Review of 1-29-2000 episode (MD-514; some spoilers)

This review can also be found at:

        http://www.nic0lesullivan.org/md514.txt

Also, this is the two-year anniversary of both The Unofficial Nicole
Sullivan Tribute Page and my posting reviews of this show to Usenet.
The web site started out as an attempt to create a Nicole Sullivan
filmography which if not definitive would be more comprehensive
than anything else currently available, and also as an attempt to
document the career of Nicole Sullivan. We took another step towards
streamlining the site about a month ago when I moved the site to
www.nic0lesullivan.org. 

==========================================================================
Opening Segment: Jesse Jackson (Aries Spears) appears to complain that
there are no black people in the cast. Then Will Sasso emerges to remind
him that there are black people in the cast, "and you're one of them,
Aries." He then tells him that he has to be ready in five minutes or
his sketch will be pulled. Funny is when Spears as Jackson says that he
remembers Spears and that he had a "small but pivotal role in 'Jerry
McGuire.'" [Apparently he's also a fellow New Jerseyian, which I didn't
know.] This was OK; it doesn't look like much thought went into this
opening, but it didn't last long, either.

Blind Date: This is not so much a parody of the syndicated show "Blind
Date" (which I've seen a couple of times) as it is an O.J. parody.
O.J. Simpson (Aries Spears) goes out with a blonde named Kim (Mo Collins),
who seems to be terrified of O.J., but she agrees to go out with him
again, mainly because he bought a lobster dinner on the first date.
They did a good job of recreating "Blind Date" but not a great one; missing
are those little pop-up captions they show while they replay footage
of the date. But what's funny here is not the accuracy of the parody
as much as the references to the O.J. murder case: he drops his glove
in the apartment building corridor as they leave; he drives a Bronco;
she starts screaming as O.J. fastens a lobster bib around her neck;
she forgets her glasses at the restaurant. She even explicitly notes
that he's a murderer. Later on, O.J. denies that he ever went out with
Kim. I couldn't help but compare Spears' O.J. Simpson to Orlando Jones';
Spears seems to bear a somewhat closer physical resemblance to Simpson
than Jones; he adds the deep O.J. voice and has incorporated some of
Simpson's idiosyncrasies like the way he refers to himself in the third
person into his impression. Jones' Simpson was funny mainly because of the
situations into which he was put (e.g. making a bloopers video or looking
for the "real killer"). Comparatively speaking, Jones' Simpson showed
a much darker side of Simpson (that implies that there's a "light" side
to a person who most people believe killed his ex-wife), and with him
we see Simpson losing his temper and threatening the host of a talk show.
But Spears' Simpson is entertaining in its own way. I laughed at "Blind
Date" the first time I saw it; it isn't quite as funny on repeated viewing
(in my opinion), but it's still good enough to be one of the better segments
in this show.

Rocket Revengers: Rocket Revengers is back, and this time, it's in
Excito-color. Once again, "Revengers" is portrayed as having been made in
the 1930's and 1940's, in spite of the obvious 1950's references,
such as China-bashing and the presence of Lassie. The plot line for the
color Rocket Revengers is just as bad as the black-and-white "Rocket
Revengers." Even worse is that the trailer gives away the best parts
of the movie: e.g. it was Tukha, Queen of the Chinese (Debra Wilson)
who killed Betty (Mo Collins), and the fact that Tukha is carrying
Tiny's (Will Sasso) baby. Lincoln Willis (Phil LaMarr) is back to
introduce the trailer, even though he supposedly died last season (at
least that's what Nicholas Cage told us). This was OK, although I
really didn't care for this; it doesn't really elaborate on the
characters very much - though it's funny when Pat Kilbane's character
keeps cutting off the black Rocket Revenger (an element seen in previous
segments). Another decent, not outstanding, segment.

Crook and Chase: This segment is a parody of a talk show that airs on
The Nashville Network which I've never seen, even though it's been on for
over ten years (I will probably never watch TNN). Crook and Chase (Pat
Kilbane, Mo Collins) interview Hatman Williams (Phil LaMarr), who is
not only a black man singing country music, but whose songs are all
scatalogical - e.g. there's a song about him digging up the corpse of
his girlfriend and humping the dead body, and a song about the defenders
of the Alamo, knowing they are doomed, having sex with each other. The
humor works in two ways: they are making fun of how the demographics
of country music are skewed towards white people, more so than probably
any form of music (e.g. fans of hard rock are predominantly white males,
but I'd wager you're more likely to see a black person at an Aerosmith
concert than a Garth Brooks concert). But also there is good old-fashioned
scatalogical humor thrown in; and while it's predictable (once he says
he's going to sing a song about the Alamo, you know where it's going),
and while it means this segment will never reach the intelligence of,
let's say, some of the work of Peter Schickele (who probably beats
out Dennis Miller in competition for the title of Humorist Whose
Humor is Most Likely To Go Over People's Heads), it's good enough
for a cheap laugh, and, more importantly, aimed squarely at the pre-teen
demographics of "Mad TV." And let's not forget LaMarr, Kilbane and
Collins, all good in executing their roles here. It's not a great
segment, but it's thoroughly watchable.

