Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.11 “The Naked Truth”

Posted on March 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, Marlene gets an opportunity!

Episode 3.11 “The Naked Truth”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on November 21st, 1987)

Women Of The World magazine wants to do a story on Marlene’s life as a cashier. All of her coworkers try to worm their way into the interview but Marlene succeeds in kicking them all out of the breakroom. The reporter from the magazine informs Marlene that her life story is fascinating and now they’ll just need to take some naked pictures to go along with it.

Howard is stunned when Marlene says she’s going to pose nude. Marlene points out that Howard keeps adult magazines in his desk drawer. Howard denies it before then opening up his desk drawer and checking them out. Howard fears that Marlene is going to make Cobb’s look bad. Marlene, in the end, chooses not to get the pictures done because she doesn’t want her future daughter to be ashamed of her. Personally, I would have preferred for Marlene to have said, “It’s my decision and I’ll make sure my daughter understands that she has to do what’s right for her instead of worrying about what everyone else says,” but whatever. It’s just a silly sitcom.

Meanwhile, Viker’s wife is pregnant! Awwww, Viker! Gordon Clapp got to a do and say a lot in this episode, which I enjoyed. Viker is one of the more consistently funny characters on this show. Gordon Clapp played Viker’s stupidity with such an earnest sincerity that you just want someone to hug the guy.

This was not a bad episode. Gordon Clapp and Kathleen Laskey were often this show’s strongest assets and this episode featured both of them. Laskey did a great job portraying Marlene’s dilemma while Clapp made me laugh at even the silliest of jokes. Nope, not a bad episode at all, even if I do think Marlene should have just told everyone that it was none of their business what she chose to do.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.10 “Shrink from Sendrax”

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, corporate sends a visitor to Cobb’s for reasons that are never exactly clear.

Episode 3.10 “Shrink From Sendrax”

(Dir by Jayne Schipper, originally aired on November 15th, 1987)

I’m just going to do a mini-review of this episode because I’m busy working on our big St. Patrick’s Day extravaganza here at the Shattered Lens!

Remember that new company that bought out Cobb’s? It can be easy to forget about them. Well, in this episode, they send a psychiatrist named Dr. Matthews (Graham Harley) to check on everyone’s mental health. Why would they do that? I mean, is Cobb’s grocery store really that important to them? It seems like a lot of money to spend on checking whether or not the cashiers are feeling good about themselves.
Admittedly, I haven’t had that many jobs and I’ve never worked in a grocery store. If you told me that I had no choice but to sit down and talk about my life with a psychiatrist as a condition of my employment, I would probably quit. It’s not that I have anything against psychiatrists. It’s just that I believe therapy should always be voluntary.
The episode’s highlight was Leslie wanting to spend hours talking to the psychiatrist about the party that was thrown when he turned two years old. Aaron Schwartz, who is often underused on this show, really got a chance to show off his comedic skills in this episode.
Gordon Clapp’s Viker also got a few good scenes. In general, any episode that features Clapp is, at the very least, going to make me smile.
Howard freaks out over the psychiatrist and the questionnaire that he’s forced to fill out. He gets some advice from 14 year-old stockboy Brad, played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge. This is Brad’s third appearance on the show and I get the feeling that he was originally meant to be a major character but the show’s writers couldn’t figure out what to do with the character.
This third season has had a lot of weird detours and characters. We haven’t heard anything else about Howard’s brother. The corporate liaison, TC Collingwood (Elizabeth Hanna), is occasionally pictured in the opening credits and occasionally not. What happened to the stockboy who had a crush on Marlene?
Anyway, to prove that he’s not crazy, Howard dresses up like a clown because he knows that only way to prove he’s not crazy is to act crazy while realizing that he’s acting crazy or something.
Marlene and Christian, the two most consistently interesting characters on the show, were not in this episode and that kind of made the whole psychiatry angle feel useless. The idea of Marlene and Christian reacting to ink blots is such a good one that I personally would have delayed production on this episode until Kathleen Laskey and Jeff Pustil were available to appear in it.

Gordon Clapp and Aaron Schwartz were great but, overall, this was pretty dumb episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.9 “Bannister & Dale”

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I guess Howard’s a TV star now.

