David Clement | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

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.

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Ryan learns why you never meet your heroes.

Episode 1.10 “Tales of the Undead”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbock, originally aired on January 25th, 1988)

Comic book fan Ryan is shocked when he witnesses the murder of the owner of his favorite comic book store. He’s even more shocked by the fact that the murderer appeared to a legendary comic book character, a robot who was created and drawn by an artist named Jay Star.

Micki is skeptical when Ryan tells her that he thinks one of his favorite comic book characters has come to life. Despite having dealt with a cursed doll and quill that could kill someone just by being used to write that person’s name, Micki draws the line at living comic book characters. However, Ryan does some research and discovers that a cursed comic book was indeed purchased from the store.

Seriously, think about this. Ryan not only witnesses a murder but the murder is committed by his favorite comic book character and then he discovers that it’s all linked to the cursed antique store where Ryan just happens to work. That’s an amazing coincidence! Jack would probably be concerned about how all of that came to happen but, oddly enough, Jack is not in this episode.

Instead, it falls to Ryan and Micki to track down the comic book. This leads them to the man who created the robot, Jay Star (played by special guest star Ray Waltson). Jay Star created the robot in the 40s and became a hero to comic book readers everywhere but he feels that he wasn’t properly compensated for his services. (This is something that happens far too often to real comic book artists as well. Some people have definitely gotten a lot of money as a result of all the Marvel films but the families of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko have not.) The comic book company kept the rights to his character and they refused to publish the issue in which Jay killed him off. The company is still making money off of Jay’s work while Jay lives in obscurity as a recluse. At the start of the episode, Jay Star does not own the cursed comic book. However, he does manage to track it down and steal it from its current owner, Cal (David Hewlett). Soon, Jay is transforming into the killer robot and seeking revenge on everyone who he feels has betrayed him.

This was one of the stronger episodes of Friday the 13th. What really set this episode apart from some of the ones that came before and after was that Ryan had a personal stake in recovering the cursed item. As he explains it to Micki, comic books were the one constant he had during his dysfunctional childhood. He grew up admiring artists like Jay Star and dreaming of being one of them and of being a hero who could solve all of the world’s problems. In this episode, Ryan discovers that his hero is a murderer and John D. LeMay does a very good job of playing Ryan’s disillusionment. The episode ends on a rather sweet note, with Micki encouraging Ryan to remember Jay Star for his talent and not for his crimes.

The episode is also distinguished by Ray Waltson’s empathetic performance as Jay Star, a villain for whom you can’t help but have some sympathy. When Jay transforms into the killer robot, the episode itself switches to comic book-style animation, which is one of those gimmicks that works far better than one might expect. Even the robot was about as scary as a monster on a low-budget show like this could possibly be!

This was a good episode. I hope Ryan never stopped drawing.