October Positivity: The Touch (dir by Jimmy Huckaby)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2005 film, The Touch, opens with Hannah (Kristia Knowles) being booked into jail. Hannah is being charged with drug possession and assaulting a police officer. She’s innocent on both charges. Her boyfriend was the one who left the drugs in her car. And, though she did hit a police officer, it was an accident. But it doesn’t matter. Hannah has been arrested and because she has no one in her life that has either the resources or the compassion to bail her out, she’s going to have to spend a while in jail. The opening sequence is effective, both because of Kristia Knowles’s emotional performance and because it captures the dehumanizing process of being booked. For Hannah, this is the worst moment of her life. For the police officers who are taking her jewelry and barking orders at her, it’s juts another night.

Hannah’s sleaze of a boyfriend does finally bail her out of jail but Hannah wants nothing to do with him. Instead, she tries to find a legitimate job but she soon discovers that no one is willing to hire someone with a criminal record. The only way she can get hired is to lie about her past and, even in that case, her employer eventually does a background check on her and is forced to let her go. When her car breaks down, a greasy mechanic says it’ll cost $900 to fix. Of course, he suggests, there are other ways she could pay him…. Feeling totally alone and hopeless, Hannah uses the money that she has left to rent a room in a cheap motel. She takes several pills and downs a bottle of liquor.

Her attempt at suicide doesn’t work but it does land her a spot in the local church shelter. With the help of the other women at the shelter and Wanda (Shauna Bartel), the director of the program, Hannah starts to take control of her life and deal with the horrible traumas of her past. However, the shelter is not inexpensive to run and many members of the church feel that the money could be better invested elsewhere, like in refurbishing the main building. They also feel that women like Hannah are bringing a bad reputation to their congregation. While Wanda and the Pastor (Bruce Borgan) try to keep the program from being shut down, Hannah fights the temptation to return to her old life.

To my surprise, I actually really liked The Touch. Yes, it’s a very earnest and low-budget film and there are a few moments where things get a little bit heavy-handed. But there are so many strong and honest moments that it’s easy to forgive the film’s flaws. Kristia Knowles and Shauna Bartel both give strong performances and, in the end, the film’s message is a worthy one. Far too often, society refuses to give a second chance to people who have had legal difficulties and, as a result, too many people come out of prison with no prospects and no support. As a result people, like Hannah, are often left feeling as if they have no other option than to either give up or to return to the same behavior that got them in trouble in the first place. Society has gotten so focused on punishment that they’ve overlooked the importance of rehabilitation. Sometimes, a second chance is the most important thing that you give someone.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Degrassi Junior High 1.3 “The Experiment” and 1.4 “The Cover-Up”

Posted on October 8, 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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989! The series can be streamed on YouTube!

Oh my God, is Mr. Raditch a racist!? We’ll find out this week.

Episode 1.3 “The Experiment”

(Dir by Clarke Mackey, originally aired on February 1st, 1987)

Joey Jeremiah’s a drug dealer!?

I am stunned! Seriously, on Degrassi: The Next Generation, Joey was the grown-up who was always giving the teenagers a hard time for being irresponsible. When his stepson, Craig Manning, got hooked on cocaine, Joey sent off to rehab and didn’t even bother to show up at the airport to say goodbye! And yet, with this episode, we discover that, in junior high, Joey Jeremiah sold pills.

Now, I should point out that they were just vitamin pills. Joey told Melanie (Sara Ballingall) and Kathleen (Rebecca Haines) that the pills were actual drugs that would get them high but, as he explained to Wheels, he was just doing that to make some money. In fact, Joey tells Wheels that he deserves a lot of credit for keeping Melanie and Kathleen off of hard drugs! That said, Melanie and Kathleen both fool themselves into thinking they’ve gotten high and they ask Joey to get them even more drugs. In fact, Melanie and Kathleen bring some of their friends with them so that everyone can get high!

