Wayans Bros Episode: Pops' Last Hurrah

For those unaware, "The Wayans Bros" was a television series that aired on the WB network from early 1995 until the spring of 1999. The show centered around brothers Shawn and Marlon (who are also real life brothers), who share an apartment in New York City. "Pops" is their "pop," but his nickname is "Pops" to everybody, and he owns a diner on the ground floor of a New York City office building. Shawn owns a newsstand in the lobby of the same building, Marlon works for him, and Dee is the building security guard, whose main station is in the lobby of the building.

 

This episode originally aired in November 1997 and it is another play on a misunderstanding, as Shawn and Marlon think Pops is dying.

 

Episode Cast:

 

Marlon Wayans as Marlon Williams

Shawn Wayans as Shawn Williams

John Witherspoon as Pops Williams

Anna Marie Horsford as Dee

Barry Wiggins as Dr. Tuttle

Stu Levin as patient on treadmill

Gloria Gaynor as GLORIA GAYNOR

 

Pops puts in the diner's order for meat for the coming week's specials and it includes chicken and liver, but the supplier also talks him into taking some tongue. Shawn and Marlon think Pops isn't feeling well lately, as Pops is a bit hobbled and he seems to be in pain and he even screams with pain one time when sitting down. The brothers make an appointment for Pops with a doctor and Pops tells the doctor he didn't want to tell his sons or anyone that he has been in terrible pain with hemorrhoids. The doctor gives Pops some suppositories and tells him he should be doing better in a week or two. The next day at the diner, Pops gets a call from the meat supplier who tells him his freezer went bad. Just then and unknown to Pops, Shawn and Marlon enter the diner. The meat supplier is explaining the situation to Pops, and Pops asks him, "Okay, tell me what's wrong." Shawn and Marlon think its the doctor talking to Pops, and then their father repeats, "My tongue has a fungus? ... My breasts are freakishly large?, and my liver is all rotten?" With no meat for his specials, Pops then says, "Oh man, I'm a dead man!" His sons think Pops is dying. 

 

They go to the doctor, but Pops had the doctor promise not to tell anyone about his hemorrhoids, so he tries to avoid answering about Pops' condition, except to say that he's done everything he can for Pops, and it will all be over in a couple of weeks. Shawn and Marlon are distraught at the thought of their father dying, and they go into the diner. Shawn asks Pops if he has been taking his medicine, and he answers that he forgot, so Shawn tells Pops they are going to stand there and watch him take his medicine, unaware the medication is suppositories. hahaha Then Shawn offers to massage the area where his father has pain and Marlon says they'll rub it with Icy Hot! Not only that, Marlon offers to kiss it to make it better!!! Pops tells them, "You two are the sick ones!"  hahahahahahaha! (The first time I saw this episode years ago, I laughed so hard, it took me a few minutes to regain my composure.) 

 

The brothers tell Dee their father is dying, and they try to come up with something special to do for Pops in his last days. Since Pops likes Gloria Gaynor and she is appearing in New York City, Dee suggests taking Pops to the show and she contacts a security guard friend who is working the show to get some tickets. At the show, Gloria Gaynor tells about a special fan who left his sickbed to attend her show, and she has the audience give Pops a round of applause. Gaynor calls Pops up on the stage, and this prompts Marlon to pat his dad on the backside and tell him to "get on up there," which brings an excruciating look of pain on Pops' face and Gloria Gaynor says, "Look at the pain on this man's face." She sings a couple of lines of her famous song "I Will Survive," as Pops and his boys stand with her on stage. She then says the two brothers told her about the terrible disease Pops has and she tells the audience she is donating the proceeds of the show to find a cure for this disease. Gaynor then asks Pops what deadly disease he has. Pops leans over to whisper in Gloria Gaynor's ear, but she can't hear what he says at first, she then hears what he says and she shouts "Hemorrhoids?" Shawn and Marlon realize their father isn't going to die, so they're happy, but Gloria Gaynor orders the security officers present to get Pops and his sons off the stage, but Pops asks about the donation Gloria Gaynor promised. 

 

The episode ends at Shawn's and Marlon's apartment with Dee presenting Pops with a cake in the shape of his behind, complete with hemorrhoids!     

 

Photo is of the 2019 Warner Home Video/Warner Archive Collection 4th Season DVD set

WORD HISTORY:

Apothecary-While it is difficult to see in modern times, this word is closely related to "boutique," a word borrowed by English from French, which had gotten it from Old Provençal (and its older history is the same as for "apothecary"), and "apothecary" is related to a large number of words, or various parts of words, including a distant relationship to "do" and, likewise, to "deed," both words from the Germanic roots of English. "Apothecary" is a compound with the first part, "apo," being a distant relative of English "after" and "of" both of which are from the Germanic roots of English, and thus to "off," which was derived from "of," and to the "ap" of "aperitif," a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English via French, and also to the "ap" of "aperture," a Latin word borrowed from that language. The "apo" part goes back to Indo Euopean "apo," which had the notion of "away, off," and it passed to its transliterated Ancient Greek offspring as "apo." The second part of "apothecary" goes back to Indo European "dhe," which had the notion "to place, to put, to make." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek "tithemi," then "tithenai," which meant "to put or place," and this produced "theke," meaning "a container" (place where something is put). The prefix and the second part gave Ancient Greek "apotheke," meaning "storehouse" (a place where things are put away to be stored). Latin borrowed the word as "apotheca," with the same meaning, and this produced "apothecarius," meaning "shopkeeper," by which time, however, the word had begun to be associated with many herbs and ingredients used for medicine, as they were often able to be stored easily; thus, the beginnings of the meaning we still have today. Latin-based Old French rendered the word as "apotecaire" (later "apothicaire"), and English borrowed the word as "apot(h)ecarie" in the middle of the 1300s, by which time the meaning had become almost exclusively "one who stores ingredients for medications," and "one who stores and mixes ingredients for medicines," and which then gradually became "a druggist," often called "a chemist" in England and the rest of Britain.