Review of 5-22-1999 episode (MD-425; some spoilers) I'm 25 for 25. I've now reviewed all the episodes in season four; last season I missed a few but this time I made it. Thanks to everyone who has voiced support for these reviews and for my website. ========================================================================== Opening Segment: Ha! It took them six months, but they finally used that Celine Dion opening segment. Celine Dion (Nicole Sullivan) opens the show; she says she's not here to sing, but to tell a joke. Virtually every other word of the joke is obscene. This is quite funny, and the crowd seems to be getting into it as well, although it's probably funnier seeing it on TV because half the words are censored. Nicole Sullivan does not really physically resemble Celine Dion that much but it is a good impression nonetheless, especially at the end, when she says the joke is only funny "because it is true," as if she's talking about one of her songs. Spishak's Hey, It's Ice! Home Alarm System: First we see a family (Alex Borstein, Michael McDonald, and an extra) bickering over the fact that the wife didn't know if the ice was ready. The Spishak spokesperson (Pat Kilbane) shows up and plugs the "Hey, It's Ice! Home Alarm System." In the great tradition of Spishak, the product has all the simplicity of a Rube Goldberg device, with satellite dishes transmitting signals to outer space and back to the family's house. Funny is when they show the Spishak scientists and we see black and white footage of three guys with 1950's-style haircuts. This is OK; McDonald's portrayal of the husband as effeminate yet abusive was funny. The Aussie Hunter II: More of "The Aussie Hunter." This time, the Aussie Hunter's wife attempts to take a gorilla's temperature rectally. She gets ripped to shreds. The Aussie Hunter was going to put a T-shirt on the gorilla, but his head is ripped off by the gorilla. This was pretty good, about as funny as the other "Aussie Hunter" segments. Virginia Slims Aerobic Dance Competition Finals: This is about an aerobic dance competition in which one of the competitors (Debra Wilson) has extreme flatulence. This joke gets old pretty quickly, but at least we get a good shot of Ms. Wilson's breasts. Funny is that they have Virginia Slims as the sponser; I'm not sure but I think now the tobacco companies ability to sponsor sporting events like this has been limited by the settlement with most states' attorney generals; I think this was a parody of that. Spore Attack '99: In the first "News at Six" segment since MD-402, Diane Lawyer Trabajo (Nicole Sullivan) and a new anchor, Brian Mai-Tai (Michael McDonald) preside over an increase in the pollen count due to the coming of spring. Phil LaMarr is back as Chance Cumulus, and Alex Borstein reprises her Sue Napiersville. Debra Wilson returns as Rosa Morticorena (possible spore victim). I have mixed feelings about this one. The most conspicuous element here is that it was LONG (I didn't have a stopwatch, but it seemed to run almost ten minutes), and this probably reflects budget cuts; segments are necessarily being made longer, which is unfortunate, because one of the better elements of the early Mad was the fact that unlike SNL, they didn't drag out sketches for another five minutes after they stopped being funny. Some of the better elements of the old "News at Six" have been reproduced here: Trabajo advocating mass panic, Chance Cumulus's cluelessness, and Sue Napiersville's "Diane!" are all here. But the segment still falls a bit flat. McDonald does an OK job replacing Hogan, though. The Aussie Hunter: This time, they want to get a closer look at an elephant's eyes. And - guess what - they get ripped to shreds. This was pretty good. Vancome Lady: The Vancome Lady (Nicole Sullivan) is an actress on "Mad TV;" she's the crafts lady in a sketch about Girl Scouts. She directs racial slurs against blacks and Hispanics (the best here is where she says that the UBS Guy is unrealistic because he's a black guy who runs around a lot and loves his job). The part where the girl says "[y]ou don't even know who my father is, do you?" and the Vancome Lady replies "[n]o...neither does your mother" is a little old - they already used that one in "Vancome Lady: Guidance Counselor." But there's some good moments with the Vancome Lady making fun of the cast members, implying that Mo Collins isn't funny, and then again when Marvin (Michael McDonald) makes fun of Nicole Sullivan, implying that she's flat-chested. Finally, Marvin comes out and offers her a job as a Fox executive, and they walk off into the sunset together - but the "sunset" is just a set piece. Although I still don't think this