Meanwhile, Yick and Arthur have a problem of their own. Yick thinks that Mr. Raditch is biased against him because Raditch is constantly criticizing Yick for being disorganized. He even refers to Yick as being “Mr. Yu the Disorganized.” In order to test whether or not Mr. Raditich is prejudiced against Yick, Arthur takes a paper that Stephanie wrote for Mr. Raditch the previous year and he has Yick turn it in as his own work. Yick finally gets a good grade! But just to make sure that Mr. Raditch isn’t prejudiced, Yick turns in a second paper that was originally written by Stephanie. This time, Mr. Raditch recognizes the paper as having been originally written by Stephanie.

This leads to an absolutely brilliantly played scene, in which Mr. Raditch interrogates Yick and Arthur in front of the class about why they’ve been turning in Stephanie’s work as Yick’s own. While Yick attempts to explain why he feels that Mr. Raditch is prejudiced against him, Kathleen, Melanie, and their dumb friends keep laughing loudly because they’re convinced that they’re all stoned even though they’re not. Mr. Raditch, needless to say, is not amused.

Anyway, things work out in the end. After Stephanie asks Joey if he’s really a drug dealer, Joey confesses the truth. Unfortunately, for him, his confession is overheard by Melanie and Kathleen and Joey ends up being chased down a hallway by a bunch of angry, wannabe drug addicts. Meanwhile, in detention, Yick writes a paper about stereotypes and how difficult it is to be called Mr. Yu the Disorganized. Both Yick and Mr. Raditch realize the errors of their way. Yick and Arthur leave school to play basketball together, but not before locking Joey in the janitor’s closet.

Episode 1.4 “The Cover-up”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on February 8th, 1987)

School picture day is coming up and Stephanie is freaking out because, if she wears the frumpy clothes that she wears around the house, everyone will laugh at her. But if she wears her trampy school clothes, her mom will know the truth about how Stephanie changes whenever she gets to school. As usual, Voula smirks about it and refuses to give Stephanie any advice, largely because Voula is the absolutely worst. (Not everyone wants to dress like they shop at the American Girl store, Voula.) In the end, Stephanie wears her trampy clothes to picture day and good for her! Seriously, dress however you want.

While this is going on, Caitlin (Stacie Mistysyn) and her friend Susie (Sarah Charlesworth) try to get the mysterious Rick (Craig Driscoll) to smile. They tell him jokes. They were pig noses. Rick, however, has little to smile about because, as Joey discovers, Rick is being beaten by his father. When Joey asks the school secretary what he should do if he knows someone who is getting beaten, the secretary misunderstands Joey’s comment and calls Child Protective Services on Joey’s parents! (It doesn’t help that Joey has a black eye as the result of a skateboarding accident.) Fortunately, the very Canadian social worker guy figures out that Rick is the one who is being beaten and he arranges for Rick’s father to get some help and for Rick to stay with his older brother. The next day, at school, Rick smiles!

This was a significant episode because it featured the first Caitlin storyline. Caitlin, of course, is destined to become one of the most important characters in Degrassi history, with her love story with Joey destined to take over 20 years to play out. Of course, in this episode, she’s more interested in Rick. (Rick, for his part, feels like an early version of Sean Cameron, Degrassi: The Next Generation‘s resident troubled bad boy.)

Anyway, these were two good episodes. It’s kind of interesting to watch as Joey Jeremiah goes from being an annoying prankster to basically the center of just about storyline.

Next week: it’s time for a Canadian swimming competition!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 5.1 “The Martyr” (dir by Phillip Noyce)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker is a stylish homage to noir, starring Meg Foster as a femme fatale who is not quite as blind as she pretends to be. This episode was directed by Phillip Noyce, who was also responsible for a film about an actual blind person, Blind Fury. Interestingly enough, that film also featured Meg Foster, though in a very different role than the one that she plays here.

This episode originally aired on April 22nd, 1989.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (dir by William Crain)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1976’s Dr. Black, My Hyde tells the story of Dr. Henry Pride (Bernie Casey).

