Review of 4-8-2000 episode (MD-520; some spoilers) This review can also be found at: http://www.nic0lesullivan.org/md520.txt ========================================================================== Celine Dion Farewell Special: Hallo, what's this? It's the Celine Dion Farewell Special, but that's not Nicole Sullivan as Celine Dion - it's Mo Collins. She's here to introduce her sister, Maureen (Alex Borstein) as the new Celine (because she's retiring) - but she can't sing. Ricky Martin (Nelson Ascencio) also appears. Collins' Celine Dion puts a heavy emphasis on hand gestures. [From the side of the stage, she even exhorts Maureen to use the hand.] There was nothing particularly inspired here in my opinion (like the Celine Dion parody last year, this was arguably derived from the SNL Celine parody) - although Ascencio's Ricky Martin is good - and I got a laugh when Maureen, wearing a leg brace, drags herself offstage. William Shatner's Warehouse of Sperm: I didn't think much of Sasso's Shatner impression when it first aired in season three, but he's persisted and now it's one of the better celebrity impressions on the show. In this segment, Shatner (Sasso) takes a couple on a tour of his warehouse of sperm, where you can get anything from sperm he made when he was on Star Trek to Shatner sperm mixed in with George Takei sperm (oh, my) - he doesn't know how it got there, honest - to used sperm. This isn't the strongest commercial parody, but Sasso does a good job of breathing life into a relatively mediocre piece with his vivid impression of Shatner (though personally I would have liked a "what seems to be the problem" thrown in there somewhere - I am nitpicking of course). Elvis I: Another Sasso celebrity impression. Elvis (WIll Sasso) discusses a talking hot dog with two flunkies (Pat Kilbane, Michael McDonald). The lackeys are fawning idiots, complementing Elvis's verbiage as he describes the hot dog; one senses if he told a story about going to the bathroom they would find something good to say about it. The segment - which does not answer the question, "[w]ould you feel guilty about eating a talking hot dog" - cannot be fully appreciated without seeing the other two segments... The Stick Chicks: A mad bomber is on the loose at the mall, and the Stick Chicks (Nicole Sullivan, Debra Wilson, Alex Borstein) have to flush him/her out. The essential elements of this recurring segment are here: the girls' distrust of anything even remotely foreign (using the word "serviettes" is taken as prima facie evidence of malfeasance), overly simplistic solutions (the girls flush out the bomber by telling everyone who's NOT a bomber to leave the mall, and then defuse the bomb by cutting all the wires), Echo being treated like a pariah by the other two girls, and, of course, Champagne pointing out that she is pretty. As I said the second time this segment aired, I can't believe they decided to recur this segment. Although it potentially saves us from another Stuart sketch, "The Stick Chicks" still seems relatively formulatic and weak (although the idea of a "Charlie's Angels" parody at least shows that the writers aren't always looking to write the next "Intensity"). Of course the presence of Sullivan in my opinion is a plus, but even she can't save this segment. Elvis II: By now Elvis is six years older and is well into his Vegas Elvis impersonator stage. The lackeys are as effusive as ever, but their enthusiasm for Elvis's story seems a bit fake. This time he describes a lobster that was Richard M. Nixon. I thought this was going to be a clever conspiracy theory reference (i.e. Elvis is alive and well and his faked death was actually "deep cover" as he was recruited for the DEA by President Nixon), but in the next segment they never really elaborate further on the Nixon reference so I don't think that it was. Even so, this segment was OK. www.mahir.com: Two Turkish guys (Pat Kilbane, Will Sasso) use their web site in an attempt to meet naked ladies. We get to see Mahir (Kilbane) playing ping-pong, in a Speedo, and with his car. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. I actually thought this was kind of funny. Also I think that was an IMac, proving once again that Hollywood is in love with Apple computers. [All the computers in "Office Space" were Macs, and Mimi on "Drew Carey" has an IMac, not to mention Carey's IMac portable - this in a world in which PCs by and large are still dominant.] Elvis III: It's three days before Elvis's death, and by now Elvis is virtually incoherent - but at one point, the scales seem to fall from his eyes, or at least, the gods have given him a moment of lucidity. He predicts his own death (the hot dog called him up and told him so). It's funny in a sort of seriocomic way, and is essentially a bit out of the norm for a Saturday night sketch comedy show but is funny nonetheless. Phoney Funeral: A funeral-goer (Nicole Sullivan) carries on a conversation on her cell phone, much to the chagrin of the widow (Debra Wilson), the minister (Aries Spears), and everyone else. She goes out into the hall to continue her conversation, but of course she loses the signal, and returns to the room, eventually standing on the casket to get better reception. Then, the punchline. Sullivan to caller: "I'm at a funeral... No, just some guy I gave handjobs to in accounting." For the first time all night, I laughed out loud, and with good reason; for the first time in recent memory, the writers proved that they can write a sketch of the quality we took for granted on shows like "Kids in the Hall." [I saw two reruns of this excellent show on Comedy Central the previous night, so I am speaking from recent memory.] I give it a solid thumbs-up. Creed: I was going to resist the temptation to launch a diatribe on the current state of music, but I just bought an album by the recently-reunited Ratt, and I can't help but decry the cession of valuable air time to another whiney alternative band. Please, Mad TV producers, if there are going to be musical guests, let it be a REAL rock band. And there are such bands out there; old bands are reunited (even local legends The Misfits are back together, minus Glenn Danzig), and new bands are forming all the time. By the way, Creed's rendition of "Higher" was actually pretty good. Knight and Day: A black cop (Aries Spears) and an albino cop (Alex Borstein) join forces to fight crime. Here, the roles are reversed and it is the albinos who are perceived as criminals and mistrusted by blacks. Like the Stick Chicks it is a parody of 1970's crime dramas but a bit more intelligently done. We get the kind of feel-good idealism of these shows (blacks and whites can join forces to oppose evil along with the reinforcement of stereotypes (albinos by and large cannot be trusted). It's not the best parody they've done, but a good one. ========================================================================== MD-520 was one of the best shows in recent memory - which, given the relative mediocrity of the show of late is not saying very much but is an encouraging sign. Nicole Sullivan appears in two segments (three if you count the closing segment) - her first appearances on the show since the February 26th broadcast - which helps the show, but the main theater of operations for Nicole Sullivan devotees has shifted to Tuesdays at 9:30 PM. Even Creed isn't that annoying, and best of all, we get a whole show of all-new material. It would have been even better with a Vancome Lady sketch in place of the Stick Chicks. (6/10) ========================================================================== Number Six | dzien@nic.com | http://www.nic0lesullivan.org or | (The Unofficial Nicole Sullivan Tribute Page) info@nic0lesullivan.org | ==========================================================================