kept moving around so much

I had to ricochet the electronic beam off the wall.

A perfect shot!

You're going to think this is silly,

but I left my brain-clearing device downstairs.

- Oh I wouldn't say silly is the word.

How about suicidal,

or catastrophic, or--

- By the time you think of another synonym, I'll be back.

I know just where I left it.

(audience laughs)

What'd I tell you?

It was right where I left it,

right on top of Mrs. Brown's TV set.

- Uncle Martin, you are gonna put gray hairs

in my bonny brown thatch.

By the way, what happened to your toolbox?

(sneezing)

Oh, gesundheit.

Don't tell me you left your toolbox downstairs!

- Did I have it with me?

- Oh no, with all those weird tools in it!

It's got doohickeys that turn screws from across the room

and thingamajigs that disintegrate metal,

and gizmos that--

- Tim, you don't have to finish the inventory,

or remind me of the gravity of the situation.

I'll be right back.

- No, no.

You're not going anywhere without me.

I know you're a little too old for a babysitter,

so I will just go along as chaperone.

(buzzing)

- Tim, I assure you, my mind is as clear as a bell.

- Uh huh.

- Oh, Tim.

And Martin, are you here again?

(sneezing)

- [Both] Gesundheit!

- Well Mrs. Brown, I'm sure your set will work fine now.

Goodbye!

(laughing)

- He's been kidding around like that all day, Mrs. Brown.

Uncle Martin, I'm sure that Mrs. Brown doesn't have time

to listen to you rehearse your absentminded professor bit

that you're going to do at the office party.

- What office party?

- He's been kidding around like that all day long.

You see, I'm afraid he's taken his role so seriously,

that he forgot and left his toolbox down here.

- Well as a matter of fact he did.

It's right on top of the TV.

Come on in!

Mr. Brennan just dropped by.

I was gonna ask him to bring it up to you.

- Well if it isn't the wizard of Menlo Park and his caddy.

Forgive me for peeking, I've always wanted to see

what kind of tools a genius worked with.

- I'll take that if you don't mind.

- Now here's an interesting piece of equipment.

Built any good cyclotrons with it lately?

- You're using it the wrong way, old man.

It happens to be a left-handed screwdriver.

- Come on Uncle Martin,

let's not waste time on an amateur.

Uncle Martin, we have to find out

what is causing this absentmindedness.

Because if we don't,

you are bound to give yourself away.

- Tim, I'm quite as worried about it as you are.

If this keeps up, I might as well

take out an ad saying, I'm a Martian.

(sneezing)

- Gesundheit.

Now if you do, don't forget my newspaper.

Because there's a blonde down in classified

I'm trying to impress.

(audience laughs)

- I can't understand it.

This coffee's cold.

(audience laughs)

- Uncle Martin.

I think I've got something.

Only I'm not quite sure what I've got.

Now look, every time you have a lapse of memory,

it's come right after you've sneezed.

- But it can't be.

It isn't due for three months yet.

- What isn't?

- Let's see.

N squared to the omnichrome power

over beta times 365 days a year...

How could I have been so careless?

Last time I calculated,

I forgot to take into account your Earth leap years.

That explains everything.

- It certainly does.

Now if you'll just let me know what we're talking about.

- The reason for my absentmindedness.

Today is Sneezophobia Day,

the beginning of the Sneezophobia Week.

- Sneezophobia Day.

Sneezophobia Week?

- Yeah, yeah.

It's a period on Mars very similar to your hay fever season.

Except that it only occurs once every 300 years,

when Alpha Centauri is in juxtaposition to Cassiopia.

- But I don't get it.

What does sneezing have to do with forgetting?

- Ordinarily nothing.

But during the sneezophobic season,

each respiratory spasm creates a drain on the memory bank,

which results in a temporary lapse of recall.

- Say!

That Sneezophobia is nothing to sneeze at!

(audience laughs)

Well let's not get panicky.

Look, you climb into bed

and stay there until you're out of danger.

We'll seal off the door, we'll disconnect the phone.

- That won't be necessary.

Fortunately there's a simple remedy

that Mother used to give us

every time Alpha came within a thousand light years of Cass.

Let's see.

She used to take some baking soda, and a pinch of mustard.

- Are you sure that this stuff will cure you?

- Positive.

A a matter of fact,

Mother once thought of putting it on the market.

But it didn't seem worthwhile for a disease

that came only once every 300 years.

(audience laughs)

Now let's see, there seemed to be one other ingredient.

- What?

- I recall it was something rare.

Mother used to get it at a chemist's shop.

Let's see, what was it?

It was, oh yes!

Oh yes I just thought of it, it was...

(sneezing)

- Gesundheit.

Well, what was it?

- What was what?

Oh!

That sneeze blew it right out of my head.

