The Boy Who Cried 'Destructo!'

From Adventures in Odyssey Wiki

[edit] General information

Albums: Album 19: Passport to Adventure

Theme: Controlling your imagination

Scripture: [1]

[edit] Summary

Lawrence claims to have seen Harlow Doyle kidnapped by a band of bootleggers! Whit is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, despite his wild imagination, and find out what happened.

[edit] Plot

Lawrence Hodges is stuck in a fantasy world. This time, he imagines himself to be a secret agent on a mission to save a doctor from the science lab of Destructo, an evil, subversive organization that wants to take over the world. Lawrence ends up causing Eugene (the doctor) to mix the perfume chemicals he is working with into a chloroform solution. This causes Eugene to pass out.

Later, Lawrence bumps into Harlow Doyle and draws him into this fantasy world. They head off on Harlow’s moped to destroy the evil Destructo headquarters. They come across two men unloading boxes from their van into a secret cave near Trickle Lake. They decide to split up to spy on the men, and when Lawrence returns to their meeting point, he hears a strange noise. The van, the men, and Harlow have disappeared, leaving behind only the moped!

Lawrence rushes to tell Whit that Harlow has been kidnapped, but Whit is skeptical, and Eugene thinks it is just a fabrication of Lawrence’s imagination. Whit goes to the cave with him to check things out anyway. Seeing no tire tracks, Whit sends Lawrence to search for the missing moped. Whit goes into the cave to search for the boxes. Lawrence hears the same noise he heard when Harlow was kidnapped, but when he runs to warn Whit, he finds only Whit’s flashlight. He runs back to Whit’s End to tell Eugene, but Eugene still doesn’t believe Lawrence and won’t let him call the police. Finally, Eugene agrees to take Lawrence to the cave on the way to the college to have his chloroform perfume examined.

Meanwhile, Jones and Smith, the two men Lawrence saw, turn out to be bootleggers who have captured Whit and left him tied up in the cave with Harlow, next to a distiller. While trying to untie Whit, Harlow knocks over a broom and hits a valve on the distiller that causes it to overheat. Jones and Smith load up the “booze” in their van and head out through a gate, disguised as bushes, to their hideout. This explains the grinding noise Lawrence heard. Eugene hides in the van, and when the men return, he knocks them out with the chloroform. Eugene arrives inside just in time to put out the fire before the distiller blows up, saving Whit and Harlow. Eugene apologizes to Lawrence for not believing him, and Lawrence says he has learned that if he lets his imagination run wild, no one will ever believe him. Well... no one but Harlow.

[edit] Discussion Questions

1. Why was Whit one of the few people who believed Lawrence?
2. Should Lawrence and Harlow, then Lawrence and Whit, have split up to investigate matters?
   1. Why or why not?
3. Why is it important to control your imagination?

[edit] Cast

Characters	Actors
Eugene Meltsner	Will Ryan
Harlow Doyle	Will Ryan
John Whittaker	Hal Smith
Jones (c)	Jerry Houser
Lawrence Hodges	Gabriel Encarnacion
Smith	Tom Williams

[edit] Notes

• In this show, Lawrence actually stopped himself from going on one of his imaginary jaunts for a change.

• This ep was recreated from Officer Harley episodes, AIO70 and AIO71.

• Lawrence yells out, "Call 911! Get Captain Kirk on the phone! This is a reference to William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" and hosted the television show "Rescue 911."

• The title of this episode is a reference to the story title "The Boy who Cried Wolf!--which makes sense, as both stories have very similar lessons.

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Quotes

• Smith- Well, gents, our work here is done.

Whit- What are you gonna do with us?

Jones- The only thing we can do.

Harlow Doyle- You mean...

Smith- Yup. We're gonna leave ya here!

Harlow Doyle- That's not all you can do. You can kill us!

[edit] Resources

The Boy Who Cried 'Destructo!' on whitsend.org

The Boy Who Cried 'Destructo!' on AIOHQ.com

The Boy Who Cried 'Destructo!' on AIO Soda Fountain