Review of 3-28-1998 episode (some spoilers) This is a review of episode #320 (only two more left for the season). ===================================== ====================================== Switchero: The cross-dressing game the whole family can play. I thought it was a bit silly, but still somewhat funny. Opening monologue: Anna Nicole Smith, the guest host, is not introduced, but Debra Wilson comes out and makes some comments. Okay; not great, but okay. Ms. Swan and Kenneth Starr: Although Ms. Swan isn't one of my favorite recurring characters, when Ms. Swan (Alex Borstein) walked into the witness room, I thought, "this could be good." And it was. Chris Hogan looks scarily like the real Kenneth Starr, and Ms. Swan, though uncharacteristically verbose, is legitimately funny. This is somewhat like one of the earlier Ms. Swan sketches, only Chris Hogan is Ken Starr instead of the district attorney, and Nicole Sullivan is the counsel for the witness instead of Diane Lawyer-Trabajo. Hanson, 17 Years Later: The joke here is that the members of Hanson (Chris Hogan, Will Sasso, and some other guy), although old and fat, still act like a bunch of teenagers, and still sing with high-pitched voices. This is pretty funny, especially when the fat guy smashes his drum set. L.A. Valet: First, let me say that this practice of including old sketches in brand-new shows is rather sleazy. New episodes should be all-new; save the old stuff for the "Best Of" shows, or maybe repackage them like they did last summer. L.A. Valet is a parody of Stephen Boccho (sic?) shows; it's a drama that treats valets as people and not just valets. I remember this one from when it first aired (season two, I think). Especially funny is the fact they call it "a very special episode of L.A. Valet". I found it funny then and I still find it funny. A somewhat ambitious segment that succeeds wonderfully. The Eracists: After the last Eracist sketch, I wondered whether they would ever bring them back; there didn't seem much they could do with these guys except have them sing songs that make racists stop being racists. In this sketch, the Eracists (Nicole Sullivan, Phil LaMarr, Will Sasso, Alex Borstein) are last-minute replacements for Johnny Cash in a maximum-security prison. Much of the humor here is homo-erotic in nature (for e.g. "now you're a poor man's bitch"), and overall the sketch is surprisingly good, although the ending was somewhat anticlimactic. Confrontational Man: Man (Phil LaMarr) walks down the street, and won't veer out of the way for others. This is funnier than you might think. Clinton and Kennedy: Clinton talks to JFK, who tells him that he should use the presidency as a means of getting women (and better-looking women than Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky). This is humorous, especially since Clinton, when he first became governor of Arkansas, supposedly mentioned that one of the perks of being governor is that you can get better looking women. A good sketch, and a good example of Mad TV's political humor (as was the sketch with Ms. Swan). Mary Scheer once said that SNL doesn't do political humor anymore; while this is not completely true, in my opinion SNL does not do political humor as effectively as Mad TV. Cabana Chat: Dixie Wetsworth returns, this time with Anna Nicole Smith, announcing the winner of the Pool Boy for a day contest. While the old pool boy, Bryan Callen, has a wiry-yet-muscular figure that suited this role, the contest winner (Alan Howe?) was small and puny, and didn't quite fill Callen's shoes. Still, we get good performances from Scheer and Aries Spears (as James Brown). Anna Nicole Smith doesn't say much but that's probably for the best. Night of the Terribly Proper Dead: "Night of the Living Dead" parodies are nothing new - recently, "South Park" did such a parody in their Halloween special. This segment has an interesting twist: imagine if the zombies played by Queensbury rules. The zombies' ability to eat brains is hampered somewhat by their Victorian-era decorum. This is pretty good, though not side-splittingly funny. Big Mens' Clothing Store: Diminuitive, slight man (Phil LaMarr) walks into a big mens' clothing store and demands a pair of really big pants (these are all the rage, right?). The clerk (Will Sasso) sells him a pair of size 72 pants, although he really wanted a size 99. Maybe it is just me, but since I never understood the trend towards baggy pants, so I thought this was a very amusing sketch, carried quite well by LaMarr and Sasso. The part at the end with the midget was good, too. Spy vs. Spy: The black spy tries to blow up the white spy with some TNT, but it backfires on him. Pretty good stuff. Klaspy/Cuspo: Another Klaspy/Cuspo cartoon, this one about a prince who turns into a frog and is killed and served as frog's legs. Also pretty funny. ============ ============================================================== On the whole, this was a good episode - above average, though not quite rising to the level of excellent. The one thing I was wondering about was why Lisa Kushell and Pat Kilbane didn't appear with the rest of the cast at the end (I don't recall seeing Kilbane in any sketches; Kushell, I'm not sure). Next week's episode will be the Carmen Elektra rerun (#302) that the Mad TV website erroneously reported as the episode for 3-21-98 (they were wrong; it was #222). ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