Review of 2-5-2000 episode (MD-515; some spoilers)

This review can also be found at:

        http://www.nic0lesullivan.org/md515.txt

Next week will be The Week of Nicole Sullivan: Nicole Sullivan
appears on "Fired Up" (USA Network, February 8, 10:30 AM EST), "Loveline"
(MTV, February 9, 11:30 PM EST), and on "The Drew Carey Show"
(Fox affiliates, February 10, check local listings for time). All
of the above are reruns, (actually I am not sure whether the "Fired
Up" episode ever aired before, so it may not be a "rerun"), but of
course she will also (presumably) appear in a first-run episode of
"Mad TV" on February 12 (Fox Network, 11:00 PM EST).

Also, Nicole Sullivan fans who are going to be in the New York City
area on February 11 or 18 (both Fridays) may want to attend the taping
of "Talk to Me," Ms. Sullivan's latest side project. These are
the last two tapings of the season. The show is taped in
Astoria, Queens at the Kaufman Astoria Studios; show time is 7:00 PM.
More information on how to obtain tickets can be found on my website
at http://www.nic0lesullivan.org.

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Opening Segment: Lorraine (Mo Collins) is supposed to introduce the
show, but (per usual) gets off track, and then does the introduction
wrong ("Welcome to MTV"). This was not great, but it wasn't long,
either.

Being James Brown: Ever want to be someone else? Now you can.
This is a parody of "Being John Malkovich," only
instead of paying money to enter the mind and life of actor John
Malkovich, a woman (Alex Borstein) pays fifty-two dollars to experience
what it's like to be James Brown on a date. Brown inhales stove gas,
urinates into the fish tank, and blows up his own house. This had
humorous potential, but it was a little over my head - is it
documented that Brown has engaged in misdemeanors like this, or are
the writers simply suggesting that given Brown's hyper personality,
it wouldn't be hard to imagine him doing these things? Or am I simply
going to far by trying to deconstruct this parody? Although I didn't
quite get it, I must admit the segment had some entertainment value,
although the potential with this was so much greater. Being James
Brown? How about being Robert Downey Jr., and having to experience
being raped in prison (OK, so it's not likely to actually happen to
him, but we can go places with this)? Or being Bill Clinton, and
experiencing getting a little presidential nookie from the interns
(this one is admittedly old, but still with some potential)? Maybe
we could have being Mike Tyson, and experience what it's like to
commit random acts of violence, then go to prison and discover Allah.
Surely they could have come up with something a little better here.

Molina and Lida - Wedding: In a sketch reminiscent of "Saint Elsewhere,"
Lida (Nicole Sullivan) is getting married (with Molina as the maid
of honor), only to be left at the alter when Maurice (Aries Spears)
dumps her for that skanky slut Rosa (Mo Collins). She awakens from
this dream, only to discover that the wedding dream was a dream within
a dream within a dream. Then we see Nicole Sullivan awakening on a couch,
telling Debra Wilson that she dreamed that she has spent the last five
years doing a sketch comedy show where she and Debra played these two
Latino women. Debra Wilson says that it will never happen. Then someone
knocks on the door and announces, "Nicole and Debra - five minutes to
Molina and Lida sketch" and they both scream "NOOOO!" in unison. I
wasn't expecting much from this sketch, but it turned out to be
the most cleverly done sketch in the show. The "waking up from a
dream" bit was highly derivative of course - Monty Python did it over
thirty years ago, and of course there was "Saint Elsewhere" and "Newhart"
 - but the use of this stock device was effective. Also good was Pat
 Kilbane, doing a variant of his Ricky Ricardo impression as a priest.

Sniggers Bar #1 - Vehicle Search: A black motorist (Aries Spears) is pulled
over by a white cop (Will Sasso) for dubious reasons. (He changes
his reason three times.) Then the cop forces the motorist out of the
car and begins trashing it. The motorist pulls out a Sniggers candy bar
and begins eating it. Then we hear a voice over: "Gonna be here for
a while? Have a Sniggers bar." Thus the segment works on two levels:
it is both a parody of racial profiling, and a parody of those Snickers
commercials. I may have appreciated the treatment of the racial profiling
issue more than most people, since profiling has been much more of an
issue in New Jersey than in other parts of the country, though I suppose
most people could identify with this to a greater or lesser degree. But
this was a good commercial parody, and this is something that most people
could appreciate. The production standards are still not what they were
during the first two seasons, but the Sniggers segments may well be the
best-produced commercial parodies since the budget cuts. It was
certainly better than the seemingly endless succession of Spishak products,
or segments like "Heroin P.M.," which were done on a shoestring (the latter
consists of one set with a couple in bed, and didn't even look like a
real commercial).

There is No Name for a Sketch About an Annoying Little Sister: This
is another segment with that teenager Will (Will Sasso) and his annoying
little sister (Alex Borstein). These characters first appeared on the show
about a year ago; this is the second segment. In this one, Will is trying
to make a home video that he's going to mail to a girl he likes, but
his sister keeps bursting into the room and saying things like "Will
wants to sex you" or "Will wets his bed." As in the previous sketch,
Will pushes his sister over, then immediately appears contrite, seemingly
concerned that he has injured her, but probably just worried that he'll
get in trouble. Thus the writers are relying on a device that was
used previously, but Borstein adds a new element to the character when
she starts bawling, which was quite funny in itself. The denouement,
with the kid sister getting the better of her older brother by mailing
the girl a tape in which she alleges than Will likes naked ladies, wears
stinking underpants, and eats his boogers. The girl watches, obviously
in disgust. Anyone who has had an annoying younger brother or sister
(or who has been abused by older siblings) can probably appreciate the
humor of this sketch, which was quite good.