The Stick Chicks: When this segment first came on, my reaction was "I
can't believe they decided to recur this segment," and I saw little in
the next five minutes to assuage my doubt. The Stick Chicks (Nicole
Sullivan, Debra Wilson, Alex Borstein) must rescue their boss (Michael
McDonald) from two international terrorists (Will Sasso, Aries Spears).
Champagne (Sullivan) and Autumn (Wilson) devise a plan to rescue the
boss, confidently asserting that Echo (Borstein) is not needed. But
when Champagne and Autumn are taken prisoner, Echo saves the day, first
by freeing Champagne and Autumn and then by defeating the terrorists
in "hand-to-hand" combat. Even so, those whom she rescued scoff at
her request that she be given a raise (to minimum wage). Probably the
funniest moment here was when Champagne asserts that Echo could not
distract the terrorists with her beauty because Echo is not the pretty
one - Champagne is (echos of how Debbie in the Eracists insists that she
is the pretty one and is a control freak). Other than that, there's not
much to care about here, even the sexual overtones of the three girls
making corn dogs on a stick wasn't very funny. This is made all the
more disappointing by the fact that it's one of the few segments in recent
weeks in which Nicole Sullivan appeared; as much as I'd like to see
more segments with Sullivan, quite frankly, it's an exercise in futility
unless the writers come up with better material for her. This is easily
the weakest segment in the show.

The Captain Kirk Show: This is sort of like "The Kirk and Spock Variety
Hour" from season three, only this time, Kirk and Spock (Will Sasso,
Pat Kilbane) are hosting a David Letterman-type talk show. They even have a
Top Ten List with cheesy 3-D graphics (just like the real Letterman show) and
a segment where Spock goes up to total strangers on the street and talks to
them. A befuddled Martha Stewart (Mo Collins, the first cast member to play
Stewart) appears on the show. Again, this is a segment that could have
been better but nonetheless had its moments.

The Reading Caboose: This is the second installment of this segment.
This features two journalists who pedal conspiracy theories
on impressionable children. Michael McDonald is back as the male
journalist, but for some reason, Mo Collins has replaced Nicole Sullivan as
the female (although apparently it's a different character because
the Sullivan character was called Miss Lucy, but Collin's character
is called Miss Janice). Their conspiracy theory this time is that hippies
taking LSD in the 1960's was a CIA conspiracy to derail the antiwar movement.
Tim Robbins appears Terrance the Turtle, a college acquaintance who
helps them re-enact the conspiracy and to tell them of his misadventures
protesting the World Trade Organization. I have to say that this is
a fairly accurate depiction of the drivel being pedaled by some left-wing
journalists nowadays - anyone who has spent any amount of time listening
to Pacifica would probably agree. [The funniest thing about Pacifica
now is how some of the shows, apparently jealous of the relative success
of NPR, bitch and complain about how many different stations carry "All
Things Considered."] The idea that no hippie ever took LSD of his or
her own volition is ludicrous, yet a certain segment of the population
will believe it to be true, and that's what the show is parodying. As
such, I give it a firm thumbs up - it's a return to the sort of political
humor the show did so well in the first two seasons, and has explored
intermittently since then. This is the best segment of the show in my
opinion.

Sketch With Three Endings: An executive (Nicole Sullivan) is
called into her boss's (Phil LaMarr) office, who made the mistake of
pointing out that her last few memo's had some typos. She immediately
becomes hysterical and starts crying, claiming that she is going to be
fired, although the boss assures her that this is not the case. Finally,
she calms down - only to throw a temper tantrum again when her boss tells
her not to have any more outbursts. Then she is fired, but she tells her
boss that he cannot fire her spirit. Then (the writers apparently having
been inspired by the movie "Clue") we are shown two different endings -
one in which it is revealed that Sullivan was actually killed by her
boss ten years ago but came back to life to avenge her death, and the
other is a martial arts movie ending with badly-dubbed dialogue. Funny
here is how in the second ending Sullivan puts on a pair of glasses and
LaMarr suddenly recognizes her as the woman he killed - as if he wouldn't
be able to recognize her without the glasses. This is another decent
sketch, worth watching primarily for Sullivan's performance ("YOU'RE
GOING TO FIRE ME - I CAN SEE IT IN YOUR EYES!"), especially
when she starts throwing stuff. 

Vista Militia: Finally, a "Mad TV Classic" from the good old days! This
one dates back to MD-113, and it's called Vista Militia (the same
episode contains a segment featuring Nicole Sullivan as a folk singer
with a visible amount of armpit hair). This is about a paramillitary
camp with anti-government loonies running around with guns; if you
want to go to this camp, you'd better bring your Vista card, because
they don't take American Express. It has a lot of the elements that made
the old show so good: location filming, topical political humor (at
the time, militia wackos were in the news all the time; the Freemen
were still holed up in Montana, and the federal government, already
having gotten egg in its face as a result of Ruby Ridge and Waco,
was afraid to take any decisive action); and tight editing that mimics
the style of real television commericals, unlike some of the more recent
commercial parodies which don't LOOK like real commericals. Moreover,
it's short; it makes its point and moves on, giving it a major advantage
over the "Saturday Night Live" of the day. [I recently screened the
1995-96 SNL season premiere with Mariel Hemingway as the guest host, and
even though the new cast was indisputably a vast improvement over the
prior season, the show still didn't impress me much.]

Closing Segment: Debra Wilson closes the show. This was OK.
===========================================================================
In my opinion MD-514 was a show that falls into the middle rank in terms
of overall quality, with a lot of variation: we get anything from the
excellent "Reading Caboose" to the pedestrian "Stick Chicks," with most
of the material falling somewhere in between. Phil LaMarr appears in
several segments, as if to allay fears that he has left the show for
good (I think he said in an interview that he's still in the cast), but
both LaMarr and Sullivan are conspicuously absent from the closing segment.
Also, according to the listings, this week's show was supposed to feature
an appearance by Christa Miller ("The Drew Carey Show"), but she was
nowhere to be seen, which is a bit of a disappointment. (5/10)

==========================================================================
      Number Six         | 
     dzien@nic.com       | http://www.nic0lesullivan.org
          OR             | (The Unofficial Nicole Sullivan Tribute Page)
info@nic0lesullivan.org  |
==========================================================================