The Butler Did It (A Bird in the Hand)

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Police Squad! episode

“The Butler Did it
(A Bird in the Hand)”

Frank and Ed shooting at the kidnapper in front of the El Tubadera club

Episode no.

Season 1
Episode 3

Written by

Pat Proft

Directed by

Georg Stanford Brown

Special Guest Star(s)

Robert Goulet

Guest stars

Tommy Lasorda
Nicolas Coster
Lilibet Stern
Byron Webster
Ken Michelman
Peter Elbing
K Callan

Original airdate

March 18, 1982^[1]

Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment)	Revenge and Remorse (The Guilty Alibi)

Police Squad! episodes

The Butler Did It (A Bird in the Hand) is the third episode of the tv series Police Squad! it was written by Pat Proft and directed by George Stanford Brown. It was produced by Robert K. Weiss

1 Plot
- 1.1 Act Two: Ball III
2 Trivia
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

The episode starts with a party organized by a Mr. Burton for his daughter, Terri, her 18th^[2] birthday. When Mr. Burton tells the band to play something "different", the band starts playing "Happy Birthday" and the butler comes bringing in the cake. When she has blown out the candles her boyfriend Kingsley, comes to her, he wants to speak with her in the Japanese Garden (a garden filled with Japanese people). While they are discussing marriage a man comes out of the bushes, grabs Terri and knocks out Kingsley. Then we see Frank and Ed, at the scene of the crime talking about the ransom note that they found. The Demant is $1,000,000. When Frank and Ed are questioning Mr. and Mrs. Burton the phone rings. It's the kidnapper(s), Frank orders Norberg to get a tap on the phone, only this doesn't work on time. The next day Frank decides to talk to the only witness to the kidnapping, Kingsley Addison. Kingsley plays Basketball everyday at the shorwood Highschool playground. Frank decides to meet him there. While joining Kingsleys basketball game Frank discovers that, one, He's a great basketball player, and two maybe Kingsley wanted to marry Terri for her money. When Frank leaves he receives a phone call from Ed, saying that the kidnapper(s) contacted Mr. and Mrs. Burton again, with some additional information. A tape came in with the mail, When Frank, Ed and Norberg listen to the tape, they hear some strange noises in the background. When at the scene Ed says: "We don't even have the spot for the ransom drop yet." A mime falls in to the window to sign them they have to drop the ransom, Thursday at the bus depot at ten o' clock.

[edit] Act Two: Ball III

Act Two: Ball III

Frank decides to go to the lab and see what Ted has come up with. Ted shows Frank that the noises on the tape that was delivered are a bell and a foghorn, the kind of type you would associate with the ocean, or the lakefront. When Frank and Ed drive around for a couple of hours they end up at the gas station where they discover that the foghorn is not a foghorn but a tuba, and the bell is the bell from the gas station. When Frank and Ed have checked almost every tuba store in the city, they come to a dead end. Frank decides to go to his own private source, Johnny. Johnny tells Frank that they have just opened up a new store called the El Tubadera club. When Frank gets there he sees the kidnapper coming out of the building holding Terri Burton. A big gunfight starts, Ed comes by and tries to get behind the kidnapper. He yells:"cover me!" and Frank covers him with a blanket. Ed goes everywhere but near the kidnapper, and trips over a couple of trash cans. When the kidnapper tries to run, because he's out of bullets, he trips over Ed and Frank arrests him. Frank takes off the kidnappers mask and reveals that he is the butler.

[edit] Trivia

This episode has the first appearance of Officer Norberg, who continued to appear in the remaining episodes of the series.

Georg Stanford Brown, who directed this episode, was the special guest star of the previous episode Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment).^[3]

The song being played on the "Holiday Tubas" tape is "Holiday for Strings" by David Rose and Sam Gallop^[4]

Tonight's special guest star Robert Goulet would later portray villain Quentin Hapsburg in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear.

Among the tuba stores named in the episode are "Tuba or not Tuba," referring to the famous soliloquy in Hamlet that begins "To be or not to be..."^[4]