Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.8 “Mutiny on Mr. Christian”

Posted on February 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and Peacock!

This week, Howard leaves the store once again. Chaos follows.

Episode 3.8 “Mutiny on Mr. Christian”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on November 7th, 1987)

Howard goes on another one of the 100 vacations that he seems to take during the year, leaving Christian in charge of the store. To no one’s surprise, Christian turns out to be a total martinet who times Marlene’s check-out speed, bothers Leslie at the deli, and refuses to give out the paychecks early. “The book says 4:00,” Christian explains, “and I’m doing things by the book.”

When Howard returns early, Marlene rats on Christian and reveals, amongst other things, that Christian attempted to strip search a female shop lifter. (Agck! As someone who was a compulsive makeup stealer in her teen years, I’m glad Target didn’t have the same policy.) Howard probably could fire Christian for the strip search stunt but instead, he …. well, he does nothing.

Christian, however, gets back at Marlene by disguising his voice, calling her, and telling her that she has won two tickets to Atlantic City as a part of a newspaper sweepstakes that she was taking part in. Marlene is super-excited and can’t wait to take her grandmother on a real vacation. Christian suffers a pang of guilt. When he later calls to tell Marlene that she didn’t win the tickets, Howard overhears him. Christian is forced to tell Marlene what he did. Instead of yelling at Christian, Marlene says she’ll just win the tickets for real.

Marlene does not win the contest. But Howard, Leslie, and even Christian all buy her tickets to Atlantic City. Awwwww!

Plotwise, this episode felt like a season two episode. Howard is once again going on vacation whenever he wants. Christian is once again acting like a jackass. Leslie and Marlene are once again allied against the world. Edna is not in the episode and neither is Viker. Even the ending feels like a season two ending. Marlene takes the tickets from Christian while Marlene returns the other tickets to Leslie and Howard so that they can get refunds. They laugh about getting one over on Christian though they might want to consider that Christian, for once, tried to do the right thing without being ordered to do so.

That said, this episode works like a season 3 episode because it focuses on the show’s three most consistently funny performers, Jeff Pustil, Aaron Schwartz, and Kathleen Laskey. Schwartz has fun with Leslie’s snarky insults. Laskey brings an edge to Marlene’s sarcasm. Jeff Pustil is always at his best when he’s portraying Christian’s attempts to weasel out of being held responsible for his actions. The three of them more than make up for the fact that Don Adams himself feels a bit off in this episode.

All in all, this wasn’t the best episode of the show or even the third season. But it still made me smile.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.7 “He’s No Heavy, He’s My Brother”

Posted on February 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hey, Howard has an older brother! I wonder how this will work out….

Episode 3.7 “He’s No Heavy, He’s My Brother”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 25th, 1987)

In this episode, we meet Howard’s brother, George (Gary Krawford). George is an extremely wealthy money manager who lives in Switzerland. At the start of the episode, he is fired because his employers want to hire a younger man who they can pay less.

Dejected, George returns to Canada. He visits Howard at the store. Because George doesn’t specify that he was fired, Howard assumes that George is dying. Howard reveals that their father always liked George better. George eventually reveals that he’s not dying and that, being worth five million dollars, he doesn’t need a job in Howard’s store. Good for George. I’m happy for him.

George buys Howard’s apartment building. He then tells Howard that he’s a month behind on his rent. Howard jokes about George evicting him. George evicts Howard. End of episode.

This was a weird episode. I’m going to assume that the show’s producers were thinking of making George a regular character on the show and this episode was perhaps an attempt to reboot the entire series into a show that would focus 0n the rivalry between the Bannister brothers. According to the imdb, though, this is the only episode in which George appeared. Watching this episode, it occurred to me that the entire third season, so far, has featured epiosdes about characters who only appeared once or twice before vanishing. The third season has been an improvement over the previous season but it’s still obvious that the show was still struggling to figure out what it actually wanted to be about. This has not only led to a messy continuity but also a few unresolved cliffhangers. Last episode, it appeared Jack Christian was going to get his own store. In this episode, he’s still assistant manager at Howard’s store and no mention is made of last week’s events.

