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| She dated this guy? Nicole Sullivan (left) with Lance Krall (right) on The Cindy Margolis Show. |
Nicole Sullivan rocks.
The Cindy Margolis Show, unfortunately, doesn't.
She dated this guy? Nicole Sullivan (left) with Lance Krall (right) on
The Cindy Margolis Show.
In case you missed it, Nicole Sullivan was the guest on The Cindy Margolis Show on September 2, 2000. This date will go down in history as the first time the presence of Nicole Sullivan in a TV show was not enough to compel me to continue watching the show. Instead, I turned off the TV and listened to a CD for about twenty minutes, and then went to bed, leaving the VCR running. The next Friday, I began the odious task of sifting through the footage in order to write this summary.
Cindy Margolis, in case you've been in a broom closet for the last few years, is a former Cal State-Northridge business major who, some years ago, posed for a series of cheesecake photos. When Extra, which did a feature on Margolis, put her photo on their website in 1996, it reportedly got a lot of hits. This prompted Margolis to launch www.cindymargolis.com, becoming the first celebrity to have her own website. She is reportedly the most "downloaded" woman on the Internet (according to The Guinness Book of World Records), something that was probably a factor when CBS decided to give her a TV show, which airs on the eye network after The Howard Stern Radio Show.
If nothing else, The Cindy Margolis Show proves that having a good marketing idea doesn't necessarily mean that you have the ability to create good - or even watchable - television. It also proves that (at least if I am any indication) a T&A show will not necessarily compel viewers to continue to watch the show. [Actually, I've known that for years - I had the misfortune of watching the Richard Bey Show on WWOR circa 1992 just as the show was degenerating into a cut-rate version of The Howard Stern Show. The show was cancelled within a year or so, and nobody has heard much from Richard Bey since then.] Luckily, though, this show airs so late that few people are likely to stumble across it by accident.
And what can we say of Nicole Sullivan's appearance on this show? She gamely goes through the motions that are required of guests on the show, which include treating co-host Lance Krall with a greater degree of civility than he probably deserves, participating in a game called "Skribble Says" [a form of musical chairs in which a group of men and women dance on stage; when the music stops all the dancers must be completely still; whichever gender stops last has to take off an article of clothing] by telling which article of clothing the men must remove (first she had them remove their pants, then their shirts). Later on in the show, a group of "web-kini" girls parade around on the stage, and Ms. Sullivan asks each of them in turn questions. [In case you're wondering, the questions aren't of the sort that would tax the capabilities of Einstein or Steven Hawking; a typical question is "if you were instructing your Jedi knight on how to use his light sabre, what would you tell him?" Another girl is simply asked to oil herself.] We are then instructed to go to the website and vote for our favorite web-kini girl (although I still don't have the faintest idea why). This particular installment of the show was built around a 1970's theme (hence, the Star Wars question), and Ms. Sullivan looked resplendent in her 1970's regalia, which included a siena-brown jacket with long fringes, dark pants with a tesselated pattern, high-heeled shoes, and a headband to make the ensemble complete.
In summary, this show has the unfortunate distinction of being the first-ever occassion in which the fact that Nicole Sullivan - my favorite female comedienne bar none - was not enough to compel me to continue watching the show. Unfortunately, even Ms. Sullivan can't save this show, and the lame format of the show proves an inhibition to her natural comedic talent, which when allowed to flourish can be a joy to watch - witness her recent appearances on Talk Soup and countless hours of Mad TV. If she ever appears on the show again - if, indeed, the show lasts long enough to have repeat guests - perhaps she will find a way to spice things up and lift the show above the abysmal level it currently occupies. But I'm not holding my breath.
Video clips (in Quicktime 4.0 format):