Review of 5-20-2000 episode (MD-525; better late than never; some spoilers)

This review can also be found at:

        http://www.nic0lesullivan.org/md525.txt

Finally, another season of reviews done. This makes it two and a half
years. Hopefully this summer I'll have time to finish seasons one and
two (I think I'm missing one or two from season three as well). 

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The Love Connection: Chuck Woolery (Pat Kilbane) hosts the 80's game show
in which a trashy couple (Nicole Sullivan, Will Sasso) recount their
date. In keeping with the 1980's theme, phrases such as "tubular" and
"to the max" are part of these characters' lexicon. [The reference to
"Pac Man Fever" was an anachronism, though: by 1983, Pac Man was
passe; games like Zaxxon were all the rage.] The redaction gets
progressively raunchier - the impish Woolery just wanted to know if they
kissed before dinner, but they recount an evening involving oral sex, 
drug abuse, electrocution as a form of sexual stimulus, and the use
of a drifter. [How kinky is that? The only thing kinkier I can think of
off the top of my head is a menage-a-trois between Adolf Hitler, the
corpse of Caroline Bisset Kennedy, and Elian Gonzalez.] Interesting is that
Will Sasso is fat, so this sketch was probably filmed some time ago. As
a parody, they did a pretty good job here; they seem to have captured
the look and feel of the old Love Connection show. It also helps that
this was pretty funny. [E.g. Woolery to Betamax repairwoman: "So did you
kiss?" Woman: "On the lips? No...I don't think so."] Then when Woolery asks
if they want another date, the woman says "no" and the segment ends. Kudos
to this segment - and kudos to the Love Connection, the show for people
who don't have enough self respect to stay home and masturbate.

Paul's Crush: A worker (Michael McDonald) tells her boss (Nicole Sullivan)
that he has a deep crush on her, flatters her - but he doesn't stop there,
and eventually he turns hostile, so that in his mind she goes from
being the nicest person in the world to being a psycho. This was
plagued by McDonald's overacting, as usual - but it was still good; in
many ways, it seems almost a throwback to the old days of Mad TV, when
the show was more focused on sketch comedy and the sketches overall were
better.

Bunifah: Bunifah (Debra Wilson) goes to The Booty Tree, intending to pull
a typical Bunifah move - she's going to return a pair of worn-out shoes
to the store without a receipt, and when the clerk (Mo Collins) refuses,
she accuses her of being racist. Then the store manager (Tyra Banks)
emerges - she is dressed almost exactly the same as Bunifah - and she
matches Bunifah's harangue with one of her own. Nonetheless, by the
end of the sketch, they are best of friends - they even both call Sonya
(sic?) on their cell phones. This was another good sketch - Banks does
a good job of mimicking Bunifah's mannerisms and speech, making this
more interesting to watch than the average "Bunifah" sketch.

Marvin Hears a Pitch: The fat bastard (Michael McDonald) that appears
occassionally as a recurring character is seen here at work. He's a producer, and
a woman (Debra Wilson) has an appointment to see him to pitch a movie idea.
In the meantime, he's distracted by efforts to lose weight, which include
exercising and having his personal assistant (Mo Collins) put her lunch
where he can't smell it; eventually, the woman loses her patience and
leaves. On the plus side, it disproves those who say that all Michael
McDonald characters are a variant of either Stuart or Rusty - this
character is nothing like them. On the minus side, the sketch is not
very funny. Marvin keeps saying "come on" as if saying it ad infinitum
will somehow transform it into a catch phrase. ["Isn't that special?" is
a catch phrase. "Tcha, you know what?" is a catch phrase. This isn't.]
The physical humor is somewhat funny - he is propelled backwards off of
the treadmill into his personal assistant towards the end - but that
got old after the first couple of Marvin sketches, so even that is of
limited value. On the plus side, they don't use this character very often,
but that didn't make watching this sketch any more enjoyable.