The strangest thing about this episode, though, is the show’s insistence that Howard is only in his forties when Don Adams was clearly in his sixties. George is introduced as being Howard’s older brother but actor Gary Krawford was nearly 20 years younger than Adams and he looked it, too.

Strange, strange episode. Considering George never again appeared after this episode, it’s probably best not to worry too much about it. This episode might end with Howard getting evicted (and seriously, the man manages a store, shouldn’t he able to cover his rent?) but I have a feeling we’ll never hear about it again.

Either that or Howard will be forced to live in the store, which is what he pretty much does already. The important thing is that it will all work out.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out 3.6 “Edna’s Choice”

Posted on February 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Howard’s dead! Or maybe not.

Episode 3.6 “Edna’s Choice”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 24th, 1987)

This week’s episode opens with a rather odd scene in which Howard Bannister, who is still wearing his “Howie” manager uniform, showing up outside the gates of Heaven. He’s shocked to find that Edna is waiting for him. She has big wings on her back. She says that she was made an angel when she came to Heaven because she lived a perfect life after she broke up with Howard. Howard is surprised. Edna mentions that she broke up with Howard because he refused to recommend her for a promotion that would have given her a store of her own to manage. Howard refers to God as being a guy. Edna replies that God is a woman and then sends Howard to hell.

WHAT!?

With this scene, the show establishes that 1) Edna and Howard broke up, 2) Edna died before Howard, and 3) Howard went to Hell. That’s a lot to take in!

Of course, it all turns out to be a dream that Edna was having. Edna tells Marlene about her dream and then she doesn’t mention it again for the rest of the episode. This is despite the fact that Edna receives a chance to be promoted and Howard doesn’t recommend her for the job. You would think that Edna would link all of this to her dream and maybe warn Howard that he was condemning his soul to the fires of Hell. Maybe she forgot about her dream. These things happen occasionally. I sometimes forget about my dreams, too!

It’s between Jack Christian and Edna for the new store manager job and, in a very odd scene, Mrs. Schutlz (Barbara Gordon) interviews them both at the same time. (Oddly, everyone at the store acts as if they all know Mrs. Schultz, despite this being her first appearance on the show.) Edna notices that all of the questions appear to be biased against Christian. Mrs. Schultz asks what they would do if a customer came in the store wearing the same dress as them. Mrs. Schultz asks Christian what he would do if a customer was having PMS. (“What’s PMS?” Christian asks and sweetie, you don’t want to know.) Edna realizes that Gordon is only interested in giving the job to another woman so Edna turns down the promotion. She wants to earn the job on her merits and nothing else. And she doesn’t break up with Howard so I guess he still has a chance to getting into Heaven.

This episode was weird. The dream sequence was actually pretty funny and Gordon Clapp scored a few laughs as the store’s dim-witted electrician. That said, the whole job interview storyline felt strange. Admittedly, I’ve never had to actually interview for any of the jobs that I’ve had but still, I just imagine it’s handled a bit differently than in this episode. It was a weird episode. Edna should have taken that job and ran with it.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.5 “Not For Commercial Use”

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the news comes to Cobb’s!

Episode 3.5 “Not For Commercial Use”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 18th, 1987)

The local news station is coming down to Cobb’s to do a story on how things have changed at the store now that the company is under new management.

Really?

Is it just a super slow news day or something? The insinuation is that it’s actually going to be a 30-minute news special, all about an obscure grocery store in the suburbs of Ontario. (In this episode, Check It Out! finally admits that the show is taking place in Canada.) I mean, even if it is a slow news day, I just can’t imagine that a thirty-minute story about Cobb’s would be a huge ratings grabber.

Howard is excited about the idea of being on television. He calls his Aunt Lil and promises to tug on his ear so that she’ll know that he’s thinking of her. Howard imagines himself as a TV star. There’s Howard hosting a talk show! There’s Howard as a tough detective. It’s all kind of silly but, in its way, kind of cute. Howard is a lot more likable this season than he was during the previous two seasons. And Don Adams, who can sometimes seem a bit indifferent when it comes to playing Howard, actually gave a lively performance in this episode.

