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Retro Television Reviews: City Guys 3.15 “Funny Business” and 3.16 “Get Your Vote On”

Posted on 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Hello Manny High!  When last we checked in with the City Guys, they were starring on a reality show.  Let’s see what happens this week….

Episode 3.15 “Funny Business”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 6th, 1999)

Oh hey, I guess the whole reality show thing is over.  In this episode, there’s no mention of Reality House or the Loft.  There’s no cameramen chasing Jamal and Chris.  In fact, no one mentions anything about ever having appeared on reality television.  I guess this is one of those things, like the video yearbook, where they’ll explain what actually happened two seasons from now.

In this episode, Rebecca (Lisa Pepper), a Manny High graduate, returns to her former school so that she can offer three internships at her architectural firm.  Of course, Dawn volunteers.  And then Ms. Nobel randomly draws two names out of a bag for the other two spots and, of course, she draws Chris and Jamal!  I have a feeling that every piece of paper in that bag had either Chris or Jamal’s name written on it.

Chris really enjoys the internship until Rebecca orders him to be her love slave.  After Chris says that’s not appropriate workplace behavior, Rebecca threatens to flunk him unless he become her boy toy.  Chris, Jamal, and Dawn secretly record Rebecca threatening Chris and Rebecca gets fired.

Every show produced by Peter Engel did at least one episode dealing with sexual harassment but I think City Guys was the only one to feature a guy being harassed by a woman.  The episode is a bit heavy-handed and, over the past two and a half seasons, Chris has basically tried to get in the pants of every woman that he’s met so it seems like a little out-of-character that he would turn down the first woman who has actually shown any interest in him.  I mean, if we’re going to be honest, Chris is a serial harasser who apparently can’t handle having the tables turned on him.  This episode says more about Chris than it does Rebecca.

Episode 3.16 “Get Your Vote On”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 13th, 1999)

Chris has two tickets to the Taxi, Taxi, “the hottest Broadway show.”  Both Cassidy and Dawn volunteer to be his date.

“Two girls, one ticket,” Al says, “you in trouble!”

Well, Al, let’s think about it.  First off, Chris has been trying to date Cassidy since this season began and now, she’s begging to go on a date with him.  Plus, Al — YOU’RE DATING DAWN!  Remember that!?  I’m going to guess this episode was actually filmed before the episode in which Al and Dawn got together and NBC, as they often did, showed the episodes out of order.  As I’ve said before and will probably say again …. NBC just didn’t care.

The Broadway thing is only the B-plot.  The A-plot features L-Train running for reelection as Student Council president.  Jamal decides to run against him because he feels that L-Train hasn’t done enough for the radio station.

While Jamal campaigns for the presidency, Dawn and Cassidy beg Chris to pick one of them to take to the Broadway show.  “You in a player’s paradise!” Al tells Chris before reminding him that Chris has all the power over Dawn and Cassidy.  Al …. DAWN IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND, YOU WEIRDO!

As for the election, Jamal makes a lot of promises that he can’t keep and is elected over L-Train.  After Ms. Nobel informs him that the student council has no money and he’ll have to hold a fund raiser to keep all of his promises, Jamal decides to have a carnival on the roof of the school.  I have to admit that I’m kind of amazed at how strong that roof is.  I mean, they do everything on that roof!

For some reason, Jamal decides to bring a pig to the carnival.  L-Train, looking for revenge, plots to set the pig on the loose but, after Jamal offers to make him vice president, L-Train abandons his evil plan.  Unfortunately, the pig is already on the loose.  (There’s something I never thought I’d write.)  The carnival is a disaster.

“Jamal must go!” the students chant, until L-Train explains that he’s responsible for the pig getting loose.

While this is going on, Cassidy and Dawn get revenge on Al and Chris by having Cassidy’s uncle pretend to be a cop in the anti-scalping division.  After Chris tries to sell the tickets, the fake cop arrests Chris and Al and orders them to hand the tickets over to Cassidy and Dawn.  Ha!  Take that, Chris and Al!

Jamal and L-Train make up and then Jamal resigns so L-Train can become president again.  So, everything’s back to normal.  Yay! 

This episode wasn’t that bad, if you can overlook the plot.  Steven Daniel had some good moments as L-Train.  And the pig getting loose on the roof was a genuinely well-done moment.  Plus, Dawn and Cassidy got to see Taxi Taxi!

Next week …. well, who knows?  I’m sure it’ll be crazy whatever it is.

Retro Television Review: Love Boat 1.21 “Taking Sides/Going By The Book/A Friendly Little Game”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

It’s time to once again experience the magic of The Love Boat!

