Now You See It, Now You Don't

Series: My Favorite Martian

Season: Season 1

Episode Number: 19

Air Date: 02/16/1964

Duration: 30 min

At the museum, Martin discovers that the long-time curator, Wilbur Canfield, is very unhappy. He has just acquired a new expensive Egyptian piece for the museum, but the museum's board is questioning the authenticity and therefore merit of this acquisition. Because of this, Canfield himself is now questioning his own abilities, as he feels he may be getting too old to do his work properly. The board is calling in an independent expert, Pietro Donati. What's worse, Canfield once discredited Donati's evaluation. Martin will know the piece's authenticity, if he can only get a look at it. In doing so, Tim can get an exclusive story and Martin can validate Canfield as an expert in the field. But the artifact is stashed away behind security until Donati's arrival. Since Martin can't get close to it, he decides instead to levitate it to him. After Martin finds that it is indeed authentic, he has to get it back to the museum. However security is aware that it's missing and thus the museum is secured even more than usual while they try to locate the artifact. After some tricky maneuvering, Martin does manage to get it back into place, although to the bewilderment of security. However, Martin forgot to check for the mark of Ra, which definitely identifies the artifact as authentic. When Donati arrives to inspect the piece, he deems it to be a fake since the mark of Ra is not there. However Martin tells him to look a little more closely under the couple thousand years of residue. The mark is indeed there. Therefore it ends well for Canfield and Donati. The only person with an unhappy ending is Tim - his exclusive story was so good, Mr. Burns appoints him editor of culture, which is not exactly his cup of tea.