TC Collingwood (Elizabeth Hanna), who I guess is supposed to be the liaison between the store and the corporate offices, does not want Howard to appear on TV. She feels that Howard is a bit too …. I guess “dorky” would be the right term to use here. She thinks that Howard is going to embarrass the store with his bad jokes and his Bogart impersonation. TC would rather focus on employees like Leslie, who now wears a chef’s hat and who has apparently transferred from working as a cashier to working in the deli.

(One thing that I’ve noticed is that, during season 3, the show finally hired enough extras to make the store seem like a real place. There are now employees and shoppers all over the place. Marlene is no longer the only cashier and Leslie appears to have a good crew working with him at the deli)

As for Howard, he does manage to get on television. He simply cannot be stopped! He wanders in front of the camera. He tells bad jokes. He does even worse impersonations. TC ends up locking him in a meat locker but it turns out that the CEO of the company really enjoyed Howard and his antics. Good for Howard, I guess.

This episode continued this season’s pattern of being far better than the two that came before it. For once, every member of the cast was allowed a chance to shine. This episode was worth watching for Viker’s attempt to tell a knock knock joke alone. Check It Out! was a deeply silly show but at least in the third season it’s finally got consistently funny.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Howard’s paranoid and with good reason! They are all out to get him….

Episode 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 17th, 1987)

After the new stockboy, 12 year-old Brad (played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge), shows Howard a newspaper article about how the company that purchased Cobb’s has been sending corporate spies into its stores to evaluate management, Howard gets extremely paranoid. He becomes convinced that there must be a spy in the store. He gathers Brad, Leslie, Christian, Viker, and Marlene into the stockroom and asks them if they’ve noticed anyone strange in the store. He also suggests that any one of them could possibly be the spy.

Or maybe — just maybe — the spy is the new butcher who keeps asking Howard all sorts of questions about the other employees. He would seem to be the most likely suspect and we know it’s him because the episode opens with him getting his assignment and talking about how he can’t wait to get Howard Bannister fired. Howard, of course, is so paranoid about the possibility of there being a spy in the store that he expresses all of his fears and frustrations to the spy. In other words, this is yet another episode episode where Howard is a complete moron. The previous season was split evenly between episodes where Howard was competent and episodes where Howard was an idiot. The episodes featuring stupid Howard were always funnier than the episodes featuring smart Howard so I think the showrunners made the right decision to focus o Howard’s stupidity in the third season. No one wants to watch a show about a good boss. What fun is that?

(It’s kind of like how we loved The Office when it was all about Michael screwing up but, when it became about new boss Andy proving himself, we all tuned out.)

It turns out that not everyone at the new corporation is supportive of the whole spy thing. T.C. Collingwood comes to the store and informs Howard that his butcher is the spy. Howard replies by giving the spy a lot of work to do. I guess that’s one way to handle it but it doesn’t change the fact that Howard told the spy that everyone at the store was incompetent and should be fired. This episode makes less and less sense the more that I think about it. Can’t corporate just look at whether or not the store had made any money and use that to determine whether or not Howard’s doing a good enough job? This episode didn’t make much sense.

Incidentally, Edna was on vacation during this episode. How many vacation does Edna get in the year? It seems like she’s never at the store. I have a feeling that Howard is going to run off with T.C. Collingwood at some point in the new future. Maybe that’s for the best. At least then Edna wouln’t have to flee to Florida every month.

Next week …. Howard wants to be a TV star! We’ll see what happens.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out 3.3 “Puppy Love”

Posted on January 11, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, some new guy shows up.

Episode 3.3 “Puppy Love”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 11th, 1987)

Derek has a crush on–

WHO!?

