Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 1.22 “Sex Appeal”

Posted on March 30, 2024 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!

This week, the first season comes to an end! Will Howard be promoted and, if he is, will there be a season 2? Let’s try to find out.

Episode 1.22 “Sex Appeal”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on March 12th, 1986)

Who will be the new vice president of the Cobb Corporation? Will it be Howard or will it be another store manager? Mrs. Cobb has sent her daughter, Tiffany (Ruth Buzzi), to interview and test both men. When Tiffany arrives at Howard’s store, she takes one look at him and decides that she’ll promote him but first, she wants to seduce him. Soon, Tiffany is forcing Howard to identify all of the items in the produce section with his eyes closed. When she places his hands on her face, Howard says, “Uhmmm …. pineapple! Moldy peaches!”

When Edna comes to the office late and discovers Howard and Tiffany in what appears to be a compromising position, she is scandalized. Howard insists that nothing happened and that Tiffany came onto him. He announces that he is charging Tiffany with sexual harrassment….

….and this somehow leads to a mock trial that is held in the breakroom, with all of the employees watching and Mrs. Cobb acting as judge. Is Mrs. Cobb really the best person to judge an accusation made against her daughter? Is this how they do things in Canada?

Howard is, of course, cleared of any wrong-doing. We all knew that was going to happen, largely because Tiffany is portrayed as being insane from the minute she shows up at the store. So, we get a resolution as far as the harassment is concerned but the whole storyline about Howard wanting a promotion is forgotten about and left unresolved.

And so, the first season ends with a bit of whimper. The first season was uneven. At its best, season one of Check It Out! had some episodes that were enjoyably weird. Any episode in which Gordon Clapp, Kathleen Laskey or Jeff Pustil were allowed to take center stage was guaranteed to be memorable. But there were also plenty of episodes like this one, where the show couldn’t seem to figure out whether or not Howard was a competent, well-meaning professional or a total and complete moron. Regardless of the individual content of each episode, there was never anything particularly subtle about Don Adams’s performance as Howard. For some episodes that worked. And, in episodes like this one, it definitely did not.

Next week, we start season 2! Two cast members say goodbye while Gordon Clapp’s Viker becomes a regular. Since season 2 is still taking place in the supermarket and Howard is still the manager, I’m going to assume that the other guy got the promotion.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 2.21 “Jack Be Numbskull”

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode defies description. Read on.

Episode 2.21 “Jack Be Numbskull”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on March 5th, 1986)

Awwww, look how cute these two are!

After an office party, Marlene and Christian go home together. The next morning, Christian has decided that he is totally in love with Marlene while Marlene will do just about anything to get Christian to stop bothering her with his romantic declarations. (In real life, Kathleen Laskey and Jeff Pustil have been married since 1990.)

Marlene’s solution to her Christian problem is to invite her ex-boyfriend, the brutish Bruno (Eric Keenleyside), to the store and to tell him to threaten to beat up Christian, just to scare him off. Marlene doesn’t want Bruno to actually hurt anyone, of course.

Bruno, however, mistakes Howard for Christian and threatens him. When Howard makes a sarcastic comment about how he is going to fight Bruno in the alley, a visiting Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) overhears and decides that sponsoring a boxing match between Bruno and an employee will be the perfect way to advertise Ka-Blam, a vitamin supplement that is so powerful that it’s sold in a container that looks like a hand grenade. Mrs. Cobb also decides that Bruno will be Mr. Ka-Blam.

So, to make clear:

Mrs. Cobb thinks it will be a good idea to have a fight in one of her stores
Mrs. Cobb thinks hiring a violent criminal to be a store mascot is a good idea
Mrs. Cobb wants to have Bruno beat up one of her store managers
Mrs. Cobb wants the manager to get beaten up while the customers watch.

Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to me, either.

A few hours before the boxing match, Howard breaks his hand so he has to find a replacement to fight Bruno. Christian volunteers.

Christian is not much of a fighter but he impresses everyone with his refusal to surrender or throw in the towel. However, after an illegal blow sends Christian to the canvas, Howard rushes into the ring and punches Bruno in the stomach and then knocks him out with an uppercut. Wait a minute, I thought Howard’s hand was broken….

This episode was just silly. It was so silly that it almost worked, just on the basis of weirdness alone. The action played out like a fever dream and logic was abandoned early on and perhaps that was for the best. This episode was so strange that it defies a traditional review but I will say that Christian and Marlene did make for a cute couple so I hope this is something that the show continued to explore.

