Review of 12-16-1995 episode (MD-109)

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Easy To Assemble: A man (Dave Herman) has some difficulty assembling
a hobby horse for his daughter. By the end of the segment, he's on the
horse, rocking back and forth, dressed like a cowgirl. I got some good
laughs when Herman was kicking the partially-assembled horse. Moral of
the story: don't say you can assemble something in twenty minutes until
you've at least looked at the assembly instructions. I give it a thumbs
up.

Opening Segment: The cast of Mad TV has a birthday party for Jesus! OK,
it's probably been done before, but I liked it. Notable in particular
is the part where Debra Wilson says, "I thought you [Jesus] were black."
Yet the cast members hide when they see Jesus coming, so presumably at
least some of them knew what Jesus looked like. So are we to believe that
(a) Debra Wilson never saw him before, although some of the others did, and
(b) they never bothered to tell her that he was white (or maybe she never
asked)? It's this kind of conundrum that keeps me watching Mad TV week
after week.

Wonder Rake 5000: It's a rake that not only rakes leaves - but it also
can be used to pick up stuff! This parody is not quite as good as the
Spishak Car Wax one, or the asprin one from later in the season where
Phil LaMarr's head explodes, but is still worth watching, especially
when they keep showing pine cones.

Vancome Lady - Department Store Santa: The first two Vancome Lady sketches
were funny in their own way. But I still think that this sketch is the
one that really put the character on the map. In this sketch, Kathy (Nicole
Sullivan) is one of Santa's helpers; she's apparently supposed to keep
control over the kids who come to see Santa; instead, she summarily insults
an overweight child, turns away a homeless kid, and turns away another child
because he is Jewish and Santa doesn't like people who are Jewish, according
to her. Of course, she is summarily fired by Santa, but not without
raining on everyone's parade by revealing that there is no Santa. This
is unquestionably one of the best Vancome sketches ever. The part where
the Vancome Lady claims the Jews killed Jesus proved that, at least at
this point, "Mad TV" was more interested in pushing the envelope than
"Saturday Night Live." Also, it was early enough in the series' run
that the character's repetoire of speech and actions are not as refined
as it would later become, and is therefore more interesting to watch.

Fruitcake vs. Santa: Another Orlando Jones monologue (I think this was
the third). This is similar to the "Racism vs. SPAM" monologue, only
in this one he's comparing fruitcake to Santa Claus. And in my opinion
this wasn't as good as the first Orlando Jones monologue, but it was
still good. Best line: "Both are loaded with rum, but Santa can still
legally drive." It's yet another segment that makes me nostalgic for
the days when they let cast members do monologues.

Spy vs. Spy - Plunger: White spy is tricked into thinking it is raining;
when he closes the window, he is clobbered by a brick which the black spy
attached to it. Interesting is the fact that there wasn't a twist at
the end so that the spy who concocted a plan has it backfire on him.
This was good - about average for "Spy vs. Spy."

Raging Rudolph: The animated segment that started it all! This segment
is a cross between the Rankin/Bass "Rudolph" special, and a violent
gangster film (like "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas"). This and the
Vancome sketch are easily the two best segments in probably the best
"Mad TV" Christmas special ever, which says a lot about the high esteem
in which I hold this segment. Years later, alt.tv.mad-tv is still
riddled with requests for "Raging Rudolph" AVIs. This segment not only
marked the beginning of Corky Quackenbush's collaboration with "Mad TV,"
but it also marked the beginning of the highly successful Rudolph trilogy
which would culminate in "A Pack of Gifts Now" in December 1997. What
impressed me most about the segment was not the animation, although
I must admit this segment was well-rendered, but the fact that this guy
was on the same wavelength as I was - a scary thought, indeed.