This episode introduces a brand new character named Derek (played by Andrew Miller). He’s a shy teenager who works in the store, cleaning the floors and occasionally bagging groceries. We’ve never seen him before but the show acts as if he’s always been around. At one point, he talks to Howard about how much he’s always admired him and Howard acts as if he’s known Derek for years. Derek has quite a bit in common with Murray, who Simon Reynolds played during the first two seasons of the show. To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me if this episode’s story was originally envisioned as being a Murray episode before Reynolds left the show.

Anyway, Derek has a crush on Marlene. The episode opens with him having an extended fantasy about waking up with Marlene in his house. It’s mostly notable because 1) this is the first time that we’ve ever seen Derek and 2) it’s one of the few times that Check It Out has ever utilized a set other than the grocery store. Feeling too shy to actually ask her out in person, Derek decides to start leaving Marlene anonymous notes. Marlene is excited because she thinks that the notes are being written by a handsome customer (Page Fletcher) who always flirts with her.

When one note asks her to dinner, Marlene goes to a nice restaurant and expects to see the customer. Instead, Derek’s there to meet her. Still not realizing that Derek is the one who sent her the notes and convinced that she’s been stood up, Marlene makes a joke about Derek being too young for her. Derek’s heart is broken! Then again, Derek is only sixteen so, seriously, he is way too young for Marlene. In fact, what’s he even doing at a restaurant by himself? Where are your parents, Derek!?

In the end, it all works out. Marlene discovers that Derek was the one sending her the notes and she apologizes for breaking his heart. Meanwhile, the handsome customer comes by the store and asks Marlene out. Yay! Marlene is the character to whom I relate so I’m glad when good things happen to her. Though, now that I think about it, Page Fletcher was the host of that Hitchhiker show where he was always showing up right before something terrible happened to someone. Be careful, Marlene!

This episode was okay. Marlene is one of the best characters on the show and Kathleen Laskey can get laughs out of even the lamest of one-liners so the episodes that center around her are usually better than the ones that don’t. The only real problem with this episode is that it requires us to suddenly care about Derek, despite the fact that we have no idea who he is. But, then again, that’s Check it Out for you. The important thing is that this episode continued season 3’s steak of being more consistently funny than season 2.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out 3.2 “Hey, Take Me Over”

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Howard continues to dream of a better job. Good luck with that, Howard.

Episode 3.2 “Hey, Take Me Over”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 10th, 1987)

Cobb’s has been sold! Because the new owner is a huge corporation that owns several luxury resorts, Howard convinces himself that he’s going to be promoted to running a hotel in Tahiti. (Howard’s background in hotel management has been one of the few consistent things in Check It Out.) Instead, corporate vice president T.C. Collingwood (Elizabeth Hanna) comes down to the store and tells Howard that he needs to start wearing a smock that says “Howie, Store Manager” on it.

Howard does what any reasonably immature, 50ish man would do. He quits. But then Edna explains that Howard will lose his pension if he quits so Howard decides that maybe wearing the smock won’t be so bad. “You’re throwing away your future,” Edna says at one point, as if Howard isn’t clearly approaching the age when most people retire.

This episode really drove home one of the biggest issues with Check It Out!, which is that Howard was written to be an ambitious man in his 40s but he was played by Don Adams who, when the show began, was already in his 60s. Now, it should be admitted that Adams looked about ten years younger than his actual age but still, Howard comes across as a bit too old to still be fantasizing about suddenly changing careers. There’s a principle that everyone rises to their level of incompetence. They keep getting promoted until they reach a job they can’t do and then, they get stuck there. Howard’s level of incompetence appears to be working as a general manager of a grocery store.

Howard eventually does put on the smock and agrees to keep working at his job. What’s odd about this is that Howard was already wearing the smock during the previous episode. Obviously, the episodes that made up the final season of Check It Out! were not aired in their intended order.

