Review of 10-13-2001 episode (MD-704; some spoilers)

This review can also be found at:

        http://www.nic0lesullivan.org/md704.txt

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The Lance Bass Show: The incredibly vapid Lance Bass (Will Sasso) is
given his own talk show. His delivery is completely deadpan (or
indicative of a lobotomy, depending on your perspective). His first
two guests are Chris Tucker (Debra Wilson) and Jackie Chan (Bobby
Lee), whose incoherent ramblings manage to bring the show down even
more. We also see fake clips from Lance Bass's movie and "Rush Hour 2."
He reads his question off of index cards and can't fill a one hour show.
The celebrity impersonations here are rather good; the parody is dead-on
as far as imitating real life - the networks will give a show to any
celebrity with pull, regardless of his/her ability to do the job (e.g.
Carson Daly will be the new host of "Later"). The execution, though,
falls a little short; I didn't find this to be that funny, although
as I mentioned, the impersonations were fairly accurate.

Rusty at the Movies: Rusty (Michael McDonald) is the cashier at a multiplex,
and Mo Collins is the young woman unfortunate enough to ask him what
movie she should go see. This was actually not bad for a Rusty sketch,
although it was more of an excuse to make fun of a bunch of movies.
Amongst the movies skewered were "Rush Hour 2" (Chris Tucker's voice
is annoying), "Rat Race" (not funny), AI ("absolutely idiotic"),
"Planet of the Apes" (not as good as the original), and "American Pie 2"
(utter garbage except for Eugene Levy, who as far as Rusty is concerned,
is God). Is not surprising that this sketch was good; "Mad TV" is
filmed in L.A. and is at it's best when it's deflating the pretensions of
Hollywood. Both the cast members carried out their roles expertly,
especially McDonald as Rusty.

Jesse Helms - Viagra: Jesse Helms (Frank Caliendo) is hired as a
spokesperson for Viagra, but he can't help but offend everyone under the
sun. He lambasts Bob Dole (whom he refers to as a liberal), claims his
probable successor, Elizabeth Dole, is a lesbian, and makes offensive
comments directed at blacks and gays. This was one of the first poltical
parodies of the season and was pretty funny; they exagerated Helms'
propensity to offend others, but not by much. The Helms impression
was somewhat generic - it could have been any geriatric Southerner,
and didn't seem to mimic Helms very closely, but finding fault here
may be nitpicking a bit - overall, the sketch was quite good.

Reality Check: Denzel Washington is supposed to be the guest, but
instead Velma (Aries Spears) cancels him and talks about her amazing
weight reduction (she is considerably slimmer) with her dietician
(Stephanie Weir). They try to stage an intervention to help Tobah (Debra
Wilson), but instead Tobah turns the tables on them and gets Velma to
pig out. Reality Check was never one of my favorite segments and there
was little here to change my mind; it's probably one of the most
over-utilized sketches on the current show. That having been said, this
sketch did have its moments, although too few, in my opinion, to justify
the amount of air time it was given.

Karen and Dot - Home Schooling: The unusual twins - the child prodigy
Karen Goddard (Alex Borstein) and her rather retarded twin sister Dot
(Stephanie Weir). The elements of the characters are fleshed out a
bit more here in the third sketch - Dot's obsession with gloves and
Karen's hyper-precociousness and her parent's cruel attitude towards
Dot are all explored here. In the end, Dot dislocates her arm and
her father (Michael McDonald) takes her to the free clinic. While it wasn't
the funniest sketch on the show, it was a worthy installment of this
recurring segment. The length was about right as well; it wasn't
ruined by being dragged out, like so many recent sketches have been.

Nice Guy: A man (Michael McDonald) who goes to great
lengths to impress his date (Stephanie Weir) goes in for the kill: he
mentions that he has a retarded brother (he refers to him as "mentally
challenged") whom he helps train for the Special Olympics. When he
shows her a videotape of him training his brother (he applies a
gung-ho approach to the training, like chasing him with a javelin
and calling him "stupid"), she gets angry, but she becomes apologetic
when he explains that he pushes his brother because he wants him to
win. Then, the punch line: they're off to the movies, and the man
asks if his brother can tag along - so they can park in the handicapped
spot. This was arguably the best sketch in the show: the writing was
good, the sketch actually had a punch line, the cast members carried
out their roles almost flawlessly, and they didn't even have to rely
on cheap humor (unless you're so PC that you think that the references
to the retarded brother were inappropriate).

Alien Ant Farm: Alien Ant Farm appears (the first musical guest of
the new season) performing their hit song "Smooth Criminal," but
not before Michael Jackson (Aries Spears) performs briefly to show
that he still has it. This impression wasn't as dead-on as Phil
LaMarr's; still, something had to be said: the appearance of a rather
decrepit Michael Jackson on the MTV Music Awards in early September
was so pathetic that it was utterly lampoonable. Alien Ant Farm
wasn't bad either; it wasn't really my type of music, but they exemplify
alternative hard rock fairly well.

Mad TV Encore - Arnold's New Movie: This is a segment from last season.
Arnold Schwartznegger (Will Sasso), who in real life had the release
of his new movie, "Collateral Damage," delayed (apparently it was too
much like real life), presides over an E! Behind The Scenes segment
about his movie "Stolen Identity III." I reviewed this segment when it
was first aired so I won't comment any further here.

Closing Segment: We are given a distant view of the stage; then the
camera zooms in (something new, I think). Will Sasso closes the show.
Then as the credits roll, we see some bloopers, as if the producers
want to convince us they're trying to cram as much comedy into the hour
as possible (if they are, then why are they showing repeat segments (like
the Mad TV Encore) and why are half the sketches dragged out long after
they have overstayed their welcome? This was OK.
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This show (it's actually MD-703, but I will refer to it as MD-704 in
order to avoid confusion) was probably the best of the season so far,
although not by much. I didn't care much for "Reality Check" and the
Lance Bass parody, but there were several strong segments, including
the sketch about the man with the retarded brother, the Karen and Dot
sketch, and the Rusty sketch. I rate this somewhere between a 6 and
a 7, but since I have to round up to the nearest integer, I give it
a: [7/10]

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