Next week, the first season comes to a close!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.17 “Banzai”

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, I finally get a chance to review the episode that I should have reviewed last week. Nature is healing.

Episode 1.17 “Banzai”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on February 8th, 1986)

Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) has decided that it would be a good idea to send someone over to Japan to study how the Japanese have become such efficient employers and employees. That is an idea that actually isn’t bad and totally makes sense. Give some points to the show for having a good idea for once.

However, for some reason, Mrs. Cobb wants to send over not an executive and not a store manager but an assistant store manager. That makes no sense. If you want to make changes, why wouldn’t you send someone over who has the authority to do so? As usual, Mrs. Cobb wants it to be someone from Howard’s store. The show has always implied that Mrs. Cobb is the richest woman in Canada and that she actually owns several businesses across the North American continent. It’s odd that the only one she ever seems to care about is Howard’s store.

Assistant Store Manager Jack Christian is on vacation in Fiji so Howard has to pick a temporary replacement who can go to Japan. Mrs. Cobb tells him to pick a woman and since Marlene has a criminal record and Jennifer is not in this episode, the job falls to Edna.

Edna goes to Japan and then returns with a lot of ideas for how to make Cobb’s better. Cue Howard’s comic exasperation as Edna demands informality in the workplace, a lack of walls, and a mandatory exercise period. Also cue the two Japanese workers that Edna brought back with her, who proceed to tear down the walls of Howard’s office.

Watching all of this, I had to wonder just how long Christian’s Fiji vacation lasted. This episode seemed to take place over the course of a month, maybe even longer. It lasted long enough for the staff to rebel against Edna and for Mrs. Cobb to change her mind about using Japanese methods in her business. And it lasted long enough for Edna to decide that she would rather go back to being Howard’s administrative assistant. Jack Christian did return by the end of the episode, which is good since Jeff Pustil (who played Christian) and Kathleen Laskey (who played Marlene) were the show’s two most consistent comedic performers. (Interestingly enough, they’re married in real life.)

This was actually not a bad episode. I always cringe a bit whenever I see any 80s or 90s sitcom attempting to deal with cultural differences, especially when the other culture is Japanese. Just judging from a lot of the shows that I’ve seen, it would appear that many Americans (and I guess Canadians) in the 80s felt like the only way to deal with Japan’s competitive economy was to make often juvenile jokes about Japanese tourists with cameras and the poor dubbing that most Japanese films suffered on their way to American screens. This episode of Check It Out! is actually respectful of Japanese business culture, even if the show’s message seems to be that it ultimately isn’t right for the more laid back culture of Canada.

As for what happens in next week’s episode — who knows? We’ll find out.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.14 “Supermarket Superbowlers”

Posted on January 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week is all about bowling! Wasn’t CHiPs also all about bowling this week?

Episode 1.14 “Supermarket Superbowlers”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on January 15th, 1986)

Cobb’s has got a bowling team!

They’ve managed to get into the league finals and, according to Howard, all of the credit goes to their stockboy, Murray. Murray may not be good at bagging groceries but he is apparently a great bowler. He’s such a good bowler that it doesn’t even matter that Edna is a terrible bowler. In fact, Edna is so bad that she doesn’t even get to bowl. The only reason she is on the team is so she can step in if someone gets injured.

Someone does get injured! Murray breaks his arm and right before the big game too. However, Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) has told Howard that she wants the store to win that championship trophy and she’ll give everyone on the team a $500 bonus if they win. But if Edna plays, they don’t have a chance. In order to keep Edna on the sidelines, Jack Christian tracks down a former pro bowler and hires him to be the temporary stock boy. “Big Ed” Politowski (J. Winston Carroll) is a total slob who doesn’t appear to have taken a shower in months but apparently, he’s really good with a bowling ball.

Seeing how disappointed Edna is, Howard decides to fake a foot injury so that he’ll have to withdraw from the team and Edna will be able to play in his place. But, no sooner has he faked one injury than Christian drops a bowling ball on Howard’s other foot. (Why was Christian walking around the store with a bowling ball? I’m not sure.) Big Ed picks up Howard to take him to the hospital, which leads to an unseen but definitely heard crash in the parking lot.

The end result is that Howard ends up on crutches, the store does not win the trophy, and no one gets five hundred dollars. But everyone is really impressed by the fact that Howard faked an injury just so Edna could play. Of course, if Howard hadn’t faked an injury, they might have won the tournament and they would all be five hundred dollars richer. Apparently, Cobb’s only hires those who have a very, very generous spirit.