College Advisor: Not all of the segments in the
first Christmas special were Christmas-related, and here is a good
example: the first Joel and Connie sketch! Joel and Connie (David Herman,
Mary Scheer) are the parents of Mark (Bryan Callen), and they can make
almost anyone's parents seem normal by comparison. In this sketch, Mark's
guidance counselor (Phil LaMarr) expresses concern that Mark may not
get into a college of his choice because he engages in such antisocial
behavior as not taking drugs to impress friends and not having casual sex.
While this is meant to be a joke, it does in fact have a basis in reality -
for example, Steven Levy, in his book "Insanely Great," which covers
the development of the MacIntosh desktop computer, alleges that Apple
Computer used to ask job applicants such questions as "[at] what age
did you lose your virginity" as well as questions about drug usage - and
the purpose of these questions was to screen out candidates that were
considered to be too straight for the (then) counterculture-ish Apple.
[And while we're at it, we might as well mention the "Kids in the Hall"
sketch featuring Bruce McCulloch as a 45-year old hippie who needs
a personal assistant, and who interviews - and rejects - a job applicant
(played by Mark McKinney) who only half-heartedly tokes on a proffered
marijuana joint.] Nonetheless, we're supposed to revel in the irony of
Callen storming out of the room, saying that he's going to get into
college on his own merits, while his parents and guidance counselor shake
their heads in disbelief, as if to say "Where did we go wrong?" The
denouement, with a slutty-looking extra walking into LaMarr's office,
after which LaMarr says, "Well, hello Harvard!" is funny as well. While
in many ways this is essentially a typical "Mad TV" sketch, the writers
seem to have struck a chord that resonates particularly well here, as the
earlier reference to the Levy book suggests, the underlying message of this
sketch is scarily accurate.

The Christmas Santa Forgot: Santa Claus falls on his head and as a result
suffers amnesia; since he can't remember who he is, he's not particularly
inclined towards delivering presents, which is problematic, since it's
Christmas Eve. This is a parody of those stupid Christmas specials where
"it looks like there isn't going to be a Christmas this year" because
Santa is sick, or it's too foggy to drive the sleigh, or whatever - and
where the problem is eventually solved. Here, we mostly get Santa being
hit on the head by a small child (Bryan Callen) trying to revive Santa's
memory (Nicole Sullivan appears as his mother). Eventually, he delivers
the presents with Santa, who (just as would be the case in one of those
stupid Christmas specials) eventually regains his memory. [Wouldn't it
be much funnier if he ended up living on the Bowrey, telling ribald tales
about being serviced by elves up at the North Pole, and stabbing women
in the derriere with a sharpened screwdriver? Think about it.] Ultimately
then, this segment didn't unfold the way I wanted it to unfold, and this
segment turns out to be the most SNL-ish of the show. But the segment
still has some entertainment value. Showing the segment in letter-box
format was a nice touch that makes it seem more like a real movie parody,
and the corny line about how the boy has given an old elf a "reason to
live" was also funny, as was the conclusion, where the boy is pushed out of
the sleigh in mid-flight. But still, the full potential of this segment,
in my opinion, was not realized.

The Bank: You can't get your money! You can't get your money! This brief
segment features a sarcastic bank teller (Debra Wilson) and her
equally sarcastic boss (Dave Herman) who are rude to a customer (the
scene is seen from the perspective of the customer). I never have
had the highest opinion of banks (who, as we all know, pay you
interest at three percent, lend money out at six percent, and close
at three o'clock - all while making bad loans that bankrupt the
bank, neccesitating an FDIC [read, taxpayer] bailout). This sketch
plays on the hatred of banks engendered by people like me. The part
where the bank manager mocks the customer for threatening to go to a
competing bank (an even less viable option now, with the recent wave
of mergers and acquisitions) probably resonates with a lot of people.
I myself thought that the segment was quite funny (art imitating life
in the grand tradition of Mad Magazine).

Monologue - Pauly Shore: I have never been a great fan of Pauly Shore
(who, as one of my friends noted, is smart enough not to act like a moron -
but not smart enough [apparently] to realize that the way he acts is
really annoying). Still, he surprised me when "Encino Man," which I
thought would be a box office failure, grossed over $40 million - more
than the two "Bill and Ted" movies (which launched the career of Keanu
Reeves, no less) combined. In the following years, Shore had a moderately
successful career with such films as "Son In Law" and "Bio-Dome" until
the failure of his Fox sitcom ("Pauly") in 1997; since then, his career
has essentially stalled. And while his comedic career has been plagued
by inconsistency, he has had some good moments, like this monologue,
in which he alleges to tell the story about how his mother's boyfriend
got drunk at a Christmas party, assaulted his sister and then
was himself pummeled by other party-goers. While Shore's skills as a
raconteur may leave something to be desired, I find this monologue
compelling; at first I couldn't stop laughing. In any case, it's way
funnier than the monologue he delivered when he hosted the show in the
following season.

Fox Commercial - Search for Santa: Phil LaMarr interviews Heidi Claus
(Mary Scheer), who claims that her brother "always had a thing for
livestock." It's risque enough for "Mad TV," even though it's really
brief so there's not much to say about this piece.