Episode 1.21 “Taking Sides/Going By The Book/A Friendly Little Game”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on February 18th, 1978)

This week’s episode begins with the extremely nerdy Howard Wilson (Harvey Jason) preparing to board the ship.  Before he does so, he’s approached by his best friend, Bernie (Paul Sylvan).  Bernie gives Howard a book on how to talk to women.  Apparently, this is something that Howard’s not good at but Bernie swears that the book will change his life.  There’s a Roy Lichtenstein-style picture of a man and a woman kissing on the cover of the book so Howard decides that Bernie knows what he’s talking about.

On the boat, Howard immediately notices Sheila Lawrence (Georgia Engel).  However, Sheila’s overprotective father (Herb Voland) has specifically asked Captain Stubing to make sure that no one seduces his daughter.  The captain assigns Doc Bricker (Bernie Kopell) to keep an eye on her, which makes absolutely no sense.  Over the course of the last twenty episodes, Doc has yet to meet a woman who he has not hit on.  Doc is a walking HR nightmare and quite frankly, I would be kind of uncomfortable going to him for a medical examination.  He seems like he would be a little bit handsy, if you get my drift.

Anyway, Doc turns out to be pretty bad at his job because Howard still manages to hit on Sheila.  Of course, Howard’s just doing what the book tells him to do.  Eventually, though, he realizes that he doesn’t need the book and Shelia realizes that she needs to spend more time on her own happiness and stop worry about what her father wants.  Yay!  It’s another Love Boat success story,

Meanwhile, Scott (Robert Urich) and Ellen (Diana Canova) are newlyweds who seem to be totally in love until they make the mistake of having dinner with an old married couple, Max (Robert Mandan) and Gladys (Audrey Meadows).  Listening to Max and Gladys bicker soon leads to Scott and Ellen bickering and it looks like their marriage might be over.  But again, the magic of The Love Boat leads to everyone realizing that bickering is a part of marriage and that you can still love someone even if you disagree with them.  Yay!  Robert Urich and Diana Canova were such a cute couple.  They just looked like they belonged together.

Finally, poor old Wendell Snead (Harry Morgan) is taking his wife on a cruise that he can’t really afford.  In fact, he secretly took out a mortgage on their house in order to buy the tickets.  Wendell has plan, though!  He has a set of marked playing cards and he beats Gopher at several games of gin rummy.  When the crew discovers that he’s been cheating, their initial reaction is to cheat back.  But when they learn why he’s been cheating, they give him all the money from the ship’s emergency fund.  Awwwwww!

This was a sweet episode.  Yes, the stuff with the book and the overprotective father was pretty stupid but the other two stories were entertaining.  Harry Morgan’s melancholy performance was the episode’s stand-out.  The fact that the crew gave him money instead of calling the cops brought tears to my mismatched eyes.  Nicely done, Love Boat.

What will happen next week?  We’ll find out in seven days!

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.5 “I Want To Get Married/The Jewel Thief”

Posted on 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

We learn a little bit more about Fantasy Island in this week’s episode.  It’s a strange place!

Episode 2.5 “I Want To Get Married/The Jewel Thief”

(Dir by George McGowan, originally aired on October 21st, 1978)

You know what the best thing about Fantasy Island is?

The Disco Dancing!

Cindy Barker (Meredith McRae) is a big fan of the disco dancing.  That’s because her fantasy is to come to the island and meet the man that she’s going to marry.  In fact, she wants to marry the guy at the end of the weekend and she’s already spent $20,000 to reserve the island for her wedding.  (Tattoo is excited about that.)

Of course, one possible problem with Cindy’s fantasy is that she already has a boyfriend.  She’s been dating Eddie (Ken Berry) for a while now.  However, Eddie refuses to get married.  Every time that they schedule a wedding ceremony, Eddie finds an excuse to cancel.  He can’t even say the word “married” without sneezing.  Still, Eddie is in love with Cindy and he comes to the Island to try to convince her to give him another chance.  He also tells all of her potential suitors that Cindy is actually a prostitute.  

Now, to be honest, that’s not the sort of thing that I could forgive.  I don’t care who you are or how much you love me, that’s just not something that I’m going to be able to overlook.  However, this somehow convinces Cindy that Eddie really does love her so she decides to teach him a lesson by putting on a slit leather skirt and hanging out on a street corner in Fantasy Island’s red light district.

At this point, I said to myself, “Since when has Fantasy Island had a red light district?”  Seriously, last week revealed that the island has a desert where the Egyptians buried their pharaohs.  This week, we learn that the island has a red light district.  Fantasy Island is a strange place.  Stranger still, Eddie lying about Cindy and then Cindy pretending to be a prostitute leads to Eddie and Cindy getting married.  

