Double Trouble

A new owner has taken over the Harlequin Dinner Theater - and he has the face of Dr. Regis Blackgaard, the most notorious villain Odyssey has ever known. Cub reporter Lucy Schultz takes one look and runs, and back at Whit's End, Connie is ready to call the police. But the stranger swears he is Edwin Blackgaard, the doctor's twin brother, an actor who bought the theater never knowing his brother had set foot in town. Connie calls it the perfect disguise; Whit insists on judging the man by his own actions - even if that means being the entire audience at Edwin's free show in the park. Shunned by the whole town, Edwin will be broke within two months... until Whit's mail delivers the proof: a photo of Dr. Blackgaard in Vienna just the day before, and even he can't be in two countries at once. Soon Edwin's poster hangs in the front window of Whit's End - the first advertisement Whit has ever allowed.

Found on A Place of Wonder Album 15 · 13 episodes

The run See every episode

0197 The Midnight Ride At Whit's End, Whit sets the record straight on Longfellow's famous poem, telling Marsha the fuller, stranger, and truer story of Paul Revere's midnight ride.

0198 Treasure Hunt A charity treasure hunt turned water-pistol war game collides with a manhunt when an escaped convict stumbles back into the one town he swore he'd never see again.

0199 The 'No' Factor When everyone in Odyssey suddenly wants Connie Kendall at once, her enthusiastic yeses pile into a schedule no one could survive.

0200 Feud for Thought When Eugene discovers he's related to Bernard Walton, his first family reunion turns sour as a fifty-year-old grudge over a pig deal puts his grandfather's honor - and his newfound family ties - on the line.

0201 Fair-Weather Fans When a heat wave hits Odyssey, Isaac partners with a smooth-talking new kid to sell miracle fans door-to-door - and learns that easy money always comes with a catch.

0202 Timmy's Cabin When the state moves to bulldoze his orchard for a new highway, a grieving farmer's last hope may rest with a mysterious wandering stranger and the old cabin his late son left behind.

0203 Double Trouble A famous actor's arrival in Odyssey sends the town into a panic when he turns out to be the spitting image of its most notorious villain.

0204 Wonderworld A reluctant Jimmy Barclay, convinced he's outgrown make-believe, gets strong-armed into babysitting Lawrence Hodges - a kid whose imagination refuses to take an afternoon off.

0205 Flash Flood Eugene's over-prepared debut on a camping trip tests the patience of his fellow campers just as a mountain storm threatens more than anyone bargained for.

0206 Pen Pal A girl's excitement about finally meeting her beloved pen pal face-to-face turns to confusion when the visit reveals a secret the letters never mentioned.

0207 The Case of the Candid Camera When a boy's camera vanishes at Whit's End, bumbling private eye Harlow Doyle takes the case - but the theft may be tangled up with the town's upcoming Bible Bowl.

0208 Pipe Dreams When a nervous kid passed over for his dream Government Day assignment gets stuck in the county's least glamorous office, a storm gives him more excitement than he bargained for.

0209 Columbus: The Grand Voyage A time-traveling boy lands in fifteenth-century Spain, where his dream of sailing with Christopher Columbus tangles him in royal intrigue on the eve of history's most famous voyage.

Featured characters

Minor characters & crew 3 more roles

3 supporting roles

Walter Shakespeare Corey Burton Whit's End Customer Marshal Younger Miss Minion Elizabeth McCusker

Made by

Chris Anthony Host Paul McCusker Writer · Director · Producer Dave Arnold Sound Designer · Producer Chuck Bolte Executive Producer

The story

Read the full synopsis 2 min

The Harlequin Dinner Theater has a new owner, and Lucy Schultz, cub reporter for the Odyssey Times, is the first to meet him. A courtly manservant named Shakespeare announces his employer in full cry: the renowned actor of this or any other age, Mr. R. E. Blackgaard. Lucy takes one look at the face of Dr. Regis Blackgaard, the man Odyssey blames for a burned barn, a sabotaged Imagination Station and worse, and runs.

At Whit's End, Connie is ready to call the police on the spot. Whit reminds her that nobody ever had concrete proof of the things Blackgaard did, and when the actor himself sweeps into the shop to hang an audition poster, Connie chases him out anyway. Only Jack Davis, restless from directing amateurs in Whit's little theater and hungry for a real production, wants anything to do with him.

Lucy talks herself into finishing the interview - she is a professional, after all - brushing past every attempt by her editor, Dale Jacobs, to take the assignment off her hands. What she brings back is the scoop of her young career. Her host is not Dr. Regis Blackgaard at all, he insists, but Ronald Edwin Blackgaard, the doctor's twin brother, an actor who bought the dinner theater without knowing his brother had ever set foot in Odyssey. Connie is not buying a word of it: "It would be just like Dr. Blackgaard to sneak back into town pretending to be his own brother. What a great disguise!" Whit is willing to believe the man until he proves otherwise. "We have to take people on their own merits and actions," he tells her. So when Edwin gives his free performance at the gazebo in the park, the entire audience is Whit, and the entire company is Edwin in Elizabethan garb, Shakespeare on the curtain, and Jack still dressed in his Mr. Happy's pizza delivery costume because there was no time to change. The show goes on regardless.

That night a discouraged Edwin comes to Whit's End for help: if the town keeps shunning him for his brother's misdeeds, he will be broke within two months. Whit offers no shortcut, only time, perseverance and a handshake, because, he says, "I've always longed to shake the hand of a Blackgaard in friendship." The proof arrives in Whit's own mail. A computer newspaper carries a photo of Dr. Regis Blackgaard announcing a new European strategy group in Vienna the day before, and as Whit puts it, "Dr. Blackgaard can do a lot of things, but I don't think he can be in two separate countries at the same time." Even Connie has no answer for that. Whit, who never hangs advertisements in his shop, makes an exception: Edwin's poster goes up in the front window, and Connie goes to get him some tape.