Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.4 “X-Ray Marks The Spot”

Posted on October 28, 2023 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, it’s physical time!

Episode 1.4 “X-Ray Marks The Spot”

(Dir by Stan Harris, originally aired on October 23rd, 1985)

Oh, the drama never ends in Canada!

Cobb’s has just switched over to a new insurance plan and all of the employees are going to have to get physicals to make sure that they qualify. That means that everyone has to come in on Monday, regardless of whether it’s their day off or not. (Since the store only seems to have 3 cashiers and one stockboy, I’m not sure they can afford to give anyone a day off.) The physicals will be done right in the store parking lot which …. wait, what? That’s a bit intrusive.

(Actually, I assume they have some sort of mobile doctor’s office but that’s never really made clear in the dialogue, which led me to imagine all of the characters getting poked and prodded in the middle of the parking lot.)

That’s not the only problem! Murray the stock boy put a lot of cans in the storeroom and, after a torrential downfall, he discovered that he put all the cans underneath a hole in the roof. The cans got wet and their labels peeled off. Christian suggests just donating the cans to charity and taking a tax write-off but Howard points out that some of the cans were dog food. “Okay,” Christian says, “give it to poor people with pets!”

(Actually, that’s not a bad idea….)

Howard, himself, is upset because he nearly got run over by a kid driving a car. He tells Edna that he hates kid. Howard picks the worst time to tell Edna this because, before coming to work, she took a pregnancy test and guess who is expecting?

Edna tries to keep the news from Howard until he’s in a better mood but then she discovers that she’ll have to get an x-ray at the physical and, when she tells Howard why she can’t do that, Howard is not particularly enthused about the prospect of being a father. Edna gets upset and leaves Canada for Florida!

How will all of this get resolved?

Well, the mystery of the cans is solved when Murray gets them ex-rayed. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to sell people food that was just zapped with radiation but whatever.

Edna leaving is temporarily resolved when Marlene, who is the best character on the show, become Howard’s new secretary. Marlene turns out to be so bad at her job that I was cringing at my own memories of my first day as an administrative assistant. Fortunately, Edna returns and takes her old job back.

She also tearfully tells Howard that the test was incorrect and she’s not pregnant. Edna sits down at her desk, opens the desk drawer, and discovers the stuffed Panda bear that Howard bought while she was gone. “Awwwwwww!” the studio audience said. And, I’ll be honest, I said it too.

The first half of this episode really didn’t work for me, largely because both Don Adams and Dinah Christie (in the roles of Howard and Edna, respectively) had a tendency to go BIG in their performances and that pretty much made it impossible for me to really get emotionally involved with their story. It was a bit too obvious that they weren’t lovers but that they were instead just two actors reciting their lines. The second half of the episode was a marked improvement, when both Adams and Christie dialing back their performances and actually talking like real human beings. Shaky start aside, the episode did kind of earn that “awwww” from the audience.

Next week, a contest goes wrong!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.3 “No Cause For Alarm”

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Howard has a chance to get the heck out of Canada!

Episode 1.3 “No Cause For Alarm”

(Dir by Gary Plaxton, originally aired on October 16th, 1985)

The workers at Cobb’s Grocery are reluctantly preparing for another theme week at the store. It’s a Switzerland theme week, which I assume will be very popular in Canada. All of the cashiers are dressed like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Assistant manager Jack Christian is wearing lederhosen. Christian is really excited because he’s managed to borrow an expensive cuckoo clock with which to decorate the store.

Store manager Howard Bannister has a bit more on his mind, though. He has an interview coming up with an international hotel chain and, if he aces the interview, he’ll get to manage a hotel in Venice. As Howard puts it, this has been his dream for about 15 years. Unfortunately, it’s going to be difficult for Howard to ace that interview because the store’s alarm system keeps malfunctioning and the police finally tell Howard to just turn off the alarm so that they’re not bothered anymore. However, that expensive and borrowed cuckoo clock is still hanging on the wall so Howard ends up having to sleep at the store. Needless to say, the exhausted Howard falls asleep in the middle of his interview and doesn’t get the job. As Christian resigns himself to still being the store’s assistant manager, Howard accepts that he’s not going anywhere for a while.

This is an odd episode of Check It Out. For one thing, there’s a totally different stockboy (played by Jason Warren) from the kid who appeared in the previous two episodes. He’s a bit older than the usual stockboy, he wears rather thick glasses, and everyone acts as if he’s always been at the store. Meanwhile, the store’s electrician (played by Gordon Clapp) is referred to as being “Mr. Matthews” even though his name was Viker in his previous (and future) appearances.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the episode is that everyone is given very backstory-dependent dialogue. For instance, Edna has a long conversation with cashier Jennifer (Tonya Williams) in which she explains the history of her relationship with Howard. Whenever Christian enters a room, everyone is quick to mention that he’s the assistant manager, as if this is information that has never been mentioned before. The relationships between the characters also feel a bit off. For instance, there hasn’t been any hints of deep friendship between Edna and Jennifer in the previous two episodes.