Dr. Pride is a respected doctor, the head of a free clinic in the Watts district of Los Angeles. He has a big house. He has a fancy car. With Dr. Billie Worth (Rosalind Cash), he is researching a serum that will help people with cirrhosis to regenerate the tissue of their liver. Of course, Dr. Pride wasn’t always rich. In his own words, he and his mother grew up in the guest house of a brothel. But now that he is rich and successful, some people claim that he’s lost touch with his community. As a prostitute named Linda (Marie O’Henry) tells him, “You talk white, you think white, you probably drive a white car.”

In a scene that is designed to bring to mind the horrors of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, Dr. Pride considers the ethics of injecting his serum into his patients without warning them that there might be consequences. Billie warns him that what he’s thinking about doing would be not only unethical but illegal. Dr. Pride questions whether ethics matter when dealing with something that could potentially save lives in the future. After Dr. Pride injects an elderly black woman with the serum, she turns into a white-skinned monster who attempts to strangle a nurse before promptly dying. Despite this, Dr. Pride continues to develop the serum and eventually, he tries it on himself.

Under the effects of the serum, Dr. Pride becomes a white-skinned madman. (Bernie Casey wears a white makeup whenever he plays this film’s version of Mr. Hyde.) Under the influence of the serum, Pride rampages through Watts, killing prostitutes and pimps before transforming back into the Dr. Pride. The police are investigating the murders but they’re searching for a white man. Meanwhile, Dr. Pride continues to obsess on trying to work out the kinks of her serum. He wants Linda to be his latest test subject.

Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is a blaxploitation take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, as with many blaxploitation films, the subtext is frequently more interesting than what actually happens on screen. Dr. Pride, after continually being accused of acting white, takes his serum and soon literally becomes white and sets out to kill the prostitutes and the pimps who remind him of his life before he became a doctor. And while it’s easy to see this as an example of the serum turning a good man into an evil monster (the classic Jekyll and Hyde formula), it’s also true that, even before his transformation, Dr. Pride views his patients as being potential test subjects. For all of his talk about helping people, Dr. Pride maintains his distance from the members of his own community. Is the serum turning Dr. Pride into a monster or is it just revealing who Dr. Pride truly wishes to be? Given the film was directed by William Crain, who also did Blacula and who, unlike a lot of Blaxploitation directors, actually was black, it’s easy to believe that the subtext was intentional.

Of course, subtext aside, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is a cheap-looking and haphazardly edited film. Much of the acting is amateurish but Bernie Casey gives a strong performance as both the repressed black doctor and his violent, white alter ego. Cheapness aside, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is a frequently intriguing film.

Retro Television Reviews: Five Desperate Women (dir by Ted Post)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1971’s Five Desperate Women! It can be viewed on YouTube!

Five women, who all went to college together, reunite for the first time in five years. They’re planning on spending a weekend at a cabin on a private island. Lucy (Anjanette Comer) is the alcoholic who talks too much. Dorian (Joan Hackett) is the pill popper who lies about having a handsome husband and two beautiful children. Joy (Denise Nicholas) is the former activist turned trashy model. Gloria (Stefanie Powers) is bitchy and self-centered. And Mary Grace (Julie Sommars) is the one with the mentally ill mother who refuses to speak to her. Upon reuniting on the dock, the five women all immediately gather in a circle sing an old sorority song. It’s going to be one of those weekends!

The private island is lovely and the women believe that they have it to themselves, with the exception of the two men who are also on the island. Wylie (Robert Conrad) is the caretaker and he seems to be a trustworthy gentleman and exactly the type of guy who you would want to be stranded on an island with. And then there’s Meeker (Bradford Dillman), who drove the boat to the island and who is the type of overbearing jerk who has to be specifically told not to bother the women. While the women stay in the main house, the men stay in the nearby caretaker’s cottage.