Here's the diary of my stay on Earth

and the log of my trip from Mars.

- Oh good, well I'll help you pack

all this stuff into spaceship,

and then we can stash all of this Martian stuff

until you get over whatever it is you've got.

(phone ringing)

Hello.

Oh come on Mr. Burns, it's my day off!

Oh well, since you put it that way,

how can I refuse?

Yes, don't worry.

I'll be there when his plane arrives.

Uh huh, bye bye.

Someday, he's gonna put it that way once too often

and I'm gonna give him two weeks notice.

- An assignment?

- Uh huh.

It's some political bigshot passing through town

just long enough to increase the smog with his cigar smoke,

or until he drops a few cliches about honesty in government.

Look, you sit tight and I'll be back as soon as I can.

- Tim, now that I know what's wrong with me,

I'm perfectly capable of hiding these things myself.

- Uh huh.

But suppose you sneeze, and then forget where you hid them?

- I assure you that won't happen.

But if it'll make you feel better,

I'll take a clothespin to clamp on my nose

if I feel a sneeze coming on.

- You do seem to be much better now.

All right, I'll tell you what I'll do.

I'll grab a bus, and you take the car.

Oh yeah.

- What's that?

- This is your name and address,

just in case you have a lapse and forget who you are.

For some reason or another,

I have grown accustomed to your face.

(audience laughs)

(mysterious music)

- Now let's see.

Where can I hide this?

- Doggone it O'Hara, what's all the pounding for?

You're giving everyone in the neighborhood a headache.

What are you doing in there, anyway?

- Oh, well I was making a hobby horse

for one of the children down the block.

- A hobby horse, huh?

Say, I've always wondered

how you get those rockers to stay on.

(audience laughs)

Ow!

I'm going to sue you.

- And Tim, there were strange noises coming from the garage.

You know, it was like someone was banging and sawing wood.

- Oh well, maybe the termites have gone in for automation!

Oh well.

Say, tres charmant!

Big evening?

- Thank you!

Yes, I'm going over to Mr. Brennan's house for cocktails,

and then he's taking me out for dinner.

- Oh, bon appetite!

That blows my French.

- Here Tim, I wonder if you'd know.

Mr. Brennan and I were having an argument

about who wrote a poem that started,

once upon a something something,

as I pondered, something something.

- Yeah.

Well I don't think that Edgar Allen Poe

exactly expressed it that way, but you're close.

- Edgar Allen Poe, that's exactly what I said!

Oh Tim, may I borrow it?

- (laughing) No.

- Oh, come on!

- Okay.

- Oh, will Mr. Brennan be surprised to find out

I know something he didn't!

Matter of fact, I'm rather surprised myself.

Bye!

- Uncle Martin, where have you been?

- Oh I came back hours ago.

Then I went out for a walk.

- Well thank goodness,

I was about to call the Bureau of Missing Martians!

Now, you didn't have any trouble?

- None at all.

Just one little sneeze

that made me forget who I was and where I lived.

Your identification tag came in very handy.

- Now about hiding your spaceship and all that stuff,

have you got anything to report?

- You're not very subtle.

I see you think I don't remember where I hid them.

Well I do!

I hid them most securely in.

(sneezing)

- Oh no.

- I hid them most securely in.

Oh Tim.

I've forgotten where I did hide them.

- You couldn't!

- Now now, keep calm.

I anticipated something like this might happen,

so i took the precaution of making a memo

with my special effects on it,

and the precise location of where I hid them.

- Uh huh, and now you can't remember where you hid the memo.

- Not at all.

It's in a book right on that shelf.

- Uh huh.

Uncle Martin?

Which book?

- The Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allen Poe.

Where is it?

- I think maybe you had better sit down.

No on second thought, I think we'd both better sit down.

- How could you give a book

with the location of my spaceship in it

to Detective Brennan?

- I didn't give it to Detective Brennan,

I gave it to Mrs. Brown, and she is giving it to him!

- Well there may be a philosophic distinction,

but the effect is just as grim.

If he finds out I'm a Martian, I'll be a...

- Cooked goose.

- Your choice of words is inelegant,

but depressingly graphic.

Even under the impression that I'm a fellow human,

he doesn't exactly worship the ground I walk on.

- Come on Uncle Martin, let's not give up so easily.

Look, if you could just remember

where you hid your spaceship,

we could move it before Brennan gets to it.

How about the sneezophobia antidote?

You still can't remember the missing ingredient?

Come on, Uncle Martin.

You can do it.

- Ah, it's beginning to come back to me.

The ingredient is.

(sneezing)

- You've forgotten.

- Forgotten what?

I'm afraid I have.

- Uncle Martin, you've gotta do something!

Mrs. Brown could be down there

putting a noose around your neck right now!