My guess is that this episode was originally the pilot for Check It Out. Apparently, it worked well enough to sell the show but the show’s producers decided not to use it as the first episode. Instead, it aired as the third episode, despite the fact that the episode was essentially a rough draft of what the show would become.

As for the episode …. eh, it’s okay. Gordon Clapp was funny as the confident but incompetent electrician. Jeff Pustil had a few funny moments as Christian. Don Adams overacted a bit as Howard, as if the show still wasn’t sure how obnoxious or sympathetic the character should be. My main issue with the episode was the idea of Howard going from managing a grocery store in Canada to managing an international hotel in Venice. I mean, can Howard even speak Italian?

Next week, everyone at the store is required to get a physical!

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!

Horror on TV: Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.12 “Mr. R.I.N.G.” (dir by Gene Levitt)

Posted on October 22, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight on Kolchak….

After annoying his editor one too many times, Carl Kolchak has been assigned to write obituaries. However, you can’t keep a good reporter down and, when Kolchak comes across the mysterious death of a scientist, Kolchak decides to investigate on his own. Kolchak’s defeated vampires, werewolves, Cajun demons, and serial killers. How will he do against something made by the government?

This episode originally aired on January 10th, 1975.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTLYmO21S3c

The Daily Horror Grindhouse: The Devil Times Five (dir by Sean MacGregor and David Sheldon)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Initially released in 1974 and also known as Peopletoys, Tantrums, and The Horrible House on the Hill, Devil Times Five is one of a handful of films made about murderous children targeting and killing adults. In the case of Devil Times Five, the children are five escapees from a mental hospital and the adults are a group of largely unlikable people who have gotten snowed in at a ski lodge.

(In a film like this, it helps that the victims are all too unlikable to really care about.)

When watching Devil Times Five, it helps to know a little something about what went on behind the scenes. Apparently, original director Sean McGregor was fired when it turned out that, after several weeks of filming, he only had 38 minutes of usable footage. Several weeks later, a second director, David Sheldon, was brought in to reshoot a good deal of the movie. Unfortunately, by the time that Sheldon arrived, the majority of the cast had moved onto other projects and the main killer kid (Leif Garrett) had gotten his hair cut for another movie, meaning that he had to wear an ill-fitting wig for the reshoots.

And the end result is a truly weird movie, one that is full of odd continuity errors and strange scenes that were obviously only included to pad out the film’s running time. Among the most obvious of the continuity errors is the insistence that the characters are snowed in despite the fact that there appears to be hardly any snow on the ground outside. (This, of course, was largely due to the fact that the reshoots were done in sunny California.) As for the padding, perhaps the most infamous example is the scene where the five children attack and beat to death their doctor. This entire scene is shown in slow motion. It lasts five minutes.

Seriously — and if you doubt me on this, be sure to read Stacie Ponder’s review of the film over on Final Girl — five minutes is a really long time. It’s certainly a long time to watch someone get beat to death, especially when the scene is underlit and sepia-toned. It starts out as disturbing but, after the 2nd minute or so, it just gets boring. And then about 4 minutes in, you start to laugh because you’re just like, “How much longer can this crap go on?” And then, at the 4:30 mark, you start to get bored again. Around the 4:55 mark, I realized that I had forgotten who they were killing or why. And then it was finally over. Yay!

Incidentally, this is one of those films where, whenever one of the kids is going to kill someone, the kid suddenly starts moving in slow motion. It was kind of like the music in Jaws. If the kid picked up an axe but was still moving at normal speed, you knew not to worry. But the minute that slow-mo started, you knew someone was about to die.

Of course, it takes a while to get around to the killings. Devil Times Five clocked in at about 88 minutes. I would guess that roughly 65 of those minutes were pure filler. We spend a lot of time getting to know the adults at that ski lodge and, for the most part, they’re loathsome. The oldest and grumpiest of them is even called Papa Doc, perhaps after the infamous Haitian dictator. (And let’s not even start on the film’s nominal hero, Rick, who has a pornstache, a comb over, and an extended nude scene.) All of the adults spend a lot of time talking about their crumbling marriages and their dying dreams and it’s all very angsty for slasher film about a bunch of killer kids. There’s even an extended cat fight between Julie (Joan McCall) and Lovely (Carolyn Staller), which involves a lot of rolling around on the floor while the 70s “wah wah” soundtrack plays in the background.

Once the killings do start, however, Devil Times Five actually starts to live up to its potential. These are some mean little kids! Once they start their rampage, we get axes in the back, spears to the throat, immolation, death by swing, and one really disturbing scene involving a bunch of bear traps. However, Devil Times Five is probably best known for the piranha scene. You can legitimately wonder why someone would keep piranhas at a ski lodge but there’s still no denying that you don’t want to take a bath with them.

(Making the piranha scene all the more icky that the victim in the bathtub is played by the mother of two of the actors who played the killers.)

Devil Times Five makes for a strange viewing experience. It starts out as nothing but filler and then suddenly, almost out of nowhere, the entire film goes batshit crazy. Devil Times Five has slipped into the public domain, so you can watch it for free on YouTube if you want. But I suggest tracking down the Code Red DVD, which comes with a fascinating commentary track and an entertaining and candid interview with several members of the cast.