As the Ankle Turns: A couple (Michael McDonald, Alex Borstein) is out on a
date. The woman apparently falls and twists her ankle, and becomes
increasingly melodramatic about it - she says he must leave to see
the movie they were going to see together, and even convinces her that
he should shoot her to put her out of her misery. It turns out it was
all a sham; she didn't twist her ankle; it was all a ploy to find out
whether or not he really loved her - the bullet, however was real, and
she goes to the movie suffering a gunshot wound. This was actually quite
good - somehow they wrote a sketch that accentuates the kind of quirky
sense of humor that is somewhat of a trademark for Borstein. McDonald
isn't too bad here, either, even though the sketch doesn't require him
to do that much; this is really Borstein's show. Interesting is that a
show that has essentially made a name for itself with parodies went back
to sketches for the season finale; what's even more surprising is that
most of them were good.

Collecting Collectables: A show about collectables visits the home of
Trina (Mo Collins), the rather sad barren woman which was featured in
two sketches early on in season four. We get to see her collection of
"Precious Moments" figurines. She doesn't talk much about being barren;
now she's just basically creepy, but in a funny way. When the show's
host (Debra Wilson) asks to come in she says "Where are my manners?" - then
instead of showing her in, she says deadpan "Where are they?" [Eventually,
she does tell a story about going to the bathroom on a plane, which
somehow is supposed to explain why she can't have babies.] This
was extremely funny; it's not really anything that would seem that
funny on paper; most of it has to do with the way Collins portrays the
character. This character was easily Collins' best character from season
four and I was pleasanly surprised to see they brought it back.

Sylvia: Miss Sylvia (Debra Wilson), the character from that pharmacy
sketch that aired last season, is back to teach kids about sexually
transmitted diseases. And per usual, she embarrasses everyone: she
reveals that a girl in the class (Alex Borstein) has vaginal warts,
that one of the boys (Aries Spears) has herpes, and that the teacher
(Michael McDonald) is having a homosexual tryst with the wood shop teacher.
Imagine this woman as a more eccentric version of Jocelyn Elders and
you get the general idea. I have to say that this was better than the
pharmacy sketch (which almost seemed a ripoff of a Monty Python sketch
from the early 1970's); this character is pretty much a one-trick pony
(all she does is make embarassing revelations about people's private
areas), but it had some funny moments, and they don't use this character
that often anyway.

Antonia: Antonia (Nicole Sullivan) tries to get one of the guards at
Buckingham Palace to laugh. Of course, eventually she does, with the most
conventional of jokes ("got your nose"). Although it wasn't the most
original of ideas (smacks of a "Mr. Bean" segment), this segment was
pretty good; I thought it was a good idea to do something that plays
on the offbeat nature of this character. And of course now that Phil
LaMarr is more or less gone, they have to look for new things to do with
this character. Funniest moment: Antonia pantomiming a rowboat.
("Ow. Ow. Ow.") Another good thing about the Antonia sketches is that
they've so far managed to keep them short.

Closing Segment: Alex Borstein reminds us to tune in next season to see
who makes the cut and who doesn't. Interesting is that when they taped
this, they didn't know that "Mad TV" was going to be renewed - the
announcement was not made until early May, while taping ends in March,
although it would have been highly unlikely that Fox would cancel the show
- but it would be interesting to know if they taped an alternate ending
in case this was the last first-run episode of the series. This was
pretty good.

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Overall, MD-525 was easily one of the best shows of the season. The only
weak sketch in my opinion was the Marvin sketch. The show reverts back
to sketch comedy with good results; many of the better recurring characters
from the last two years are represented here with some good one-off pieces
thrown in for good measure. This allows the show to end May sweeps on
a high note (unlike last year). The season as a whole was surprisingly
good. Most fans who saw both seasons four and five would probably agree
that season five was superior to season four. They may not do anything
crazy like put together a show that's as good as seasons one and two, but
this is a sign that the show may be able to stage an SNL-like comeback.
[To draw the analogy further, imagine season four as Mad's Charles Rocket
year.] I will probably have more to say about the season in the future.
But just the fact that I thought this season was pretty good probably
is significant, since I have on the whole been fairly pessimistic about
the show for a long time. [8/10]



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