- Did you say she was meeting him

at his house for cocktails?

- Yes, why?

- They say two's company and three's a crowd.

But I've never heard anybody mention anything about four.

- Care for another canape, Lorelei?

- Now, Mr. Brennan, if you think

you're gonna get out of buying me dinner.

(laughing)

Oh oh, Mr. Brennan.

- Bill.

- Bill.

Do you remember the poem

we were talking about the other night?

You know, the one that starts,

once upon a something something.

- Oh of course, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

- Uh uh uh, Edgar Allen Poe.

- Are you sure?

- I know!

It's somewhere in this book.

- He's got the book, we've gotta do something fast!

- I've got it all figured out.

I'll make myself invisible,

stroll into the living room,

and, voila.

- Now you're talking.

- Just one thing.

I seem to have forgotten the technique

of making one's self invisible.

- Oh you're kidding.

It's easy.

Look, all you have to do is this.

Raise your antennas, like this.

(whistling)

- Of course.

Am I invisible?

- Uh, brace yourself.

No.

Why don't you put those things back in their sockets?

Looks like two pieces of soggy spaghetti.

(audience laughs)

Look, why don't we just try something simple?

You could levitate the book out.

You do remember how to do that, don't you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Watch it, will you?

All right, you've got the speed.

Now let's see you exercise a little control.

(audience laughs)

Uh, Uncle Martin, can't you find a better place to read

than in Brennan's garage?

- It'll just take a second.

(sneezing)

Tim, I know this is written in Martian,

but I seem to have forgotten how to read Martian.

- Oh, that's just great.

Now what else can you forget?

- Nothing.

But I just remembered something I wish I could forget!

I'm afraid I left the anti-gravitator on in my spaceship.

In exactly three minutes

it will build up enough thermal energy

to lift the ship and all its contents

straight up into the air!

- Well, that's all we need.

An unidentified flying object messing up the air

on all the air force radar screens.

- I shudder to think what would happen

if they shoot it down and find my diary.

Unfortunately I wrote that in English,

with my name and address in it!

- Well let's not give up.

We still got a few minutes.

Come on, concentrate.

Now where did you hide the things?

- It's no use.

Now I can't even remember packing them,

or what I packed them in.

- Well we might as well go home and worry in comfort,

it's getting sort of damp in here.

- Tim.

Water!

H2O, that's it.

- Are you, are you sure you're not cracking up?

What's water?

- The missing ingredient in Mother's formula!

- It can't be!

You said it was something rare

that your mother bought in some chemist's shop.

- Tim, water is rare on Mars.

People have been known to pay

a thousand umlauts for half a kilko,

which as you know, is hardly enough to fill an eyedropper.

Tim!

You'll never believe where my spaceship is.

Right here in Detective Brennan's garage.

- Oh, now come on.

Why would you hide it here of all places?

- Remember Edgar Allen Poe's Purloined Letter?

- Well, vaguely.

Mr. Poe said that if you don't want somebody

to find something, you just hide it under his nose.

- Exactly.

But as it wasn't practical to hide a spaceship

under Brennan's nose, I decided to use his garage instead.

- Oh.

Well if it's here, I don't see it.

- Well, now that I know what I'm looking for, I do.

- Oh, the box.

The box?

Are you sure?

I mean, how could you get that spaceship into that box?

- Very simple.

I dismantled it into geometric segments,

each of which fits into the other like a Chinese puzzle.

- Yeah well, quickly, you better hurry up

and deactivate this thing before it takes off!

- Makes too much noise opening it.

Come on, let's get it out to the car.

We can work on it on the way home.

- I still can't see how that book could disappear.

- Lorelei, books don't fly out of windows.

You probably misplaced it somewhere

while I was chasing that blasted tie.

- I'll just slip in.

- Well, all right.

Wouldn't you know it, I'll have to stop for gas.

- Oh that's too bad, we're late for our reservation now.

Say, why don't we use my car?

It's right outside.

- Well, if you're sure you wouldn't mind.

- Oh no!

- I'll just back it into the garage.

- You've gotta stop him from coming in here!

- Don't worry, I will.

(playful music)

(sneezing)

- Oh no.

I thought your mother's home remedy cured your sneezophobia.

- Relax Tim, I must have caught a slight cold

in Brennan's damp garage last night.

- You sure?

- Of course, it's just a simple Martian cold.

Now go ahead, go ahead, never mind worrying about the cold,

go ahead, move.

(sneezing)

- Well where'd all this food come from?

- It's a perfectly natural phenomenon

that accompanies a Martian cold.

- It is?

- An advanced Martian medical technique

based upon one of your primitive Earthly axioms.

Starve a fever, and feed a cold.

(audience laughs)

Well.

Have a bite?

- Thank you.

(bright music)