User Reviews

Butch (Trent Lehman) is upset that everything around him is going wrong. Aunt Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester) arrives with her crystal ball to see into the future. Butch accidentally breaks it, making Aunt Henrietta proclaim he's a jinx. Butch is nearing a bowling tournament and Nanny (Juliet Mills) takes him and the other kids to a bowling alley to practice. As his clumsiness worsens, Nanny takes him to Aunt Henrietta to straighten things out. She gives Butch a lucky coin to ward off the evil spirits of the jinx. With renewed confidence, Butch competes in the tournament. Needing a miraculous shot, Butch finds his lucky coin is gone, but is given advice from his father (Richard Long). He wisely states, "There's an old Greek saying- of all the battles, the first and the greatest is for man to conquer himself."

Everything is going wrong for Butch, and when Aunt Henrietta shows up with her crystal ball to try to help him out, he knocks over the kitchen table and the ball crashes broken to the floor. Aunt Henrietta announces Butch is a jinx, and he believes it. Serious talks with Dad and Hal don't change things for Butch, and Butch it convinced he's doomed in bowling tournament he has his heart set on. Much to the Professor's disapproval, Nanny arranges to meet with Aunt Henrietta who gives Butch a "lucky coin." The Professor doesn't know how he wants the bowling tournament to come out, given that Butch is rubbing that coin for luck before every roll of the bowling ball, but Butch is making strikes. Then Prudence takes the coin and puts it in the gumball machine, just as Butch is left with an impossible split. Butch is shattered, until his father reminds him "take the shot - if you miss it, you miss it, but you have one other option - give up and go home." Butch won't do that. He takes the shot without rubbing his lucky coin.