The Purloined Panda Predicament

This is a script for "Yours truly, Johnny Dollar," a serial that ran from 1949 – 1962.

Announcer:

From Hollywood, its time now for:

FX: Phone Rings

Johnny: Johnny Dollar.

McCrackin: Hi, Johnny! Pat McCrackin at Universal Adjustment Bureau.

Johnny: Hiya, Patsy, what's on your mind?

McCrackin: Hey Johnny, when you were a kid, did you ever want to run away and join the circus?

Johnny: Sure, once in a while. What kid didn't?

McCrackin: Well, here's your chance.

Johnny: You got elephants buying policies now? I know, these days, our investments are all worth peanuts.

McCrackin: Nope. Johnny, it's the only animal people are crazier about than elephants: Pandas!

Johnny: You're selling panda insurance?

McCrackin: That's what you're going to find out.

Music up

Announcer: Tonight - and every Saturday night - Bob Bailey in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account - America's fabulous free-lance insurance investigator...

Johnny: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar!

Theme music up

Johnny: Expense account, submitted by special investigator Johnny Dollar to the Universal Adjustment Bureau, Hartford Connecticut. The following is an accounting of expenditures during my investigation of the Purlioned Panda Predicament.
Item one: Plane ticket and car rental to Vero Beach, Florida, home of Miss Holly Miller, heiress to the Millersoft organic processed cheese fortune, and winter home of the Ecorama Circus, manager, mister Donald S. Moore.

Johnny: I took a cab straight to Miss Miller's. She'd donated ten million dollars to the Ecorama Circus so that they could bring a baby panda over from China. Now the circus wanted to purchase an insurance policy. My job: investigate the setup. Universal didn't want to insure the safety of a ten million dollar panda cub without checking out the situation. But how did I know what kind of security a panda needs? I'd never even had a goldfish as a kid. That's where I hoped Miss Miller could help me.

FX: Doorbell echoing in a large space. Footsteps approaching. Door opening.

Butler: May I help you?

Johnny: The name's Johnny Dollar. Miss Miller is expecting me.

Butler: This way.

Johnny: I followed the butler down a hall so long I figured we were in the next county by the time he pushed open a door and stepped aside to gesture me in. It was an office as big as my whole New York apartment. Seated at the desk, one Miss Holly Miller. If the jeans and baggy shirt were supposed to be some kind of disguise, I hoped she could get her money back. Nothing you can buy would have worked to cover up the fact that she was a knockout.

Holly: Mister Dollar. Have a seat.

Johnny: Thanks. Nice place you've got here.

Holly: Yes. I've been very fortunate. The house isn't the real point, though. What I'm really lucky about is that my family fortune allowed me to follow my dream.

Johnny: Your collection of animals, you mean.

Holly: Yes. Would you like to have a look around?

Johnny: I would. Can I ask you a few questions, first?

Holly: Of course. I'm happy to do anything I can to help.

Johnny: I guess my first question is, why give the panda to the circus instead of keeping it in your own collection?

Holly: That's easy, Mister Dollar. Because an animal like that should really be shared with the whole world.

Johnny: Well then why not a zoo?

Holly: A zoo stays in one place. The only people who can see it are the ones who live in that city, or can afford to travel there. With the circus, children in small towns all across America will get to see a live panda. They'll be close to an amazing part of nature that they'd never get to experience otherwise.

Johnny: You must have a lot of faith in this circus, making this kind of donation.

Holly: This isn't your usual circus, Mister Dollar. It's a radical new idea, a caravan of environmental education. Oh, there are the usual clowns and acrobats. But the animal part is different. There's an exhibit about frog extinction, a musical number about deforestation, and the animals don't do artificial tricks – they're trained to exhibit their natural behaviors. We only love the things we know, Mister Dollar, and we only protect the things we love. We need children to love animals if we want to save our planet for future generations.

Johnny: I see. So, do you have valuable animals here? How do you protect them?

Holly: I certainly do, and I have the highest standards of security. You should have a look at them first hand.