For all of the flaws to be found in this episode, it was still better than the majority of the second season. It would appear that, with season 3, the show’s producers and writers finally settled on Howard being an incompetent manager and the store being a mess. That’s definitely the right way to go. When it comes to workplace sitcoms, incompetence is always funnier than hypercompetence. (Just consider the U.S. version of The Office, in which the funniest episodes featured the office in chaos and the cringiest episodes were always the ones the centered on how good Jim was at selling paper.) No one respects Howard and Howard has no idea how to do his job. That’s a lot funnier than whatever the second season was trying to do.

Finally, I should mention that T and T‘s Sean Roberge has a small role in this one, playing the new bagboy. If I’ve learned anything from doing these retro television reviews, it’s that, in the late 80s, syndicated Canadian television shows really did seem to share the same small pool of actors.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out 3.1 “The Umpire Strikes Out”

Posted on December 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we begin the third and final season of Check It Out!

Episode 3.1 “The Umpire Strikes Out”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 4th, 1987)

Marlene is nervous because her father, Charlie (Michael Donaghue), is coming to visit. Charlie is professional baseball umpire and Marlene has always had a strained relationship with him. She feels that Charlie always wanted a son and that he resented her for not being into sports. After Edna allows Marlene to use her apartment to throw a small party for Charlie, Marlene suddenly starts dressing conservatively and her childhood stutter returns. She also stops dying her hair.

Agck! Poor Marlene! I could very much relate to her in this episode, largely because I had a pretty bad stutter up until I was 12 and sometimes it still kicks in if I haven’t gotten enough rest. Fortunately, Charlie does eventually realize that he was always too hard on Marlene and they agree to work on their relationship. Yay!

Meanwhile, Leslie’s feeling insecure about his age so he tries to wear a wig. It’s not a very good wig. It’s a pretty simple and obvious joke but Aaron Schwartz did a really good job selling it. Both Aaron Schwartz and Kathleen Laskey were capable of getting laughs out of the mildest of jokes and they both got a chance to show off their abilities in this episode.

This was the first episode of Check It Out!‘s third season and, from the start, it is obvious that some changes were made after the end of the previous season. Simon Reynolds is no longer in the cast, which is a shame because Reynolds was a good actor but it’s also somewhat realistic as Reynolds was playing a high school kid who, presumably, moved on to better things (like college). Whereas Howard always wore a suit during the second season, his work attire is now a dorky smock that is labeled “Howie, Store Manager.” Howard’s office now overlooks the salesfloor and, in this episode, there were enough extras in the background to convince me that Cobb’s was an actual grocery store as opposed to just a soundstage. I don’t know if this is going to be a permanent change or not but Howard was a bit less silly and more of a manager in this episode. It felt like a change for the better.

Believe it or not, this was actually a pretty good episode. Especially when compared to some season 2’s lesser episodes, the third season premiere was consistently funny and well-acted and the story actually made sense. Is this a fluke or did Check It Out! finally get itself together during the final season?

We’ll find out in 2025! Due to the holidays, this is my final Check It Out! review for 2024. These reviews will return on January 4th.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.21 “Here Comes The Bride”

Posted on November 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Christian gets married!

Episode 2.21 “Here Comes The Bride”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on March 15th, 1987)

Jack Christian (marvelously played by Jeff Pustil) is getting married!

He’s known the girl (Barbara Radecki) for twenty minutes and he’s not totally sure what her name is. (It’s turns out to be Gilga.) Gilga is the niece of Jan (Barry Baidero), the store’s never-bef0re-seen butcher. When Jack first meets Gilga, she’s crying. Her visa has expired. The only way that she’s going to avoid being sent back to her home country Baclavia is if she manages to get a Canadian green card. One quick way to do that is to get married. Jan offers to pay Christian to marry Gilga and then divorce her after she gets her green card. Christian agrees.

However, there’s a problem.

Christian is actually falling in love with Gilga but he doesn’t know how he can convince Gilga that his love is real. Howard tells him that the only way to do it would be to give back the money. That sounds simple enough but Christian really likes money. Plus, he needs a new car….

(Maybe he could just stay married to Gilga and so charm Jan that Jan would buy him a new car just to welcome him to the family. The possibility of anyone sincerely liking Christian is never really considered, which is kind of sad.)