Sniggers Bar #2 - Pimp Audition: An actor (Aries Spears) is auditioning for
the role of a pimp on "N.Y.P.D. Blue;" the dialogue consists of "[b]itch,
you'd better have my money." He sits in a room full of would-be pimps,
and takes out a Sniggers bar. Then the voice-over again ("Gonna be here
a while? Have a sniggers bar."). This was good; the way they parlayed this
parody into three separate segments, each with different scenarios was
reminiscent of the early days of the show when they did the same thing
 - e.g. some of the Vudweiser parodies, or NDI vs AE&E.

Ms. Swan: Ms. Swan (Alex Borstein) meets her father (Mark Hamill),
who faked her death last year to get away from her. He tries to goad
her into allowing him to use her nail salon to launder money; when
she does not comply, he tries to kill her. She dodges all the bullets
he shoots (I was hoping for more of a Matrix parody here, with Swan
catching the bullets), and then in a parody of "The Empire Strikes Back,"
Swan is left hanging over a walkway, and plummets to the bottom when
she refuses to become allies with her father. This was pretty good,
mainly because they managed to work a "Star Wars" parody into the
segment; it's probably not everyone's cup of tea but it was still a
good use of guest star Mark Hamill.

Sniggers Bar #3 - KKK: A black motorist (Aries Spears) has run out of
gas, he's about to ask for help from a group of people having a
barbeque - when he realizes they are all KKK guys and runs away, only
to be pursued by the KKK members. This had me laughing harder than any
other part of the show, and it made for a suitable conclusion to the
Sniggers Bar, even if the black guy isn't going to be there for a while,
at least as long as he escapes.

Bunifah - Driving Test: Bunifah (Debra Wilson) has to take her driving
test, is alternately congenial and rude to the DMV proctor,
and finally commits an act of road rage by challenging occupants of
another vehicle (one of whom called her a bitch) to a fight - then
lets the miscreants pummel the DMV guy, while she drives off to a
sale at the Booty Tree. The part where she leaves her left turn signal
on is reminiscent of a bit that Jerry Seinfeld did once where he
talks about old people in Florida always leaving their left turn signal
on ("it's legal - it's called the 'eventual left'") while the
white DMV guy getting beat up by two black toughs echoes of the
riots in South Central L.A. in 1992, where there was at least one
incident of a white guy getting pulled out of his vehicle and getting
beat up (makes one wonder why the police didn't cordon off the area).
Anyhow, this segment was entertaining enough; moreover, they haven't
overused this character so it hasn't overstayed its welcome, either.

Third Eye Blind: "It's Third Eye Blind, not Three Eye Blind," as someone
reminded me - and here they're doing their hit single "Never Let You
Go." My first reaction to this song was "ah - too alternative." But
as alternative music goes, this song was not bad (quite melodic,
actually), and having bands like this on the show demonstrates an
intent to aim squarely at Mad TV's younger demographic, which can
only help the show during this crucial February sweeps period.
Of course, it does detract from the comedy a bit - when the show
began, it was touted as wall-to-wall comedy, as opposed to SNL,
which has a musical guest every week doing not one but two songs.
On the other hand, having a musical guest is better than having a
"Mad TV Classic" every week. Thus I give the segment a thumbs up,
although seeing a band like Third Eye Blind still makes me long for
the days when hard rock ruled the airwaves (if only they could have
Nine Inch Nails on the show - or maybe Fear Factory - oh, nevermind).

Funky Walker Dirty Talker: Desperation Lee (Phil LaMarr) is back, this
time with guest Carmen Electra, in an effort to raise funk awareness.
I never thought very highly of this segment, and this didn't do much
to change my opinion, but at least we get a good guest appearance
from Carmen Electra. [Is she still married to Dennis Rodman?] Some have
suggested that FWDT is actually based on "The Ladies' Man," the Tim
Meadows character from SNL. I was watching a rerun of SNL on Comedy
Central the other day during dinner, and saw a TLM segment during the
show (it was hosted by Matthew Perry) - and I have to say that the
two characters are rather similar, although The Ladies' Man is even
more of a womanizer, if you can believe it. [When a woman who describes
herself as "big" discloses her weight as "200 pounds," he says that
when she said she was big, he thought she meant 130 or 140 pounds.]
The dirty talk bit is certainly getting old, it's all "I want to shove
my thing into your thing wherever in your thing that it fits."
Still, it's good for a cheap laugh or two.

Closing Segment: Mo Collins closes the show. Again, Phil LaMarr and
Nicole Sullivan are absent. This was OK.
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It has been the contention of some fans (including myself) that "Mad TV"
was excellent in the first two seasons, and since then has declined in
quality. While this is still generally true (the improvement in season
five notwithstanding), it is clear that the producers have made an
effort during February sweeps. This episode didn't qualify as outstanding,
but it was enough of an improvement over recent shows to be noteworthy.
The best segment in my opinion was the Molina and Lida sketch and the
worst was FWDT. The rest of the sketches and segments were mostly above
average. The Sniggers parody was noteworthy because it brings back
memories of the commercial parodies of old (though the production values
were still somewhat inferior, in spite of the improvement over
season four). Nicole Sullivan only appears in one sketch here
(the Molina and Lida one), and I presume we can expect her to
make only sporadic appearances for the rest of the season, since
the end of taping for "Talk to Me" (February 18) coincides almost
exactly with the end of taping for "Mad TV" (usually late February/early
March). There is still no sign of Christa Miller in this week's show (not
even in the trailer for next week's show); I wonder if they axed this
segment. (7/10)

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