Review of 11-18-1995 episode (MD-106)

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O.J. Plates:  The commemorative O.J. Simpson Trial of the Century china
set, on the QVC Fine China Hour. We get plates with pictures depicting the
dream team, Nicole Simpson's dog (dripping blood), the freeway chase, and
prisoners attempting to rape O.J. Simpson. The accompanying mugs feature
O.J.'s mug shot. This episode originally aired in November 1995; obviously,
the writers were probably eager to do at least one more O.J. parody before the
affair faded from the headlines, and this parody essentially works - not
nearly as funny as the two O.J. parodies featuring Orlando Jones, but still
good enough to make me laugh on several occassions. Debra Wilson puts in
a good performance as host of the "QVC Fine China Hour." 

Opening Segment (When We Knew): Cast members Nicole Sullivan, Orlando Jones,
and Bryan Callen sit around and talk about the time each member realized
they could make people laugh. For Callen, it came when his father made him
strip naked and dance in front of his poker buddies - and again when,
after he wet his bed, his father made him run through the streets using
his piss-drenched sheets as a cape. This was not as good as "Nicole's Room"
from MD-102 (probably the best opening segment of the season so far), but
about what we'd expect from an opening segment by now; it delivers on the
laughs although not that ambitious a concept - Callen definitely makes it
memorable with his rendering of "Super Pee Pee Man."

Calvin Klein Ad #1: We get to see some new Calvin Klein ad concepts. First
up: a baby and a businessman (Phil LaMarr). I like when the off-camera
guy says, "I bet when you take your two weeks in July, you're gonna go
crazy," and LaMarr talks about how he's going to retile the bathroom.
Like the opening segment it's not a very ambitious piece (doesn't use
a lot of location filming like the other commericial parodies and I'm
not sure if it's that much of a dead-on parody of the actual ads) but it's
still funny.

Stop Smoking #1: A man (Bryan Callen) wants to quit smoking; another man
(Phil LaMarr) says that he can get him to stop smoking in five minutes.
Callen agrees to the plan - then LaMarr leaves the room, and in a scene
reminiscient of a famous scene from the movie "Deliverance," two
hillbillies (Artie Lange, Dave Herman) come in and apparently rape Callen.
This was funny, but not "Best of Mad" material.

Oprah Winfrey: Oprah Winfrey (Debra Wilson) empathizes with her guests so
much that they don't get to finish their stories. Wilson's manic portrayal
of Winfrey makes this segment notable, although I don't watch Oprah Winfrey
so I don't know if the parody reflects the real Winfrey's attitude. A
watchable segment nonethless, especially as Winfrey goes berserk at the
end.

Swimming Pool: Often rules seem to be made in response to a particular
incident. For example, if in a gated community someone is offended by
a neighbor who has outdoor barbeques, he might successfully lobby the
rulemaking board to ban all outdoor barbeques. This sketch makes fun of
this phenomena. The desk clerk at a hotel (Nicole Sullivan) enumerates
the rules of the pool to a guest (Orlando Jones). It starts with "no
urinating in the pool" and moves onto such items as "no emptying bags
of pubic hair into the pool." Of course, the guest asks if these things
actually happened, but the clerk insists that these are JUST THE RULES.
I laughed and laughed. In my opinion, it's the funniest thing in this
episode - so far.

Stop Smoking #2: A woman (Debra Wilson) owns a cat which keeps jumping up
on her couch; she goes to the man from the first stop smoking segment
(Phil LaMarr), who tells her that he can get the cat to stop jumping up
on the couch in five minutes. In walk the two hilbillies (Artie
Lange, Dave Herman) dressed up as sofas. This was OK.

Vague: Phil LaMarr hosts "that show, the show that has that stuff" - a
game show where none of the answers (or questions) are specific. For example,
the answer to the question "[w]here did that thing go" is "[b]eats me."
Points aren't even assigned to the question - the loser (Debra Wilson)
is merely told that she had "some, but not enough." The winner (Dave
Herman) is paired off with celebrity contestant Jamie Farr in the lightning
round. While this segment does not quite qualify as "classic" in my
estimation, it still is almost a textbook example of Mad TV's better
sketches in the early days: come up with a parody of a movie or TV show
(although TV parodies seem to predominate), put some kind of interesting
twist on it (in this case, if the answer is too specific, the host asks
the contestant to be a little more vague), and throw in a celebrity
cameo. Although this has led some critics to conclude that Mad TV gives
the impression of having never left its La-Z-Boy and remote control, the
formula when successfully employed, generates a lot of worthwhile sketch
comedy, as proven in this segment.

Calvin Klein Ad #2: This time they interview the pizza delivery guy (Orlando
Jones). My favorite part is when the guy says that he bets the pizza would
stay hot all night, the delivery guy responds, deadpan, with "it'll get
cold, eventually." They also interview a scummy-looking guy (Artie Lange)
who cleans public lavatories.  This was probably the funniest Calvin Klein
segment.

