"No Fool Like and Old Fool" is an episode of Rainbow the Mummy Hunter broadcast in its first season. The episode follows Rainbow as he investigates the haunting of a nursing home, and has several surprise twists and turns. The episode is much discussed in RtMH forums, although the general opinion of the fandom should be saved for after a short description of the plot.

Rainbow and Kitty are drifting across the plains of an unspecified Canadian province (it is a little known fact that Canadian broadcasting law says that the province displayed in TV shows should be mentioned as little as possible, as it could cause rivalry and jealousy). Their vehicle breaks down right in front of a nursing home, and after the tow truck comes, Rainbow gets the idea to investigate the nursing home. Him and Kitty waltz right in, and before long, the weirdness starts. (Rainbow's quick talking manner of gaining entrance to any institution is not particularly realistic, but this is, after all, fiction). Before long, Rainbow discovers an odd haunting at the nursing home, and in a rapid series of events:


  • Kitty believes she finds a mummy, who turns out to be simply someone with a dermatological condition: a joke that fandom is split on the tastefulness of.
  • Rainbow gets lost in what are for, lack of a better term, Jefferies Tube that run under and beneath the nursing home in a weird configuration.
  • Kitty finds an old man, who helps her realize that the old people of the nursing home are not something for her to avoid and condescend to. The old man talks about his time in Canadian Intelligence, and helps propel Kitty towards the character development of her being a more competent character.
  • Rainbow finds out from snooping out amongst the tunnels that the director of the nursing home is a tyrannical, obsessive man, and Rainbow begins to suspect him as having a hidden agenda and/or ties to the supernatural
  • The next scene, where Rainbow falls through the roof of a room and discovers a woman who turns out to be a (hinted) ex-lover, is the emotional high point of the episode. Their conversations, in silhouette, are emotionally intense and the turning point of the season (see below).
  • Slightly earlier than this is a scene where Rainbow plays shuffleboard with a group of nursing home residents---a game he inexplicably loses, badly. This is a an exception to the running joke where Rainbow seems to know how to play any game or sport, such as the curling skills he displays in Ice Girls Don't. The joke is repeated in a later season, in the episode Yeti Still Love You where after piloting a helicopter through a burning forest fire, he lands by a truck, but can't drive it because it is stick shift.

I won't ruin the climax of the story, other to say that the tyrannical nursing home director is revealed to not be the villain, but just a very conscientious medical professional. One of the other things left alone in the climax is whether the troubles of the nursing home are really occult in origin, or merely the normal nature of disease and mortality. And this is one reason why fandom loves (or hates) this episode: it is the turning point of what was almost a slapstick, tongue-in-cheek horror story to a serious meditation on mortality. Almost all fans think this is a turning point in Rainbow the Mummy Hunter. The debate is over two things: the first is the ability of the actors to turn from genre to serious drama. Some think that Rainbow's emotional conversations with his ex-lover come across as melodramatic and forced. Many think the same thing about Kitty's sudden flash of empowerment. Along with the intrinsic quality of the episode, the second debate is because some fans think that the series should have never taken a turn towards the serious. (Although much comedy and cheap horror were to remain in the series.) How you feel about these issues is a manner of taste.

I shouldn't mention it, but I will: this episode has probably produced more fanfic, and has certainly produced more bad fanfic (both erotic and otherwise), than any other RtMH episode. Be weary.

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