Season 1 episode 15
Mark’s note:
Charles Haid was still a new actor with only eight TV credits when he landed a guest star role in Movin’ On episode, “Explosion”. His performance as troubled Don Driskill is subtle and sympathetic even though he seems to be screwing Sonny out of a lot of money. Don’s father and business partner has recently died and the business has gone to hell. The only thing Don has of value is a racing greyhound named Explosion and he gives the dog to Sonny. There are ups and downs, dog racing, bad guys discovered and overcome, and Will and Sonny save Don’s business but throughout it all, Charles Haid maintains the sad, hangdog demeanor of the loving son who has lost his father.
Barry’s Bits:
When you watch “Explosion” don’t expect pyrotechnic special effects. What you get instead is a thoughtful, well written, well directed, and nicely acted story involving greyhound racing and the disreputable practice of trucking payola.
Once again our location manager found us an incredible location…. a functioning dog racing track with parimutuel betting, grandstands; the whole shebang. This exceptional, unexpected location fell into our laps and we were damn sure going to take advantage of the opportunity. We always tried to have 5-6 episodes completed ahead of our airdate just so we could take advantage of such wonderful opportunities. We had the time – all we needed was a story.
We turned to writer Jack Marsh. Jack quickly got to work and completed a script in record time. Jack’s story incorporated the dog track beautifully and wove in the story of a son trying to carry on in his father’s business after the father’s passing. And as if that wasn’t enough, Jack tossed a ‘B” plot into the story about illegal trucking practices to give us our bad guys. So, as in several other Movin’ On episodes, the location spurred the story but the story doesn’t suffer in the slightest.
Explosion is the name of the racing greyhound owned by Don Driskill, the character played by Charles Haid. Don and his recently departed father own the trucking brokerage company that has for many years booked many of Sonny’s jobs. The Driskills owe Pruitt a fistful of dollars and can’t pay. Sonny is so far behind on payments for his Kenworth that our “third star” is repossessed. Sonny can’t believe his bad luck. He even loses his rabbit’s foot! Can you imagine?
Will convinces Sonny to accept Explosion from Don in lieu of money owed. Well this hound loves to chase rabbits…. just not for Sonny. Explosion doesn’t even leave the gate in his first race for Sonny and the boys set off to figure out how to make the dog run again. On top of that, our heroes discover the competing freight booking agent in town is not only blackballing them, he’s getting kickbacks from all the other truckers.
Please check out the nice acting of Ken Tobey, Charlie Haid, and Paul Carr. These seasoned actors did more TV than you can believe. Enjoy their work. No doubt, you will have fun watching greyhound racing and seeing the bad guys get their comeuppance.
Trivia – Can you spot Tyrone Malone’s Boss Truck making a guest appearance in this episode?