Stop Smoking #3: This time a guy (Orlando Jones) goes into an appliance
store to complain that a toaster he bought there is broken. The girl
(Nicole Sullivan) at the store reassures him that it can be fixed
in five minutes. She then tosses it into a backroom, where we hear the
two hilbilly guys telling the toaster that they're going to get it to
toast right. By now it's getting a little old - by the time Sullivan says
"five minutes", you know where it's going - but this was OK.

Clueless of the Lambs: We get another movie parody here; this time they've
crossed "Silence of the Lambs" with "Clueless." Dave Herman is Hannibal
Lecter and Nicole Sullivan is Clarisse/Cher (the Alicia Silverstone
character). Lecter is ready to help Cher find the serial killer - but
Cher doesn't care, because there's a sale at Sach's. Although this segment
had its moments, this one wasn't that impressive. Taking two dissimilar
movies and combining them to come up with a movie parody worked in
"Gump Fiction," but here it seems to fall a little flat; giving a serial killer
a makeover isn't really that funny. It could happen, though, since
many of these killers are loonies anyhow. Even though it was a
relative disappointment, after I saw this parody I re-watched "Silence of the
Lambs" and it impressed me how dead-on Herman and Sullivan were in their parody
of the scene where Lecter is interrogating Clarisse about her childhood;
this in retrospect makes the segment worth watching. Sullivan's Silverstone
is adequate; she doesn't really bear much physical resemblance to
Silverstone but she has the character's lingo down. 

Monologue - Dana Gould: Dana Gould talks about America - he sees America
in the NRA and the PTA; in Patty Duke and David Duke; etc. Of course
in the U.S.A. we take for granted that the comedian would be an American,
but in fact since the early Mad had a strong Kids In the Hall influence
many of the comics doing monologues in these shows were Canadian, so this
provides an interesing contrast. Of course it also helps that this
monologue is pretty good, especially Gould's mock-poignant delivery
at the end where he tells of an illegal immigrant who now owns his
own farm in America - and then is abducted by aliens, who subject him
to an anal probe.

Don Martin - Harp Fall: Workers try to use a harp to break a woman's
fall, but the harp slices the woman up into oblong pieces. Funny.

Nicole Sullivan's Monologue: Now we get to the good stuff. Nicole Sullivan
delivers a monologue, not unlike her monologue from MD-101. Again she
says that she doesn't want to be on Mad TV anymore, but this time it's
because she's dated all the cast members and "there's no one here for me."
She wants to be on Party of Five, and the director grants Sullivan her
wish... This monologue was very good, about equal in quality to her
first monologue. Her rendition of "Party of Five" is memorable: "Oh,
Charlie, we don't have enough money for rent!"

Movie Trailer: Here the show is making fun of movie trailers that invoke
the names of past blockbusters to get us to see the movie being
advertised. This was pretty funny.

Party of Five - Nicole Sullivan's Visit: Almost exactly a year to the date
after the episode of "Party of Five" in which Nicole Sullivan made an
appearance originally aired, we get this parody in which Nicole Sullivan
is cast (again) as a waitress. But in a cruel twist of fate, her role
is even smaller than her original (real) gig; she has exactly one line:
"Today's special is meat loaf." Apparently unhappy with this situation,
she tries tap dancing in the background, and then begging Bailey (Scott
Wolf) and Charlie (Matthew Fox) to go out with her. This was extremely
funny, especially if you knew about Sullivan's original appearance on the
show in 1994. Nevertheless, there was one matter that kept bothering
me: why would a woman like Nicole Sullivan be interested in two losers
like Bailey and Charlie?

Spy vs. Spy - Slinky: The white spy gets the black spy in a slinky and
pushes him down a slide. Funny enough for me.

Debbie Dander - Seminar Training: A woman (Mary Scheer) conducts a seminar
on "Drugs in the Workplace" which is attended by middle management types.
She passes around a bowl containing "drug samples" - ostensibly so they
know what the drugs look like. When the bowl is passed back to the
front, it is empty, but don't worry; she's going to
conduct a random drug test. The irony of these (supposedly) egotistical
management types quivering as they ponder their fate is enough to
make this worth watching, as it the central character's effusive
cheeriness (that laugh is just so infectuous). 

Calvin Klein #3: This time we get a nun (Mary Scheer) and the two hillbillies
(Dave Herman, Artie Lange) are at it again. This was OK.

Spy vs. Spy - Sunbeam: The black spy gets the white spy with a sunbeam
reflected with mirrors. This was good. Once again: white spy 1,
black spy 1.

Closing Segment: Nicole Sullivan returns to the show to brag about her
appearance on "Party of Five," but she's been edited out. Now she
says she "chooses to be on Mad TV." An appropriate ending.
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We're six weeks into the show now, and the show remains solid, even
though every once and awhile there's a segment or two that I actively
dislike. MD-106 succeeds largely by relying on the elements that made
the early shows so good: e.g., good monologues by other comedic talents
as well as by their own cast members (in this case Nicole Sullivan); the
game show parodies are usually good, too ("Vague" wasn't as good as
Schitzophrenic Jeopardy" but is still good). Moreover, the show was
still leaps and bounds ahead of SNL in overall quality. (8/10)