This was a fairly forgettable episode, one in which there really weren’t any stakes other than a trophy and a little extra money. Considering the big deal that Mrs. Cobb made about wanting to win that trophy, no one seemed to be particularly worried about any bad consequences from losing the game. Considering that Murray broke his arm at work, no one seemed to be worried about whether or not he would recover or perhaps sue the store. There were no consequences to anything that happened in this story and that’s fine. Not everything has to be a matter of life and death.

Probably the most interesting thing about this episode is that neither Alf the Security Guard nor Jennifer the Cashier appeared. In-universe, I going to assume the episode took place on their off-days but you do have to wonder if either one of them could bowl.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.11 “Love on Sale”

Posted on December 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Attention shoppers, tonight’s episode is weird.

Episode 1.11 “Love on Sale”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on December 11th, 1985)

Weird episode.

Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) wants to open up a store in Saudi Arabia so she assigns Howard to give a speech to a group of “Arab investors,” while she spends the night seducing a sheik. Howard agrees and is told that, if everything works out, he could end up as the President of Cobb’s International. Going from being the manager of grocery store to an international business tycoon would be quite an accomplishment. Of course, Mrs. Cobb also expects Howard to dress up like Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. This leads to both Edna and Murray punching him out because they initially don’t recognize him in his costume.

Meanwhile, Murray is trying to raise $150 so that he can buy Howard’s old car, which is apparently sitting on a bunch of milk crates somewhere. Murray is a teenager who doesn’t even know how to drive but he really wants that car. How can Murray earn $150?

(Just consider that apparently, Murray doesn’t even make $150 a week from his job at Cobb’s.)

After a customer gives Murray a five dollar tip after Murray introduces him to a female shopper, Murray decides that he’ll start hooking up the single shoppers in return for a ten dollar payment. Howard thinks that this is a fine idea, as long as Murray doesn’t try to hook up anyone who is married. (Personally, I can’t think of anything that would make grocery shopping more awkward than having a 15 year-old bagboy trying to convince me to date someone while I’m looking over the produce but whatever.) Soon, Murray is making all sorts of money but then a Vice detective shows up and arrests Howard for running an escort service.

While dressed like Lawrence of Arabia, Howard is thrown in jail. In his cell, there are two burly men who continually threaten to beat him up, a skinny guy who talks about how he ate someone’s face, and a male lawyer who is wearing hot pink high heels. Murray, Christian, and Alf show up at the station and explain that they were all involved in getting people dates at Cobbs and, as a result, they’re all tossed in the cell as well.

Somehow, Howard and his employees do get released because, the next day, Howard comes to work and discovers that every swinger in the city is eager to shop at his store and Mrs. Cobb is not upset about Howard missing the meeting with the investors because Mrs. Cobb was able to seduce the sheik. Howard says that he can’t wait to be in charge of Cobb’s International because then he’ll be able to get a harem, which leads to Edna punching him.

Weird, weird episode. It’s hard to even review this episode because it really does take place in its own rather surreal reality. That said, I kind of appreciated the episode’s nonstop jokiness. There wasn’t a serious moment to be found here and, while some of the jokes fell flat, some of them worked surprisingly well. It’s an extremely silly episode that doesn’t add up to much but it’s just weird enough to be entertaining.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.2 “Labor and Other Relations”

Posted on October 14, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Canada goes on strike!

Episode 1.2 “Labor And Other Relations”

(Dir by Stan Harris, originally aired on October 9th, 1985)

I am two episodes into Check It Out and my favorite character is Marlene, the cashier played by Kathleen Laskey. She’s my favorite specifically because she has the same attitude that I would have if I was working as a cashier. She doesn’t care about the customers, she doesn’t worry about showing up for work on time, and she takes her first break ten minutes after the store opens. Plus, out of everyone who works at the store, she has the best fashion sense.

This episode also established that Marlene is the “shop steward” of the Cobb’s union. No one has ever joined the union, other than Marlene. But that changes when mean old Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) announces that employees of Cobb’s will, from now on, only be allowed to take two coffee breaks a day. Marlene declares this to be an outrage and invites everyone — except for manager Howard (Don Adams) and assistant manager Christian (Jeff Pustil) — to a union meeting at her apartment. Soon, every employee of the store is outside, picketing. Meanwhile, Howard and Christian are forced to bag groceries and deal with customers.

Frustrated by the fact that everyone has joined the union, Howard goes outside to confront the picketers. Murray (Simon Reynolds), the young bagger who has a crush on Marlene, asks Howard to hold his sign so that he can run into the store and use the bathroom. (Wouldn’t that count as crossing the picket line? I’ve never been a member of a union so I’m not really sure how all of this works.) Howard agrees to hold Murray’s “Cobbs Is Unfair” sign. Of course, a local reporter snaps a picture of Howard and soon, he’s on the front page of the newspaper.