This episode was fairly dumb but it was more enjoyable than the usual Check It Out! offering, if just because it focused on one of the show’s few consistently funny characters. Since the first season, Jeff Pustil has been one of the stronger members of the cast, playing Christian as being such an unapologetic sleaze that it’s impossible not to like him. No one should ever trust Jack Christian but he still comes across like he would be fun to catch a movie with. Unfortunately, up until this episode, the show rarely took advantage of Pustil’s strong work as Christian. This episode finally gives Pustil the spotlight and he manages to wring quite a few laughs out of so-so material. Much like Gordon Clapp and Kathleen Laskey (who played Marlene and married Pustil after the show ended), Jeff Pustil brought enough odd quirkiness to his role that he often transcended the show’s scripts.

Along with giving Jeff Pustil a chance to show off, this episode also featured several never-bef0re-seen employees of Cobb’s. They show up for Christian’s bachelor party and the wedding, both of which take place at the store for some reason. I’ve often wondered how a major supermarket managed to survive with only two cashiers and one bagger. (It often seemed strange that Howard had a secretary but apparently not a janitor.) This episode revealed that a lot of people worked at Cobb’s, the viewer apparently just never noticed them before.

This was a rare good episode. Next week, we conclude season two!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.20 “The Son Also Rises”

Posted on November 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I don’t even know where to start this week.

Episode 2.20 “The Son Also Rises”

(Dir by Stuart Gillard, originally aired on March 8th, 1987)

For what seems like the 100th time since I started watching the second season of this show, Edna is going on vacation. Technically, she’s going to be taking a computer course but everyone refers to it as being a vacation. Not that it matters because, knowing this show, we’ll never hear another word about this class that Edna is taking or the promotion that she’s hoping to get.

No sooner has Edna left then Howard’s ex-girlfriend, Molly Maguire (Diana Barrington), shows up. As Howard explains it to his employees (though why they would care, I have no idea), Molly was the great love of Howard’s life when he was in college and studying hotel management. (We often hear about all of these wonderful things that Howard did in the past, which leads me to wonder why, in his mid-50s, he’s just the manager of a middling grocery store in Canada.) Howard is excited to reconnect with Molly. It’s hard not to notice that, for all the episodes that have portrayed Howard as being the perfect boyfriend, he always tries to hook up with someone else whenever Edna is out of town. Oddly, it appears that none of her friends at the store have ever told Edna that Howard isn’t particularly faithful when she’s away.

(Remember when Howard threw a snit fit over Edna having dinner with her ex-husband? Seems kind of hypocritical, no?)

Howard’s plan to hook up with Molly is to invite her over to his apartment and to have Viker dress up like a butler in order to fool her into thinking that he’s rich. However, when Molly shows up, she reveals that she doesn’t want to rekindle any sort of romance with Howard. Instead, she wants Howard to give her child support because, according to Molly, he’s the father of her “teenage” son, Mickey (Keith Knight).

(Teenage is in quotes because, despite everything that Howard and Molly say to the contrary, Mickey is clearly not a teenager. Actor Keith Knight, who appeared in a number of classic Canadian films including My Bloody Valentine and Class of 1984, was 31 years old when he appeared in this episode.)

Howard and Mickey bond. Mickey turns out to be a pretty nice and intelligent “kid” and Howard starts to think that maybe he would like to be a father. (Good luck explaining any of this to Edna, Howard.) Howard worries about paying child support. Leslie the cashier offers to loan him the money. (What?) But then Molly shows up and reveals that — ha ha! — Howard’s not Mickey’s father after all. She just said that to get some money from Howard but since Howard obviously doesn’t have any money, never mind.

Well, that was …. interesting. Seriously, what a weird episode. Howard’s a jerk and, after bonding with 30-something Mickey, he discovers that he’s not Mickey’s father. Edna comes back from her trip and asks Howard if anything happened while she was gone. Howard says he doesn’t know where to start. Roll credits! There have been many inconsequential episodes of Check It Out! but none as inconsequential as this.