"Everybody's Trucking" is the first episode of the seventh series of the British television sitcomDad's Army. It was originally transmitted on 15 November 1974.
Synopsis
Mainwaring's platoon have to signpost the route for a military convoy passing through the area. However, an abandoned steam roller and fairground organ trailer are blocking the route, which threatens to plunge the convoy into chaos.
Plot
In the church hall yard, Jones is showing off his newly restored butchers' van to the platoon. Mainwaring arrives with some very important news: three battalions of regular troops are to move into the Walmington and Eastgate areas as part of the divisional scheme, and as the signposts have been removed, the platoon have been asked to signpost the route to allow the convoys to pass through safely. While explaining the operation, Mainwaring damages Jones' van, by drawing on its side and knocking off part of the running board on the driver's side, as well as later damaging the horn. The operation goes without further hitches until the men are collected and Mainwaring orders Jones to drive them back to the church hall. En route, they find the road blocked by an abandoned steam roller and fairground organ trailer, and a note from its driver reveals that he has gone to get some coal. Rather than wait for him to return, Mainwaring decides to drive around the vehicles. Whilst doing so, Jones's van gets stuck in the mud and before long it is joined by Hodges' van, his motorbike and side-car and a coach carrying the Vicar, the Verger's wife and pensioners on a day trip. With time running out, it falls to Godfrey's Auntie Elsie to save the day and divert the convoy.
When this episode was adapted for radio, Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles made significant changes to the script, the most significant being that rather than being held up by a steam roller, the platoon is held up by a circus truck containing an elephant, hence the retitling as "A Jumbo-Sized Problem".
