It's Day 20 through 22 in Bonanza City...we're past the halfway mark now. The episode title obviously references money, but you have to work to tie all of the subplots together, other than each has something to do with money. We choose to analyze them separately.
Some of the townspeople suffer from a combination of boredom and lack of funds, and perhaps a little bit of the entrepreneurial bug. One resident decides to set up a snack bar, charging nickels for prepared snacks. Unfortunately, the townspeople react poorly, as she is charging for the preparation and serving of food materials that are available for free in the town kitchen. One of her teammates tries to put her out of business by starting a competing snack stand with lower prices, but that ends up being more protest than business. Later in the episode, he becomes a business success in Bonanza City by making custom necklaces with names and slogans burned into wood with a magnifying glass and the sun. He takes the proceeds from his venture to the town store, where he buys an outfit that can best be described as "Wild West Pimp."
The Journal of How to Run Bonanza City directs the Town Council to a treasure chest hidden in a cave outside town. The treasure chest turns out to contain coins equal to the entire town's payroll for a week. The Town Council debates among themselves how to best distribute their newfound wealth, worrying that giving cash to the individual townspeople will cause them to spend recklessly. The Council ultimately decide to spend the cash on items to be used by the entire community, such as sports equipment and musical instruments.
To demonstrate how money-hungry the townspeople are, one of the cooks whips up a batch of fake vomit, and drops $0.50 in the bottom of the pot. She walks to the center of town with a story about how the money got into the pot of disgusting, undefined contents. In TV time, it takes mere seconds for 10 kids to start feeling around in the pot for the loose change.
After successfully completing the weekly competition, the town is faced with a choice for their weekly reward. Up to now, they have been washing clothes by hand with a washboard. They can have new automatic washing machines, at a cost of $0.20 per load, or they can each have one new clothing outfit and old-fashioned hand-run wringer machines that can be used for free. The Council debates and solicits citizen input, including words from those who would have to spend more than their weekly salary to wash clothes in the fancy machines, and select the new clothes/old machines option, to great support from the townsfolk. One of the townspeople comments on how he appreciates that the Council selected the option that allowed him to keep his money in his pocket.
Finally, now that the newness and shock of the weekly $20,000 gold star award has worn off, we see that some of the townspeople have begun to openly campaign for the gold star, even going as far as to make campaign posters. The Town Council now solicits nominations from each of the townspeople on who might be an appropriate winner for the week. At least this week, those who self-promote, either to the town or the Council, lose out to the nominee who diligently works in the background without any self-promotion. Next
week, apparently the gold star winner will be decided by talent show.
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