Episode 3.9 “Bannister & Dale”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on November 14th, 1987)

Mr. Dale (Paul Soles) is an old vaudevillian who now shops at Cobb’s. He doesn’t have enough money to pay his rent so Howard gives him a job working at the store. He doesn’t have enough money to keep his retirement home running so Howard gets Mr. Dale booked on a television show. Mr. Dale’s old partner died in 1952 so Howard agrees to step in and….

Wait. Howard’s a talent agent now?

Seriously, how does a grocery store manager have the connections necessary to get an obscure vaudevillian booked on a national talk show? I mean, I get that they’re all up in Canadas and it’s a simpler place but still, it just seems like a stretch. And really, how popular was vaudeville in the 80s? I always see all of these old TV shows, where the characters are doing a fundraiser or something and they recreate a vaudeville act or they put on clown makeup and sing Bring In The Clowns but it never feels very realistic.

Anyway, most of the show is made up of Howard and Mr. Dale recreating Mr. Dale’s old vaudeville routines and it’s all pretty dumb. But I will say that it was a lot easier for me buy Don Adams as an old man who remembered and loved vaudeville than as the swinging 40-something store manager that the show usually presents him as being. Still, it’s a bit strange to imagine a national talk show setting aside time for an act featuring an old vaudevillian and a grocery store manager. I guess that’s Canada for you.

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 3.3 “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! 2.22 “Put Your Best Face Forward”

Posted on December 7, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season two of this show finally comes to an end.

Episode 2.22 “Put Your Best Face Forward”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on March 22nd, 1987)

The second season of Check It Out! ends by revealing a little bit more about the origin story of Howard Bannister.

Howard’s stint at hotel management school has been mentioned several times throughout the series. In this episode, he is upset because his reunion is coming up and he’s the only members of his graduating class to have not made a success of himself. One of his classmates owns several motels. Another manages a popular bed and breakfast. Lester Pinkus (Alan Jordan) has had the most success of all. He is the manager of a 5-star luxury hotel. Meanwhile, Howard is just the manager of a small grocery store in Canada.

Howard explains to Edna that he was always at the top of his class but somehow, he flunked the final exam. Lester, who was previously always at the bottom of the class, got the highest score on his final and received a great job right out of school. With the reunion coming up, Howard is feeling inadequate. When he sees that Lester still looks young and happy, Howard decides to take Lester’s advice and get a facelift.

Or, at least, that’s Howard’s plan until he actually meets the doctor (Jack Northmore) and learns what a facelift entails. The doctor explains he’ll be peeling back Howard’s entire face and then breaking his nose. Agck! Howard faints and goes to his reunion with a black eye.

(For the record, there was a time when I was determined to get a nose job but then I considered that I had inherited my nose from my mom and it would be disrespectful to do anything to it. Big Nose Crew forever!)

At the reunion, Lester accepts an award for all of his success. He then announces that he doesn’t feel like he can accept the award because he cheated on the final. He stole Howard’s exam paper, put his name on it, and turned it in as his own. As such, Howard was actually the one who got the best score on the exam while Lester was the one who should have flunked. Lester says that he’s happy now because he’s rich, successful, and has a newly cleared conscience.

I have to admit that made me laugh. Howard’s life sucks and it’s all because of Lester. Lester’s girlfriend throws champagne in his face and then leaves him. Howard thanks Lester’s girlfriend so Edna throws champagne in Howard’s face and season two comes to an end.

What a strange show. Edna learns why Howard is so miserable and instead of offering him any sympathy over the fact that he’s doomed to spend the rest of his life as a grocery store manager, she throws champagne at him and accuses him of cheating. Howard can’t win but that’s okay because Howard really isn’t that likable of a character.

Season two was …. well, yes, it was inconsistent and frequently downright bad. But the show occasionally showed some sparks of life, usually when the focus was on the supporting cast. Jeff Pustil, Kathleen Laskey, Aaron Schwartz, and especially Gordon Clapp were able to generate some laughs, even from the weakest of material. The season season suffered because Howard’s personality seemed to change from episode-to-episode. It’s hard to root for a guy who doesn’t behave in a consistent manner.

Will the third and final season be an improvement? We’ll start finding out next week!