Review of 5-9-1998 episode (MD-324)

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Lowered Expectations: Like most of the Rosie O'Donnell segments, this
one insinuates that she is a lesbian. Here, O'Donnell (Alex Borstein)
describes her ideal "date" and a mysterious voice is continually
superimposed over her own so that it seems like she is looking for a
man. This was pretty funny.

Opening Segment: Mary Scheer and her infant daughter introduce the show.
When I first saw this I reflected on how much the baby had grown (I
remember seeing that picture with Nicole Sullivan holding the baby).
This was OK.

Ms. Swan: Ms. Swan (Alex Borstein) takes on a group of Ninjas led by the
Ramon (Chris Hogan), the owner of a rival nail salon. It was somewhat funny
when the ninjas couldn't find anything breakable except for a pencil. But
this certainly goes down as one of the stupidest Ms. Swan sketches ever.
Why doesn't Hogan simply ask Swan the name of the salon's owner, instead
of having her describe him? Not a very satisfactory swan song (no pun
intended) for Chris Hogan as the foil for Ms. Swan. This is notable only
for the fact that they apparently did location filming for the beginning
of the segment, which they did seem to do very much in season three, and
which (correct me if I'm wrong) they haven't done at all in season four.
Does anyone know when they stopped doing location filming? My guess is
they phased it out at some point in season three; at the beginning of
the season we had movie parodies similar to the old days of "Mad TV" like
Sling Blade, but later on in the season we didn't see much of these.

Lowered Expectations: This time with El Asso Wipo. I thought this
character was funny when they did a sketch in MD-219 with Dave Herman
as El Asso Wipo with Phil LaMarr trying to persuade him to change his
name. When they tried to recur it, in my opinion it was pretty much a loser.
The ones where they were performing plays were all the same; the Lou
Diamond Phillips segment was a little better, but this is not very good
at all; it's just El Asso Wipo-by-numbers, which actually would at least
be mildly funny if this were a funny character, which it wasn't.

Dennis the Menace (II Society): Mr. Wilson is a drug supplier, and Dennis
is a killer in this animated parody. Like most Corky Quackenbush segments,
this is good; perhaps not quite as funny as most of his claymation pieces,
but still pretty good.

Let It Die: A man (Phil LaMarr) is annoyed when his date (Debra Wilson)
starts barking like a dog - and won't stop. OK, it's not the most original
idea for a sketch, but it's well-written and the acting is good, so
I give it a thumbs up.

Something So Perfect: This sketch isn't necessary "Best of Mad" material,
but I think it's probably the most memorable segment from this show.
When I went to work the next Monday, there was this kid who worked for
the company who kept on talking about "Something Special," and I couldn't
figure out what it is - other than a means of getting people to pay money
for something without making any specific guarantees or even telling them
what it is. What makes this segment brilliant is the way that it works
as a parody of infomercials, and yet also engineers specifically funny
moments: such as when the Doctor Carter (Alex Borstein) stabs a piece
of angel food cake with a fork, then removes the cake from the plate, and
then passes the fork through the empty space where the cake had been. The
other women emit gasps indicating surprise, as if the doctor had just split
the atom or something. One woman (Mary Scheer) effuses that "it's different
without the cake." It's really Alex Borstein's show, but Scheer and Debra
Wilson are good, and also we get Nicole Sullivan turning in an
effective performance as Victoria Principal, warning us never to share our
Something So Perfect patent pending applicator with another woman (Funny!).

Lowered Expectations: With Vicki, the dog-girl. Instead of making a Lowered
Expectations segment out of it, why didn't they just let it die? But
seriously, this was OK.

Corky and the Juice Pigs: We get to hear the Juice Pigs' disco parody,
"Pants." Debra Wilson performs backup vocals and Nicole Sullivan introduces
the segment. While this was good, I still think the REM parody was better -
and then of course there's "Gay Eskimo," their first Mad TV appearance, also
excellent. The fact that Debra Wilson can actually sing pretty well helps,
though, and the bit with the zippers was pretty funny.

Mad TV Classic: We get "Mother Teresa: Mother of Mercy," which is a
cross between Mother Teresa and "Striptease" with Demi Moore (Mary Scheer)
as Mother Teresa. Bryan Callen, Dave Herman, Orlando Jones and Artie Lange
also appear. The general idea here is that Demi Moore doesn't look
or behave anything like Mother Teresa, but who cares, as long as there's
plenty of cleavage? (The fact that it purports to be about Mother Teresa
is only so that it has "redeeming social value.") This is about average for
a movie parody from seasons one and two; in other words, they started
out with a fairly conventional approach ("lets cross A with B"), fleshed
it out with some good writing and location filming, and in the end it
was well-executed by the cast. It also serves as a good tribute to the
old cast; all the male cast members that had left up to then are represented
here.

Corky and the Juice Pigs: This time they do a song called "Circus Freaks."
Not in my opinion as effective as most of their other material, but it's
only about a minute long, so at least it's over quickly.

Darlene McBride's Mother's Day Special: Darlene McBride (Nicole Sullivan)
co-hosts a Mother's Day special with her mother, Marlene McBride (Mary
Scheer); her mother sings songs about how her career was ruined because
of the unwanted pregnancy that led to Darlene's birth; Darlene McBride
recounts an abusive childhood that included her being locked in closets
while her mother went out on dates. Although I didn't think it was generally
as funny as most of the other Darlene McBride segments it was interesting
because whereas all the other Darlene McBride segments are essentially
political parodies, this one was not; also, Mary Scheer in character actually
looks like she could be Darlene McBride's mother, so it's a tribute to
the makeup department. And I got a good laugh when Darlene McBride started
singing her last song "Pull the Plug," which admonishes doctors that to
keep her mother alive on life support would be a waste of electricity.

Other Woman: A man (Will Sasso) gets a call from his paramour (Mary Scheer)
at home; his wife (Alex Borstein) and his kids are in the room, so he
has to pretend he's talking about business. He does a pretty good job
of carrying out the deception until he says to his wife "she's just a little
upset because we're having sex." This was enough to make me laugh, so it
works for me.

Closing Segment: We get Corky and the Juice Pigs doing Buddhist monks doing
Tina Turner's "Private Dancer." An example of how parodies can be
combined in interesting ways, and I thought it was even better than "Pants."


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Like most of the shows that aired during last year's May sweeps period,
MD-324 was a mixed bag: we get material ranging from gems to duds. Most of
the segments are recurring segments, so your opinion of this show may
have a lot to do with whether or not you like these characters. I thought
it was a good coda for Scheer, who did her second-to-last show here, and
not a very good exit for Hogan, also in his second-to-last show, but only
featured in two bad segments. Although I sometimes found Hogan annoying
(mainly in the Swan sketches), I have to admit he could be quite funny
at times and it's too bad they didn't give him better material with which
to work. (5/10)