Johnny: When I followed Miss Miller out the side door of her office, I thought we hadn't just walked into the next county, but another country altogether. I later saw that what we'd been in was something like a greenhouse attached to the main house, but from the inside, it was so thick with tropical plants that it seemed like a jungle. Like a jungle, it was full of the sounds of birds. And that wasn't all. A tiny orange monkey jumped out of a tree onto Miss Miller's shoulder and started chattering away.

Holly: (Laughs.) Oh, Pedro. You're such a bad little boy. I'm sorry, I didn't bring you anything to eat. How thoughtless of me.

Johnny: Whoa. What kind of monkey is that?

Holly: Pedro is a golden lion tamarin from the Amazon. He's the son of one of my breeding pairs. They're all assertive little creatures, but he's the boldest.

Johnny: Is that a valuable animal?

Holly: Well, Mister Dollar, valuable means so many different things. These animals are almost extinct in the wild. Pedro's genes are extremely valuable for captive breeding to keep the species going. But of course you probably mean monetary value. It's illegal to keep these without a permit, so they're not sold openly. But yes, on the black market, they're very valuable indeed.

Johnny: If you don't mind my asking - you have the permits?

Holly: Of course. We're a fully accredited facility here, like any major zoo except for not being open to the public. We're part of a number of cooperative breeding programs, and everything is quite above board, I assure you.

Johnny: I figured that, but, you know.

Holly: I understand. It's your job to ask.

Johnny: So what do you do here, as far as security?

Holly: Well, security means more than one thing as well. The first consideration is making sure the animals stay safely where they belong. You'll notice we passed through two doors from my office. The reason for the two doors, of course, is that if someone like little Pedro here gets out the first door, he's confined to that space. Chances are good he won't also get out the second door. And as far as anyone getting in, both of those doors are kept locked at all times. Only I and my head keeper have keys; he lets the rest of the staff in and out as needed.

Johnny: What about getting on to your property? I just drove right up.

Holly: You can drive up to the front of the house, indeed, and you can get into the house - if Chester lets you, that is. My butler may not look unusual, Mister Dollar, but you'd best not test his skill at any number of exotic martial arts. And if you bypass the front door, the whole back compound is fenced and alarmed. The gates are doubled like the doors here, both are locked, and the fence is also electrified to keep the animals away from it. They get a mild shock if they touch it, and they quickly learn to keep their distance. Again, no one gets in and no one gets out.

Johnny: I see. So you've advised the circus on all this kind of procedure? As far as the panda?

Holly: Well, they do already know quite a bit about keeping animals, naturally, but yes, I have. You'll see that in their winter quarters, they've built an essentially identical facility. I wouldn't accept any less.

Johnny: It's different, though, with them moving around to do their shows, right? What happens then?

Holly: Well, Mister Dollar, this isn't your old fashioned circus that lives on a train. They have special trucks to transport the animals, and they'll rent warehouse space in every town, air conditioned – pandas prefer the cold – and professionally patrolled for security. They've also had to ensure a steady supply of bamboo along the route – as you may know, that's the main diet of pandas. The Chinese often feed them other things in captivity – even chicken soup, I've heard – but our dear Shu Mai will eat very little else. I've inspected their arrangements in the first few cities and I'm quite confident in the management. Mister Moore has a stellar reputation in his field.

Johnny: Well, I won't take up any more of your time, then, Miss -

FX: Sound of flock of penguins

Johnny: What the -

Holly: (Laughs) There are no penguins here, Mister Dollar, that's my cell phone. Let me see - It's the circus. I'll tell them you're on your way. Hello, Mister Moore.

Johnny: I watched her face as she listened to the phone, just because, even with all those terrific animals scampering about, it was the most beautiful thing around to look at. So I was watching when her face went completely white.

Holly: We'll be there immediately.

FX: Sound of cell phone snapping shut.

Holly: Oh my word.

Johnny: Miss, are you OK?

Holly: The panda – it's missing!

Music up

Announcer: Now, here's our star to tell you about the next intriguing episode of this week's story.

Johnny: Next week, I find out a thing or two about a panda - and politics.
--Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

Music up

Announcer:

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, starring Bob Bailey, is transcribed in Hollywood. It is produced and directed by August West. Be sure to join us next week, same time and station, for the next exciting episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.