From the start, it proves to be a stressful weekend. All of the women have secrets and long-buried resentments that come out at the slightest provocation. Not helping the fact is that there’s a murderer on the island, one that goes from killing a dog to strangling Dorian while the rest of the women are at the beach. The woman, figuring that the murderer has to be either Meeker or Wylie, lock themselves into their house for the night but it turns out that it’s going to take more than a locked door to defeat a killer.

Five Desperate Women has an intriguing premise but it also has an extremely short running time. With only 70 minutes to tell its story and 7 major characters to deal with, the film doesn’t leave much room for character development and, as a result, each woman is only given one personality trait and each actress ends up portraying that trait as broadly as possible. As a result, it doesn’t take long for the movie to go from being Five Desperate Women to Five Annoying Women. As for Robert Conrad and Bradford Dillman, the two of them give effective performances but anyone with a hint of genre savvy will be able to guess who the killer is going to turn out to be. There is one unintentionally funny moment where the desperate women attempt to fight off the killer by throwing rocks at him and none of the rocks come close to reaching their target but otherwise, Five Desperate Women is not particularly memorable.

October True Crime: Confessions of a Serial Killer (dir by Mark Blair)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1985 film, Confessions of a Serial Killer, is based on the confessions of Henry Lee Lucas. Lucas was a one-eyed Michigan-born drifter who was arrested for murder in Texas in 1983. Once in custody, Lucas started confessing to murder after murder. At one point, it was estimated that Lucas had claimed to have killed around 600 people, sometimes by himself and other times with the help of his friend and sometimes lover, Ottis Toole. (Lucas “married” Toole’s 12 year-old niece, Becky, and then later chopped her up in a field.)

Of course, eventually, someone actually looked at Lucas’s confessions and came to realize that they didn’t really add up. Lucas had confessed to so many murders that, in order to believe him, you would have to be willing to accept that he could commit a murder in Florida in the afternoon and then somehow commit a second murder in upstate New York that night. (And that’s not even getting into the fact that Lucas confessed to killing Jimmy Hoffa and claimed that the CIA sent him to Cuba to take out Fidel Castro.) In the end, it was determined that Lucas was simply telling the police what they wanted to hear and that, sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally, the police were feeding him information about unsolved crimes in order to make his confessions more credible. Today, it’s generally agreed that Lucas may have killed 11 people. It’s also possible that he only killed two. (On the other hand, Ottis Toole really was the degenerate serial killer that Lucas claimed her was.)

Still, the national coverage of Lucas’s confessions inspired two independent films that were made in the mid-80s. One of those two films (and the better known of the two) was John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, in which Lucas was played by Michael Rooker and most of the action took place in Chicago. The other film was Confessions of a Serial Killer, which was filmed in Texas.

In Confessions of a Serial Killer, Henry Lee Lucas is re-imagined as Daniel Ray Hawkins (Robert A. Burns), a polite and mild-mannered redneck whose short stature, glasses, and somewhat quizzical expression all hide the fact that he is actually a vicious serial killer. Having recently been arrested, Hawkins nonchalantly confesses his crimes to Sheriff Will Gaines (Berkeley Garrett). Hawkins obviously enjoys telling his stories and he also appreciates that, whenever he and the sheriff go out to a crime scene together, he gets a hamburger and a chocolate milkshake. (“If these policemen weren’t here,” Hawkins tells one waitress, “you’d be mine.”) Hawkins talks about his childhood, growing up as the son of the town prostitute and a shellshocked father. He claims that his first victim was a sex worker in Scranton. Though flashbacks, we see Hawkins’s friendship with the moronic and equally bloodthirsty Moon Lewton (Dennis Hill). Hawkins eventually marries Moon’s sister, Molly (Sidney Brammer), who turns out to be just as sociopathic as her brother and her new husband.

