Plot
The blue-collar working world of 1950s Indiana, with period-style footage and clips from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, is accompanied by Shepherd's voiceover narration as the adult Ralph. The fourteen-year old Ralph and friends Flick and Schwartz endure bureaucratic "terminal official boredom," to get their "working papers," to be able to apply for their first summer jobs.
The next day at breakfast, Ralph announces that he, Flick and Schwartz have job interviews, and Mom notices that the family dog, Fuzzhead, (Shepherd's dog Daphne) seems to be missing. Narrator Ralph describes this as the beginning of the "Scary Fuzzhead Saga, which traumatized our family for years." The three friends interview at Scott's Used Furniture Palace, where narrator Ralph describes the owner as "a cross between Rasputin and The Wolfman" (played in the film by Shepherd himself!); they are hired, in "a truly historic moment." The three friends fantasize about what they'll do with all the money they'll make. Clocking in on the job, the trio proceed to their first assignment - depicted in stock footage as enslaved workers descending to a dark basement. Mom calls the police to report Fuzzhead's disappearance, and announces to the Old Man, as he leaves for work, that she's "not going on any vacation" until Fuzzhead is found. Mom posts hand-drawn crayon "reward" posters for Fuzzhead's return, and places an ad in the newspaper. The Old Man, at the neighborhood bar, the Bluebird, laments the likely delay of his vacation. The first day of Ralph's moving job is difficult and exhausting, as the trio struggle to move a mammoth refrigerator up five flights of stairs. At dinner Ralph is so sore and stiff his joints creak and pop. The next day, back on the job, the trio move an identical refrigerator up another seven flights of stairs. Over the next two weeks, Ralph "toils ceaselessly" at Scott's, while Mom relentlessly "like Ahab" searches for Fuzzhead, with visits to dog pounds and repeatedly dragging the Old Man out to drive around looking for Fuzzhead. At night, Ralph has eerie nightmares, including a towering, laughing refrigerator. The next day, having seen Mom's badly-sketched reward posters, "people from three counties arrived with their mutts, trying for the big reward." Ralph's summer job ends abruptly when the three friends are fired. Then "a miracle" happens - the Old Man, driving around again with Mom, spots Fuzzhead in the rear window of a black Rolls Royce, and gives chase, all the way to the home of the rich dowager at whose doorstep the dog appeared. Fuzzhead returns to the family home, left with "only her memories", a montage of meals on crystal and pampered treatment. At dinner, Ralph fibs, saying he quit his job to spend time with the family. As a result, the Parkers are free to pack and, as narrator Ralph describes, begin their "epic" road trip.
The trip includes drastic overpacking of the brown Chevy sedan, a reluctant starter motor, an endlessly carsick and complaining younger brother Randy, side trips to shop for unnecessary "slob art", a flat tire, running out of gas as the Old Man insists on only "Texas Royal Supreme Blue" gasoline, a misadventure at a gas station with an unseen enormous growling "Meers hound," a boiled-over radiator as an occasion for a roadside picnic, and a missed detour sign and resulting circular detour due to squabbling among the kids. In the middle of a pasture, as cows surround the car, narrator Ralph describes the scene: "beset on all sides by strange creatures, the lost mariner searches and searches, in the Sargasso sea of life..." Rounding out the road trip, more unnecessary shopping, a Dutch lawn windmill, Ralph's confession of forgetting the fishing tackle, being stuck behind a live poultry truck, and panic over another "magically appearing" carbound bee. When the family finally arrives at Clear Lake, the Old Man learns that the fish have stopped biting. Ralph discovers the Old Man had packed the fishing tackle after all, and the pair walk out onto the boat ramp to take in the view, as a few drops of rain fall. A torrential downpour develops, and in the cabin, leaks from the roof drip into every available pot and basin, as narrator Ralph describes, all day, everyday of the family's vacation. At bedtime, Ralph's mom reassures him that the Old Man loves him, even though he never calls him by his real name (just "watermelon", "radish-top", "cookie-cutter", etc.) A lightning strike knocks out power to the rain-drenched lakeside camp's welcome sign, and the credits roll.
Read more about this topic: Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven Of Bliss
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