Donut Shop: A customer (Nicole Sullivan) at a donut shop realizes that
the cashier (Bryan Callen) has to do whatever she tells him to do. She
promptly tells him to hit himself in the head, do an impression of one
of the Solid Gold dancers, create world peace, find her a husband,
and do a backflip. This may be as close as we come to proof that the
producers were aiming for a late teen/early twenties audience at this point:
in 1995, you would have to be pretty old (at least eighteen, I would
think) to remember what the Solid Gold dancers were. [I checked on
this and discovered that "Solid Gold" ran from 1980 to 1988; still, I
always thought of it as an early 80's phenomenom.] And in case you
were wondering, the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem is "The Eagle: A Fragment"
(part of it, anyway) - but you knew that, didn't you? Cultural references
aside, though, this is an excellent sketch; Callen, Sullivan, and the
other cast members (Phil LaMarr and Mary Scheer are customers) take
a relatively simple sketch premise and make it work; the ending, with
the cashier pulling a gun out after the customer says "somebody shoot
me" (in jest) was particularly satisfying - after seeing SNL sketches
that just seem to drag on interminably, it's good to see a sketch with
a logical terminus.

Happy Go Lucky Phil: Bryan Callen accidently dinged Phil LaMarr's car,
but Phil LaMarr doesn't care, because he deals with his anger by
suppressing it. Eventually, he'll probably go on a rampage to release
his pent-up anger, but that hasn't happened yet. A visibly
frightened Callen remains on the set after LaMarr exits. This was a fairly
amusing segment - it's always humorous when they play LaMarr as
the character with homicidal tendencies; in the pilot, they
had him as the crazy postal employee who jumps on the truck with
the rest of the cast to escape. It's suitably brief as well; it makes
its point and ends.

Last Call: A reformed alcoholic (Artie Lange) is supposed to meet his wife
(Nicole Sullivan) at a restaurant; instead he meets Mrs. Barone (Mary
Scheer) at the bar, and within five minutes, he's drinking and smoking
again. When his wife arrives, she goes ballistic (she got him through
AA, you see), tells her husband to leave, and then sits down at the
bar with Mrs. Barone, who promptly offers her a cigarette, which she
smokes, reflecting on how she's forgotten how much she loves these
babies. I never was much of a fan of this character (I don't know
why; maybe smokers are just too easy a target these days now that cigarette
smoking has become decidedly unfashionable in the U.S.A.) - the first Mrs.
Barone sketch was probably the second-weakest segment in the pilot episode
(the weakest segment was the Star Trek parody) - but this sketch was
actually pretty good. Here Mrs. Barone may just as well be Mrs. Robinson -
the line about how she wanted to marry rich, drive a Cadillac and see
Burt Bacharach was dead-on if they were trying to portray a jaded older
woman. And let's not forget the cast members - Mary Scheer, Artie Lange,
and Nicole Sullivan - all ably playing their roles.

Spy vs. Spy - Tank: The black spy, in a tree, wanted to drop a bomb on the
white spy as he passed under him, but the white spy tricks him by placing
a plate shaped like a half-sphere on top of the bomb - he drops the
plate and not the bomb, which is still in the tree when it detonates,
blowing the black spy to smithereens. This was funny.

Closing Segment: They're at a long table, where Jesus is serving his
birthday cake. Nicole Sullivan wants the piece with the rose. Jesus
agrees to give her the piece with the rose, much to the consternation
of Orlando Jones. The credits roll. This was OK, and far more endearing
than the closing segments they have in more recent shows with the
odious split screen (where the philosophy is, why bother to entertain
the viewer - not an enviable position for a comedy show).
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In summary, MD-109 was an excellent show. In my opinion it was the best
Christmas show ever, although one could cite to specific weaknesses:
(1) the lack of a musical guest (which is actually an asset, in my
estimation, since it means that, commmercials aside, you're getting
wall-to-wall comedy, and (2) the fact that not all the segments are
Christmas-related (this is something that does not factor into my analysis,
since I evaluate each segment on its individual merits, without considering
how well they work together). The fact that this show contains "Raging
Rudolph" would make it noteworthy even if the rest of the show was
mediocre. But there are so many other good segments here: the Vancome
sketch, the Joel and Connie sketch, and the doughnut shop sketch were all
excellent! The closest I could come to a weak point was "The Christmas
Santa Forgot," which would rank as probably one of the best segments
if it were included in a season four or five episode. The cast excels
in this show as well, making it seem so easy. (9/10)