Review of 10-16-1999 episode (MD-504; some spoilers)

I read the TV Guide Britney Spears article on Friday. Interesting is
that she claims that she DIDN'T have breast implants; she just got
bigger (she claims she went from 105 pounds when they were taking
pictures for the album cover, to 130 pounds), and as she got bigger, her
breasts got larger. I guess the 25 pounds she gained were all in her
breasts. Also they showed two pictures of her: the first a large photo
which depicts her with smallish breasts, and the second, a smaller photo
of Spears at Disneyworld, shows her in a tighter outfit with apparently
larger breasts. Apart from that, the article wasn't particularly insightful;
she talks about Christina Aguilera, a guest role she's doing on Dawson's
Creek, etc.

"Britney Spears can jump higher than you, even with the new boobs." -
Nicole Sullivan

Also, don't forget to watch Nicole Sullivan on Drew Carey on October 20th
(in reruns).

This review can also be found at:

        http://www.nic.com/~dzien/nicolesullivan/md504.txt

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Opening Segment: With Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura (Will Sasso),
defending himself for off-color remarks about - virtually everything
under the sun. He says that prostitution should be legalized, but he
also says that everything else he said in the Playboy interview which
has offended various groups was quoted out of context. Two prostitutes
appear in the segment: one is his running mate for president, the other
asks a leading question which defends Ventura's stance on gay marriages.
The impression was OK, and as long as Ventura continues to make fatuous
remarks (which will likely be the case for the remaining three years
of his term), this should provide the writers with some good material.
But it is also clear that at this point the opening segments have
degenerated to the mediocre level of season four.

Scared Straight Anywhere: The "Scared Straight" program is so successful
that now it's being applied to different disciplines: e.g. to scare
sales and marketing execs, to scare boy scouts, and even to scare
Sean Connery (Pat Kilbane). It's not high art, but this piece is good
enough for a laugh or two. Funny is that the two prisoners (Will Sasso,
Aries Spears) - much like Soviet government officials of the 1960's and
1970's who thought Marxism could be exported to third world countries
regardless of local circumstances - think that they can motivate any
person by threatening to rape them (and calling them "bitches"). Could
they motivate a 300-pound biker, too? Interesting also is that the shot
of the prison at the beginning of the segment is identical to the
one from "Terms of Imprisonment" in season one - but it was not the
only season one reference in last night's show...

Hoppy Potty: They're today's answer to Abba, a Scandanavian quintet
(Pat Kilbane, Michael McDonald, Will Sasso, Mo Collins, Nicole Sullivan)
that plays garden variety syntho-pop. The name is a corruption of
"Happy Party"; apparently, they can't spell too well. That they're
probably a parody of Abba is confirmed by the fact that both genders
are represented in the group. Inga (Nicole Sullivan) has a Bjork-like
hairdo, and Stein [sic?] (Pat Kilbane) is portrayed as somewhat snotty,
never smiling and too obsessed with his music to pay any attention
to the interviewer (Alex Borstein). Funny here is that when they're being
interviewed backstage, there's a poster on the wall for "The Eddie Murphy
Story," from a season one sketch - but this isn't the first
time they did something like this; I think there was a sketch last season
where there was a poster on the wall of a video store for "Window of the
Soul." Also funny is how the each of the two girls stand on a dais
that is at least eighteen inches high. This segment was OK, but I was
expecting it to be funnier; with a slew of prefab groups dominating the
music world (e.g. Backstreet Boys, En Sync, not to mention the surprisingly
lame Matchbox 20, not exactly prefab but worthy of derision nonetheless),
they should have been able to come up with a somewhat more incisive parody,
although the idea of a foreign group with a poor command of the English
language (and not having much to say, either) becoming an overnight
sensation is somewhat funny.

Rusty - Peer Counselor: Rusty (Michael McDonald), possibly the most
famous Cal State - Fullerton student, is peer counselor to a fellow
student (Nicole Sullivan). The sketch revolves around the fact that
the girl's problems relate to her being popular - she goes to many
parties, she drinks too much, etc. - which Rusty of course cannot empathize
with because he is a dork. Also, the character is expanded a bit here -
with the references to the Holy Spirit and God, we can see clearly that
Rusty is one of these "God Squad" types you see so often on college
campuses (at least you did when I went). Also any lingering questions about
Rusty's sexual orientation are more or less resolved here; when he hugs
the girl, he gets a "half-chubb," so apparently he is a heterosexual.
Although I still don't really like this character, at least this sketch
wasn't as bad as that burger commercial sketch from last season, and
in all fairness to McDonald, Rusty is not the same as Stuart, as some
have claimed.

