Grant Cowan | 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!

This week, Cobb’s needs cookies!

Episode 2.7 “A Chocolate Chip Off The Old Block”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on November 14th, 1986)

Strange episode.

When a homeless woman named Gert (Lynne Gorman) starts hanging out in the store’s parking lot, Howard’s first instinct is to force her to go away. He’s especially annoyed when Gert starts sleeping in his parking space. However, Edna takes sympathy on Gert and practically adopts her. It turns out that Gert makes the best cookies that anyone has ever tasted!

That’s good news because Grandpa Morgan’s Cookies can no longer be sold in Cobb’s because the company has signed an exclusive contract with Flechman’s Grocery Store. Jeremy Corbyn (Grant Cowan), who works at the head office and who is a real jerk, is looking for a scapegoat and Howard seems like a likely target. But then Howard decides to start selling Grandma Gert’s Cookies in the store. When it comes time to sign Gert to an exclusive contract, Gert’s business manager, who happens to be the store’s assistant manager, Jack Christian, drives a hard bargain. Gert being managed by someone who works for the people who want to sign her to an exclusive contract sounds like a massive conflict of interest but it doesn’t matter because Gert has disappeared.

Desperate to sell cookies, Howard dresses up like a carnival barker and tries to get the customers interested in Uncle Howie’s Cookies. A homeless man named Lester (Warren Van Evera) interrupts Howard’s presentation to tell him that Gert died. It turns out that Gert was a millionaire and she left her money to not only her friends at the shelter but also to several charities. Lester hands Howard an envelope from Gert. Howard is excited because he thinks Gert left him money. Edna opens the envelope and reveals that Gert left him a cheap ring as a symbol of friendship.

Disappointed, Howard returns to trying to get people to buy Uncle Howie’s cookies and the episode ends.

Seriously, what a strange episode. After all the panic over the cookies, the episode ends without a resolution. The recipe for Gert’s cookies dies with her and I guess Cobb’s is just not going to be able to sell cookies. (Seriously, though, what type of store only sells one brand of cookies? What type of cookie company would only want their product to be sold in one store?) As well, this was another episode where Howard behaved in a way that totally went against what we’ve previously seen of the character. This show has never seemed to be sure whether or not Howard is supposed to be a well-meaning, somewhat hapless manager or if he’s meant to be an arrogant buffoon. This episode finds him in buffoon mode and his callous and greedy reaction to Gert’s death feels totally wrong.

It’s probably best to just move on from this episode and pretend like it didn’t happen. So, let do just that.

This week, someone is stealing disgusting gourmet food!

Episode 1.9 “Phantom of the Market”

(Dir by Stan Harris, originally aired on November 27th, 1985)

Howard is super-excited because he has been named Cobb’s Manager of the Year! The manager of the year wins a Hawaiian vacation for two because, apparently, there’s not a single Cobb’s manager who has a large family. I get the feeling that the whole manager of the year thing is a scam to give the the company’s managers an excuse to go to Hawaii with their secretaries. That’s certainly what Howard is planning to do, though at least he’s actually unmarried and dating Edna.

(Being a Canadian company, I would think Cobb’s would reward its employees with a Discovery Islands vacation but no, Cobb’s would rather send its employees to the USA.)

Howard’s employees even go through the trouble of making and hanging a big banner congratulating Howard. Of course, they hang it upside down but Howard is in such a good mood that he doesn’t even yell about it. Unfortunately, Howard’s mood is soon ruined when a corporate stooge (played by Grant Cowan) shows up and tells Howard that his store is missing $400 worth of gourmet meat and that Howard is going to lose his job if he can’t figure out what has happened to the missing inventory.

Feeling that it might be an inside job, Howard and Alf spend two nights at the store in hopes of catching whoever it is. The first night, Howard falls asleep and wakes up in his underwear. Somehow, the thief took all of his clothes without waking up Howard. Howard wraps himself in the banner, which I would think would make him look even more undressed than when he was just wearing shoes, boxers, and his undershirt. (How did the thief undress Howard without taking his shoes off? Again, how did Howard sleep through that?) The second night, Howard discovers that Cobb’s actually has a basement and that basement is occupied by Henry Weinberg (Antony Parr).

The well-dressed and well-fed Henry explains that his family used to own the land on which the store was built. Henry has been living in the basement of various Cobb’s stores for several years and he’s been stealing their food. He gives Howard a box that he says contains the ashes of his grandfather. Howard is surprisingly accepting of all this.

The next day — yay! All of the missing inventory is back. Howard gets to keep his job and go to Hawaii. Henry shows up in the story and tells Howard that he stole replacement food from all the other grocery stores in the area. After Henry leaves, Alf informs Howard that Henry is actually a comedian who used to do a bit about putting his grandfather’s ashes in a box. As Henry speaks, Howard discreetly spills the ashes onto the flood and kicks them underneath a shelf. Yikes!

This was kind of a strange episode but, in this case, the weirdness worked to the show’s advantage. In previous episodes, Don Adams sometimes seemed to be overacting. In this episode, everyone was acting bizarrely and, as such, Adams’s exaggerated reactions actually fit well with the situation. Add to that, this episode featured the return of Viker, the dumb but very confident electrician played by Gordon Clapp. As played by Clapp, Viker’s earnest stupidity was definitely the high point of the episode.

Next week, everyone car pools to work! I really can’t imagine that going well but we’ll find out what happens soon!