The Flapjack Contest
Encyclopedia
Summary
Having entered the titular contest, Hoss Cartwright is put on a starvation diet by his brother Joe to ensure victory. Meanwhile, several other plot strands are woven into the proceedings, involving a bank heist, a glib con artist, a phony ruby-and an abundance of hilarious property damage.Full Plot
Ben and Hoss are at the dining table eating breakfast, when Ben tells Hoss to go and get his brother Joe to wake up. Ben is not happy about Joe’s poker playing and his coming in at all hours of the night. Hoss throws water at Joe and Hoss ducks a boot that Joe throws at him barely missing it. The boot goes through the window shattering it. When Joe finally wakes up he complains of a headache from a nasty bump on his head but Hoss doesn’t seem to very interested in hearing about it.Hoss asks Joe what time he got in the night before and Joe answers that he got in around four in the morning. He had been playing poker and ended up with a hundred dollars, but had been bushwhacked on the way home. Ben reminds Joe to get a new window pane, He also reminds Hoss to check for the package that Adam sent home with a uncut ruby in it worth one thousand dollars. Joe heads over to the saloon to see if the guy he feels that bushwhacked him is there. The bartender asks Joe if he is going to be in the big flapjack contest on Founder’s Day. Joe laughs until he hears that Trager, the man he thinks bushwhacked him, is taking bets on the contest as to who will win. Joe bets one hundred dollars that Trager’s man, Big Ed, won’t win. Joe meets up with Hoss and Hoss asks what Joe has been doing in the saloon all morning. Joe informs Hoss that he signed him up for the flapjack eating contest and put in a bet. Hoss informs Joe that he is going to get into trouble. Joe says that Adam is going to be mad if he doesn’t have one thousand dollars before he gets back. Hoss asks why and Joe tells him that when he was bushwhacked that they not only stole his hundred dollars but a plain package picked up from the post office with an uncut ruby in it. Hoss says Joe should tell Ben, but Joe asks Hoss to visualize what would happen when he told Ben the truth. Hoss then begins to agree with Joe and becomes part of Joe’s scheme.
Joe comes back to the ranch and Ben asks Joe where Hoss is. Joe informs him that he is walking home to get hungry for the flapjack contest. Ben tells Joe to put in the window pane and Joe says he forgot it and will go back to get it. Ben tells him just to unload the supplies and Joe jumps in the back and crushes the window that Hoss had picked up. At dinner, Hoss is excited to finally get food and when he finds out that all he’ll get to eat is a salad, he gets upset but does eat it because of his promise to Joe.
Later that night, Hoss sneaks downstairs to sneak some food, but Joe has rigged pots and pans on the stairs and Hoss trips over them. Joe wakes up when he hears the clatter and tells Hoss that he will be downstairs making sure that Hoss can’t get to the kitchen. Hoss goes upstairs still hungry as Ben continues to yell for the boys to get upstairs.
Hoss and Joe go into town and Joe goes into the saloon. Hoss says to keep out of trouble. Joe is drinking a beer when Trager comes up and Joe somehow bets five hundred more dollars that Hoss will beat Big Ed. Hoss comes in and asks Joe how much is riding on the contest and he tells Hoss that it’ll be fine as they’ll end up with a nice profit and enough to pay Adam back for his ruby that Joe lost. Hoss then asks what will happen if Big Ed wins and Joe says that he’ll owe twenty-five hundred dollars. Hoss gets angry and Trager and Big Ed watch from a table nearby. Hoss asks for beer, but Joe won’t let him. Joe asks Hoss if he got the window pane and Hoss says the store doesn’t have anymore. Sam says that it’s sort of his fault because he bought five of them to replace the windows that were broken in the saloon upstairs. Joe says he will rent a room for a week if he can have the window out of it. Sam agrees.
While Joe is upstairs getting the new window, Lily, a barmaid, says that she had brought Sam a pie for his birthday that was a month ago. Sam says it is absolutely delicious. Hoss is standing right beside Lily and she asks him if she wants any. Hoss says he can’t do it, but Lily keeps on trying to get Hoss to eat it. Joe comes down and gets angry at Lily. She gets angry at Joe and throws the pie at Joe. Joe ducks and it hits Hoss in the face.
When they get back, Joe goes to find a safe place for the window pane and then he and Hoss head for the high pasture. When they get back, Ben tells Joe to put up his horse because he is tired. Hoss tells Joe how he is going to go lie down on the sofa when he gets done in the barn. Joe suddenly remembers that he put the window pane on the sofa. Joe runs towards the house, but Ben has already cracked the window pane and is extremely angry at Joe.
That night, Hoss sneaks to the kitchen again and thinks that Joe is asleep. He crawls to the kitchen just to make sure that Joe doesn’t hear him. Hoss screams when he gets caught in a mouse trap and Ben comes down and asks what the heck was going on. Ben threatens to put them in the barn if they keep it up and everyone is glad that the contest is the next day.
The next morning, the contest starts and Ben tells Joe to go get another window pane since the contest will last an hour. Meanwhile, Trager pulls a gun on the bank teller and says to empty all the cash into his briefcase. He is leaving the bank when the bank teller comes out and yells for someone to stop the man that robbed the bank. Joe is coming out of the saloon and Trager breaks Joe’s window and Joe is extremely mad. He runs after Trager and after a long fight, wins and brings Tragor in for bank robbery. Joe finds out that he gets a five hundred dollar reward for busting Tragor. It also seems that Trager’s real name is Cunningham, who also has a five hundred dollar reward on his head.
Joe is walking to the saloon for another window and runs into Lily. Joe tells her about the robbery and Joe asks to see the ruby in her hand. She throws it to Joe and he drops in and it breaks it all over the ground. Ben comes over to see what Joe had broken now and sees it was the ruby. Joe says it was just a fake and wasn’t real. Ben tells Joe that Adam will want to see the ruby or whatever he paid for it, be it a fake or not. Joe and Ben greet Adam as he gets off the stage and Joe says he’ll pay one thousand dollars for the ruby. Adam says that a man on the stage offered fifteen hundred dollars so Joe asks for five hundred dollars from Hoss from winning the flapjack contest. Hoss declines to give the money to Joe and thinks it will be a good lesson for him. Ben agrees with Hoss as Joe goes off to get another window pane.
Quotes
Lily: I’m not that kind of girl!Joe: You’re no pie maker either, Jezebel.
Ben: Oh I doubt that very much. As a matter of fact I’d being willing to make a little wager that you’re young brother here takes more than a year to pay you off.
Joe: Oh yeah, you giving any odds?
"I'm starvin' to death after all that exercise. I can't live on this rabbit food!" - Hoss
Hoss: What are you doing down here, Joe?
Joe: It's too cold to sleep in my room with the window gone. What's your excuse?
Hoss: I came down here to get a drink of water.
Joe: A drink of water, my foot! You came down to sneak some food out of the kitchen, didn't you? Huh? Didn't you, Hoss? And you're sorry, aren't you? (Hoss shakes his head) Oh, no, you're not sorry.
Hoss: I'm hungry. I'm hungry, Joe, that's what I am.
Hoss: What happens if I lose and Big Ed wins?
Joe: Don't talk that way. It makes me upset.