Howard is just not having a good week. First off, we learn, in a scene that goes on for way too long, that he’s still struggling with impotence and hasn’t had sex with Edna (Dinah Christie) for weeks. (Edna is also Howard’s secretary and a member of the union so really, it seems like there’s all sorts of issues here.) And now, he’s on the front page of the newspaper, picketing his own store. Ms. Cobb shows up to fire him, saying that she was also responsible for “firing the Shah of Iran” back in 1979. (What?)

Fortunately, the other employees of Cobb’s come to the rescue by barging into Howard’s office and announcing that they’ve voted him into the Union and therefore, Ms. Cobb can’t fire him for picketing. Howard gets to keep his job, even though I was under the impression that members of management are not allowed to join a union. Howard agrees to give everyone back their coffee breaks, even though that was a corporate policy and it was established early on that Howard didn’t have the power to change it.

This was a weird episode. I’m going to guess that it was not at all a realistic depiction of a labor dispute. There was way too much time devoted to Howard and Edna discussing their lack of a sex life. That said, Marlene’s attitude saved the episode. Even though she didn’t care about her job, she still brought the company to its knees. Woo hoo, you go, Marlene!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.1 “No Security In Security”

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Check It Out is a show that I recently came across on Tubi. It’s a Canadian sitcom from the late 80s, one that took place in grocery store. Don Adams starred as Howard Bannister, the store’s manager. Dinah Christie played Edna, who was Howard’s girlfriend and secretary. Kathleen Laskey, Aaron Schwartz, and Tonya Williams played cashiers. Jeff Pustil played the assistant manager. The security guard was played by Henry Beckman and Simon Reynolds played a teenage bagboy. Since I had never heard of this show before, I figured why not review it? What’s the worst that could happen?

Besides, check out the totally funky theme song!

Episode 1.1 “No Security In Security”

(Dir by Ari Dikijian, originally aired on October 2nd, 1985)

Welcome to Cobb’s, perhaps the most depressing location that I’ve ever seen for a Canadian sitcom. Cobb’s is a grocery store and, interestingly enough, it actually looks like a grocery store, with cheap displays, bored employees, and floors that you can tell are probably sticky. Usually, most sitcoms — especially sitcoms that aired in the 80s — go out of their way to try to look inviting. From the minute we see Cobb’s, the show seems to be telling us, “Run away! Shop elsewhere!”

As the pilot opens, store manager Howard Bannister (Don Adams) watches as a security specialist named Vicker (Gordon Clapp) installs several new security cameras. Howard asks what channels the cameras get. Vicker replies that you can watch produce, you can watch the front doors, and you can watch the registers. Howard weakly tries to explain that he was making a joke. It goes over Vicker’s head.

You know what isn’t a joke? The fact that Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton), the fearsome owner of the store, now expects Howard to fire Alf (Henry Beckham), the ancient security guard who has been working at Cobb’s for his entire life. Howard is reluctant to fire an old man, despite the fact that everyone keeps talking about the fact that Alf is not that good at his job. The assistant manager, Jack Christian (Jeff Pustil), volunteers to do the firing but Howard says that it’s the type of the thing that should be done by the manager. After getting an angry visit from Mrs. Cobb, Howard takes Alf outside and fires him. Alf responds by punching Howard in the stomach.

Well, I guess it’s a good thing that they fired Alf! Seriously, violence is never the answer! Still, Howard feels so guilty that he can’t perform sexually with his girlfriend and secretary, Edna Moseley (Dinah Christie). But, don’t worry! Alf calls in a bomb threat and gets his job back….

Seriously, that’s the plot of the first episode. It’s a plot that had some potential. One of The Office‘s best episodes was the Halloween episode where Michael was forced to fire Devin. On The Office, the story was more about Michael’s fear of being the bad guy than the actual firing. Michael knows that he has to fire someone but he’s just scared to death of getting anyone mad at him. Things are a bit less complicated on Check it Out. Alf is terrible at his job but Howard doesn’t want to fire him because he’s old. Fortunately, all it takes is a fake bomb threat to get Alf’s job back.

It was a bit of a forgettable episode, though it introduced the characters and that’s what a pilot is supposed to do. The main problem is that, with the exception of Gordon Clapp’s performance as Vicker, the episode itself just wasn’t that funny.

Maybe the second episode was an improvement! We’ll find out next week!