was up to the level of some of the older Vancome sketches, this in my opinion was the best Vancome sketch of the season; maybe I just liked the way they were making fun of the cast. Some people are surprised that Fox lets them get away with such politically incorrect jokes like these, and I am a little, too (thankfully, they haven't watered down this character). Also it was good that they didn't overutilize the character - this is the first Vancome segment since the hip-hop parody, if you don't count that Keri Russell segment. Cold Angry Bed: OK, this time we get a segment which depicts Nicole Sullivan and Michael McDonald's relationship in its death throes. Apparently their initial problems with oral sex have ballooned into full-fledged marital discord; now it's unlikely that they engage in oral or any form of sex. [Am I carrying this too far?] They host a late night TV talk show from their "cold angry bed." The guests are a zoologist (Mo Collins) and Kenny G (Andrew Bowen). The latter refuses to leave until they make up, so they start making out just to get him to leave. This was OK. The Aussie Hunter III: This time, they're antogonizing a bunch of fire ants. Not much different than the other "Aussie Hunter" segments; notable mainly because for once, they are interfering with relatively miniscule creatures. This was good. Would Be Actor: A delivery guy (Aries Spears) delivers a package to the set of a movie in which Morgan Freeman (Phil LaMarr) stars. The guy wants to be an actor, too, and he starts to annoy Freeman, who eventually has him removed from the set by security guards. This was OK, but definitely not A-list stuff. Lorraine: A man (Michael McDonald) is selling a car; Lorraine (Mo Collins) shows up to look at the car but she becomes obsessed with the air freshener. He gets so vexed by the woman's presence that he sells the car to another man (Andrew Bowen) for $40. Apparently, it never occurred to him to simply give her the air freshener. This was OK; again it wasn't A-list stuff. Spy vs. Spy: White spy nails the black spy with a brick. I'm not sure when this first aired (probably season one). This was good and reminiscient of the glory days of "Mad TV." Mad TV Classic?: This is "Kids Say the Stupidest Things" from MD-322. This is a parody of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" only in this version a man (Will Sasso) bullies little kids into saying things and then calls them stupid. This was funny enough, but once again it's a sign of the current show's weakness that the producers are repeating material from last season; it's almost a tacit acknowledgement of the poor writing in season four. Also notable that they run a "classic" in the final show; they couldn't even come up with an hour (read, 47 minutes) of original material for the season finale. Closing Segment: At least they bothered to tape a special ending for the season finale. Nicole Sullivan thanks everyone for supporting the show and says there will be shows all summer long, and "stuff that you've seen, but haven't seen the real funny beneath the funny." So we get what we want out of the closing: some closure, but also it's always somewhat of a cliffhanger (now we end up wondering what changes, cast and otherwise) will be made (if any). This was good. ========================================================================== On the whole, this show was rather disappointing. It's not as if the season finales have been uniformly excellent up to now (although the season one and season three finales were very good, especially season three with Halle Berry hosting), but fans have a right to expect more than a collection of largely substandard sketches. Still, there were some highlights, like the Vancome sketch. For Nicole Sullivan fans, this was a good show, with Ms. Sullivan in four segments, plus she gets to wrap up the fourth season, too. Also, fans of the new cast probably weren't disappointed, either; most of the newer cast appeared in at least two segments or more. But it's hard to get excited when the material is so weak. (4/10) I saw the trailer for next week's show; it is indeed MD-221, in which David Faustino (who had just finished work on the final season of "Married With Children") guest hosts. I'm glad they're showing some of the older shows, but why they are doing this when last summer they only ran reruns from season three, is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's a tacit admission that the old shows are better. The episode for the first week in June, according to the listings, is the one with "The Jeffersons 1999" (MD-423), but it doesn't seem to make much sense to rerun a show only a month after it originally aired.