Though it never escapes from Henry’s shadow, Confessions of a Serial Killer is an effective and disquieting film. The low budget works to the film’s advantage, especially in the scenes in which Hawkins wanders across the Texas countryside. Watching these grainy, documentary-style scenes, the viewer can literally feel the humidity and see the bugs buzzing around the tall grass. Though the cast is made up of unknowns, they all bring an authenticity to their roles. Anyone who has ever spent any time in small town Texas will automatically recognize the stoic but fair-minded sheriff played by Berkeley Garrett and the humble and religious doctor played by Ollie Handley. That said, the film is dominated by Robert A. Burns and his effectively low-key performance as Daniel Ray Hawkins. Burns himself was a set designer who got his start designing the house of horrors from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Burns plays Hawkins as being someone who has figured out how to come across as harmless but who also can’t help but seem off-center. His flat delivery of Hawkins’s lines captures the fact that, on the inside, Hawkins is empty. Even when he kills someone to whom he was close, he can only blandly say, “I was sorry about that.” True feelings are unknown to him.

Confessions of a Serial Killer is a film that stick with you. It’s a film that reminds you that you never know who might be watching you. Is that polite man just looking to be helpful or is he another Daniel Ray Hawkins?

Horror Film Review: The Astral Factor (dir by John Florea)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1978 but not released until 1984, The Astral Factor tells the story of Roger Sands (Frank Ashmore).

Known as the Celebrity Killer, Roger is a serial killer who murdered women who reminded him of his famous mother. It may seem like Roger is destined to spend the rest of his life in prison but what the legal system didn’t consider is that Roger has the ability to not only move things with his mind but to also turn himself invisible. How did Roger get those powers? Who knows? At one point, Roger’s psychiatrist mentions that Roger was a student of the paranormal. Later, it’s revealed that he had several books about the supernatural in his bedroom. Apparently, Roger figured out how to do it himself.

Anyway, Roger is now invisible and soon, he has escaped from prison. He is determined to kill the five women who testified against him at his trial, both because they remind him of his mother and also because he blames them for sending him to prison. Roger strangles his victims, which in this case means that the actresses playing them have to pretend like they’re struggling with someone who can’t be seen. In fact, Roger spends almost the entire film in a state of invisibility.

How do you catch a killer who can’t be seen? It’s a fair question but police Lt. Charles Barnett (Robert Foxworth) might have the answer. Barnett’s solution involves grabbing a gun and keep firing it until you hit something. That’s a straight-forward solution but The Astral Factor is a pretty straight forward film. The film begins with Roger turning invisible and, to its credit, it doesn’t spend too much time trying to justify or explain Roger’s magical powers. The film understands that all the audience really needs to know is that Roger can’t be seen and that it’s up to Lt. Burnett to find a way to stop his killing spree.

The Astral Factor is a low-budget film, one that is full of formerly prominent performers who obviously showed up to get a quick paycheck. Sue Lyon, Marianne Hill, Leslie Parrish, and Elke Sommer all play potential victims and all of them look like they would rather be doing anything other than appearing in The Astral Factor. Robert Foxworth, to his credit, does his best to give a convincing performance as a level-headed cop who is forced to accept the reality of the paranormal. Not only is he having to investigate a series of murders but he’s having to do it on his birthday. Stefanie Powers plays his girlfriend, Candy. Candy often refers to herself in the third person whenever she’s having a conversation with her boyfriend. I tend to do the same thing so at least there was a character in this movie to whom I could relate. Knowing the rules of the genre, I spent the entire movie expecting Candy to be put in danger and I was actually impressed when my expectations were subverted and that didn’t happen.

With the exception of a few atmospheric scenes and an entertainingly garish and tacky dance number, the film itself has the rather flat look of a made-for-TV movie, though the occasional hint of nudity indicates that it was meant to be a theatrical release. As I mentioned at the start of this review, The Astral Factor was originally filmed in 1978 but it sat on the shelf until 1984. That’s when a slightly shortened version was released under the title The Invisible Strangler. Today, the film is available in countless Mill Creek Box Sets, under its original title and with its original run time restored.