Behind the Music - Eddie Murphy: Eddie Murphy (Aries Spears) had only
one hit - "Party All the Time" - and this documentary parody purports
to tell the story behind Murphy's initial success, his collaboration
with Rick James (remember "Superfreak"?), his eventual decline, and
later redemption and reunion with James. What is funny here (at least
as far as I am concerned) is that the parody takes Murphy seriously
as a musical artist, when the real story behind the success of "Party
All the Time" is that it was released when Murphy was at the peak of
his popularity (c. 1986) and if Murphy had released an album of him
passing wind in 1986, it probably would have sold at least half a million
copies (even Bruce Willis had some hit records in this era). Also
funny is the portrayal of Rick James as not knowing he had agreed
to collaborate with Murphy and mainly obsessed with scoring crack (he
even says he partied with Marion Barry). But the what mainly holds
this together is the way they make the whole "Behind the Music" formula
seem silly. A good "Behind the Music" show will have a story of
initial success, eventual decline, catharsis (usually the end of
drug and alcohol abuse), and comeback. This formula must be applied
even if it doesn't fit the facts. When they did a show on "Wierd Al
Yankovic," for example, the worst they could come up with was that his
movie bombed. So in this case we get sensationalistic stories about
kangaroos defecating all over Rick James' house, and their eventual
reunion. This was an excellent parody of the "Behind the Music" format
even though nothing in the segment was hysterically funny. I liked it.

Kenny Rogers Psychic Hotline:  I never cared much for Sasso's Kenny
Rogers impression, and this segment didn't do much to change my opinion
of it. The concept is funny - Rogers doing an infomercial for his
new psychic friend's network with two psychics (Alex Borstein, Debra
Wilson), presumably because Rogers is hard up for cash and would
do anything for money - but the segment quickly founders, with Sasso
breaking bottles over his head and generally doing his best Chris
Farley impression at the end.

Hillary Clinton's Listening Tour: Finally, a political sketch. Nicole
Sullivan appears as Hillary Clinton for the first time in almost two
years. She's in Schenectady, New York as part of her "listening tour,"
but she's bored listening to New Yorkers and their issues, so her
thoughts, which are audible in this sketch, digress from the issues
being discussed. Finally, the denouement: she says out loud, "I hate
New York." (!) The most surprising element here is that Nicole Sullivan's
Hillary Clinton impression is so much more dead-on than it was in season
three (although those impressions were more of caricatures, in which
accuracy was not necessarily a goal). The satire falls somewhat short
of pure excellence; still, the message of the parody - that it's possible
that the "listening tour" is mainly for PR - is conveyed well, and
Sullivan's impression, as I said, is accurate. This was the best segment
in the show, in my opinion.

Masseur Without Hands: Pat Kilbane is a masseur without arms from the
elbow down, and Mo Collins is the woman who is too afraid of appearing
to be prejudiced against handicapped people to walk out on him. As
an added bonus, Nicole Sullivan appears as a blind woman who is
supposed to give the woman a bikini wax. This is not a very original idea,
one must admit - it sounds to much like, "let's do a sketch about
a gimpy plumber" - but the finished product in this case is somewhat
funnier than the gimpy plumber sketch from last season. The parts
where he is massaging her - read, battering her with his stumps - are
the funniest. Probably not something that everyone's going to like,
but still good for a few laughs.

Mad TV Classic: This time, it's the first Catwoman sketch from MD-315. (I
think this was the first episode I ever reviewed!) A man (Phil LaMarr)
has his rake stolen by Catwoman (Debra Wilson), and he has to beat up
her feckless henchmen to get it back. When the last Catwoman sketch aired,
I said that not only did I like this impression, but also it's only been
used twice, so it's not overutilized like so many of the other recurring
characters. What I said then still holds true. Beyond that, even though
this was a good sketch and a good impression (when it first aired, some
even pointed out that Wilson's Catwoman was more like Eartha Kitt's Catwoman,
I suppose as opposed to the other woman who played Catwoman; I think it was
Lee Meriwether, so it seems that she may have been aiming for a certain
level of accuracy in the impression), I can't imagine why this segment
was singled out for repeat when there were so many other excellent segments
from the last four seasons (when they're repeating stuff from seasons
three and four, it shows the lack of confidence they have in newer material).
Still, this was good, and they succeeded in capturing the kitschy feel of
the Batman shows.

No Spy vs. Spy this week!

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While the season premiere of "Mad TV" was very good, the other episodes
of season five so far have fallen into the middle rank of shows. This
show is no exception. Overall, it was slightly worse than last week's
show. Segments actually bombed, the Kenny Rogers segment being the
most notable one, although there were several very good segments,
like the Hillary Clinton one. And I'm finding it harder and harder to
see the rationale behind the "Mad TV Classic" segments: the Catwoman
sketch was good, but there are many much better sketches that could
have been shown, assuming that they have to rerun a sketch at all. Nicole
Sullivan appeared in three segments this week; it will be interesting
to see if she appears less frequently in the next few shows because
of the taping of her new side project, although they have probably worked
out some kind of arrangement in the taping schedule so that this is
not the case. (5/10)