The Memoirs of Nicodemus Legend: Knee-High Noon

"Knee-High Noon" was the sixth episode of Legend, and first aired on May 23rd, 1995. It was written by Steve Stolier & Frederick Rappaport and directed by James L. Conway. You can watch the episode via Amazon Prime Video or DVD.

“Legend” has been hired to track down some cattle rustlers, but an electrical fault in Bartok’s tracking device alerts the rustlers to their presence, and the rustlers get away. Even worse, the rustlers are able to identify the silent “cow bell” on one of the cows as a tracking device, and use it to send a message to “Legend” in Pratt’s own hotel room. From now on, the rustlers will be on their guard.

Although Pratt tries to assure the owners of the cattle that he is giving the matter his undivided attention, these efforts are distracted when he meets Laura Davenport, whose son Ben has styled himself as “Nicodemus Legend, Jr.” She encourages Pratt to have a conversation with Ben, and to take their picture together under the guise of “setting Ben straight” about the fictitious nature of Ben’s hero, but it is, in reality, a set-up to generate publicity for Ben (an aspiring actor) using “Legend’s” fame as a springboard. Naturally, Pratt is upset at this revelation. He’s no better pleased to learn that E.C. Allen has already sent Milton J. Faber, Allen’s head of Business Affairs and Acquisitions, to negotiate with the Davenports about adding “Nicodemus Jr.” to the “Legend” dime novels.

Bartok and Ramos work on new inventions to catch the rustlers, including a “Trojan Cow” designed to shoot a net from its mouth to capture the criminals. With the Trojan Cow, Lyle, one of the rustlers, is successfully captured, although the others get away. When Team Legend returns to Sheridan to place the captured rustler in jail, Faber turns the event into a publicity appearance for “Nicodemus, Jr.”, wherein “Jr.” takes credit for being a part of the incident, even though he wasn’t even present when it occurred. To make matters worse, when Davenport and Ben arrive at Bartok’s laboratory to demand rewrites to the “Nicodemus, Jr.” story, they attempt to turn Bartok against Pratt by suggesting that Pratt has been holding out on merchandising rights to Bartok’s inventions.

Matters come to a head when Asa, Lyle’s brother, kidnaps both Laura and Ben Davenport, “Nicodemus, Jr.” having taken credit for capturing Lyle earlier. Asa sends a ransom note offering an exchange: Lyle for “Legend’s” wife and son. Although Pratt is annoyed that the identities of the Davenports have been further conflated with Legend’s, he has no choice but to agree, even though both Pratt and Bartok recognize that the rustlers will likely try to kill Pratt once the exchange has been completed.

At the proposed site of the prisoner exchange, the Davenports are quick to deny any authentic connection to Legend, but Asa doesn’t care. If anything, the knowledge that the Davenports are looking to profit off of Lyle’s capture makes him see them with even greater contempt. When the quadrovelocipe finally arrives, Lyle is gagged, thus delaying any ability on his part to tell Asa that the driver isn’t actually Legend. In fact, it’s Skeeter dressed up in the Legend costume. Before Asa can shoot Skeeter, Skeeter hits a switch in the quadrovelocipe, activating powerful magnets in Lyle’s handcuffs that pull Asa’s gun away from him. Pratt arrives a moment later on the Legend Wings, while Bartok and Ramos follow in the Legend Balloon. After the Davenports are rescued and the rustlers are captured, Ben proclaims that he doesn’t want to be “Nicodemus, Jr.” anymore. His mother, however, remains determined to milk the incident for all the money they can.

Fortunately for Ernest Pratt, it turns out that, after writing Nicodemus, Jr. into his latest manuscript, giving the Davenports everything they wanted, E.C. Allen sends a simple telegram in response: “Lose the kid.” The story of Nicodemus, Jr. will never be published.


Some additional notes:

• Faber is the second representative of E.C. Allen’s publishing company to make an appearance (the first being Harry Parver in “Birth of a Legend”). Each character makes exactly two appearances.
• When Faber tells Pratt that he is the son publisher E.C. Allen never had, Pratt replies that Allen has three sons. The historical E.C. Allen never married, and is not known to have ever had children.
• “Junior” versions of major dime novel characters were something of a trope in the genre. Pratt needn’t have worried too much about how to explain how the chaste Legend had a kid, however. Lots of dime novel “junior” characters weren’t actually related to their namesakes. 
• Bartok’s and Ramos’ brief exchange when introducing the Trojan Cow (“s'alright?” “s'alright!”) seems to be a reference to ventriloquist Señor Wences and “Pedro.” Wences was still alive when this episode first aired (he died in 1999 at the age of 103!), but I imagine that the origins of this reference were lost to most of the Legend audience even in 1995.

The original broadcasts of Legend took a bit of a break at this point, and I'm following suit to ensure that each episode's feature drops on the 30th anniversary of the episode's original broadcast date. The Memoirs of Nicodemus Legend thus returns on June 12th when we'll look at "The Gospel According to Legend"