Horror on the Lens: The Boogie Man Will Get You (dir by Lew Landers)

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is a short horror comedy from 1942. In The Boogie Man Will Get You, Winnie Slade (Miss Jeff Donnell) buys an old house from Prof. Billings (Boris Karloff) with plans to covert it into a hotel. However, one of the conditions of the sale is that Prof. Billings and his servants be allowed to live on the property. What Winnie doesn’t know is that Prof. Billings had been conducting experiments on traveling salesman. He hopes to turn them into supermen who, much like Captain America, can then be sent overseas to fight the Nazis. However, his experiments have yet to be successful and have mostly just resulted into a lot of salesman being buried out in the rose garden.

However, things start to look up for Prof. Billings when he meets Dr. Lorencz (Peter Lorre), who is not only a doctor but also a mayor, sheriff, and dog catcher. Seriously, Dr. Lorencz can do it all!

The Boogie Man Will Get You is a fun little time capsule of the time in which it was made. For horror fans, it is mostly interesting because it features both Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Both Karloff and Lorre appear to be having a lot of fun parodying their usual screen images.

Enjoy!

October Positivity: Glorious (dir by Juan Daniel Zavelta)

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2016’s Glorious tells the apparently true story of Vince, a kid from Chicago.

Vince (played, as a child, by Gabriel Aaron Zavelta) starts life with a lot to overcome. For one thing, his family is poor. He’s never met his father and his mother (Olga Cunningham) is often busy at work, leaving Vince alone with his stepfather (Paul D. Morgan). Vince’s stepfather is quickly established as being a cruel and abusive man, one who looks for any excuse that he can find to beat Vince. When, after taking a shower, Vince drips water on the “clean rug,” his stepfather sees that as an excuse to take Vince into the basement and whip him with a belt. At school, Vince never fits in and is introverted and shy.

It’s not until a local gang leader take an interest in Vince that Vince starts to feel more confident about his life. After Vince withstands a violent initiation, he is praised for being tough and resilient and the sad thing is that this is probably the first time that Vince has ever been praised in his life. Soon, Vince is leading a double life. At school and at home, he’s still the shy kid who struggles to express himself. On the streets, he carries a gun and has no hesitation about opening fire on a car being driven by a rival gang member. In one of the film’s more shocking moments, he even opens fire on another student, shooting him outside of the school. Vince may pretend to be hard but the guilt gnaws away at him. When the cafeteria lunch lady gives him an accusatory “I saw what you did,” greeting, Vince looks like he’s about to cry.

Vince eventually ends up doing several stints in juvenile hall. Finally, the teenage Vince (now played by Darcy Grey) is accepted into a program that is designed to rehabilitate youthful offenders. He has to work maintenance for a school while attending chapel on a daily basis. Initially skeptical, Vince sticks with the program and starts to turn his life around. However, every time that he is released from juvi, his past is waiting to catch up with him. No sooner has Vince met and fallen in love with Cynthia (Tanya Nungaray) than his former friends are trying to gun him down. Can Vince escape his past or is he destined to be brought down by it?

Glorious is a low-budget but earnest look at one man’s search for redemption and it’s actually not that bad at all. The actors are all convincing in their admittedly thinly written roles and director Juan Daniel Zavaleta keeps the action moving at a good pace. One reason why the film works is because Vince doesn’t automatically become a saint. The film makes clear that, even as he commits to no longer being a criminal, Vince still has a long way to go. Unlike so many other faith-based film, Glorious does shy away from the difficulties that the main character is going to continue to face. At the same time, the film does highlight the importance of trying rehabilitate — rather than just blindly punish — the incarcerated. That’s something about which I feel very deeply and it’s obvious that this film does as well.

The budget’s low and occasionally, the film relies a bit too much on the shaky camera gimmick to create tension but, otherwise, Glorious is an effective look at one man’s path to redemption.

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

Posted on October 7, 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!

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!