While that’s going on, Jordan Montgomery (Steve Forrest) is living out his fantasy of being an international jewel thief and …. wait, what?  What type of fantasy is this?  You can commit crimes in your fantasies?  This island gets stranger and stranger!  Anyway, Jordan steals a necklace from Leslie Tarleton (Leigh Taylor-Young), just to discover that the necklace didn’t actually belong to her and his thievery is going to cause her to lose her job.  When Jordan attempts to retrieve the necklace so that he can return it, he discovers that it’s been stolen yet again!  This time, crime lord Carl Dekker (Peter Mark Richman) has stolen the necklace and is keeping it on his boat, which is heavily guarded and which is also floating off the coast of the island.  

So, for those keeping track, Fantasy Island has a desert, a pharaoh’s tomb, a red light district, and a Mafia.  It seems like the island’s kind of gone downhill since the end of season one!

Anyway, this was actually a fun episode.  Neither story was particularly deep but the action moved quickly and Steve Forrest made for a properly dashing jewel thief.  I still don’t think that Cindy should have forgiven Eddie, let alone married him.  But it was 1978 and I guess times were different back then.

Finally, Tattoo tried to start his own greeting card company.  He was looking to corner the market on sarcastic and downbeat greeting  cards.  He was just a few decades too early!

Retro Television Reviews: Hang Time 3.11 “The Hustlers” and 3.12 “Fuller’s Rival”

Posted on 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

The trip to California continues!

Episode 3.11 “The Hustlers”

(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 18th, 1997)

This episode reminds us that it originally aired in 1997 by featuring an entire subplot that revolves around how much the members of the Tornadoes love Mel Gibson.

The Tornadoes are still in California, preparing for their big tournament.  (Coach Fuller mentions that they’ve been at the hotel for a week, which sounds like a really long time to be out of school but whatever.  Maybe they’re on Spring Break.)  When Vince comes across a wallet in the hotel lobby, everyone is excited to discover that it belongs to Mel Gibson.  They’re so excited that they don’t even notice Dustin Diamond standing behind them, providing a painfully unfunny cameo as Saved By The Bell‘s Screech Powers.

(Speaking of Saved By The Bell, remember when Mary Beth made out with a character from that show over the summer, while they were both at Space Camp?  It’s odd that no one brings Ryan up while they’re all in California and apparently close to Bayside High.  It’s almost as if the show’s writers didn’t really pay much attention to what they were writing.)

Danny, Michael, Mary Beth, and Kristy pretend to be members of the cleaning staff and they break into Mel Gibson’s room.  When they step into the room, Mary Beth calls out in an exaggerated Spanish accent to see if Mel’s around because she’s pretending to be a maid.  Those who have been reading my reviews for a while know that I rarely get offended but I have to say that, speaking as both someone who is a fourth Spanish and whose mother took the occasional cleaning job in order to provide a good life for her four daughters, that actually did offend me a little.

Anyway, the group never does find Mel, though they do crash an exclusive Hollywood party that just happens to be taking place at the exact same hotel where they’re staying.  Hopefully, someone did eventually get Mel’s wallet back to him.

The majority of show dealt with Teddy and Julie getting conned by some basketball hustlers.  I didn’t even know that basketball hustlers were a thing but apparently, they were a huge problem in 1997.  After Teddy and Julie get conned out of a hundred dollars, Michael plays with Teddy and Julie to help them win back their money.  Unfortunately, Michael sprains his wrist (what is the deal with Michael constantly spraining stuff?) so Coach Fuller offers to play in Michael’s place.  When the hustlers say that they’ll only play against teenagers, Kobe Bryant suddenly enters the gym.  (According to Wikipedia, Kobe was 19 when he appeared in this episode.)  Being a teenager (assuming that you accept 19 as being a teen as opposed to a young adult), Kobe helps Julie and Teddy defeat the hustlers.  Julie and Teddy get their money back.  But, to be honest, if they really needed money, they could have just borrowed some from Mel Gibson’s wallet and saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Eh.  Between the racist humor and the Screech cameo, I don’t want to talk about this episode anymore.  Let’s move on.

Episode 3.12 “Fuller’s Rival”

(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 18th, 1997)

Finally, it’s time for the tournament!  Deering makes it to the final game against New York.  (New York High School?  I’m not sure how these tournaments work.  Are they representing a state or a school?)  New York is coached by Fuller’s former rival, B.B. Byrnes (Barry Wiggins).  B.B. taunts Fuller to such an extent that Fuller loses his cool and gets kicked out of the game.  Then Michael gets upset and also gets kicked out of the game.  And then the Tornadoes lose!

Fuller apologizes to the team and tells them that good sportsmanship is important.  Then, at the award banquet, Danny smashes a cake in B.B.’s face so I guess the lesson wasn’t learned.  Oh well.

This episode, especially compared to the previous one, was actually pretty good.  Reggie Theus, who could be a bit of a stiff actor, really gets into tearing up the gym when he loses his temper and, for that matter, Adam Frost (who played Michael) finally gets to show a little emotion as well.  Plus, this show often tended to portray the Tornadoes as being unstoppable.  I always appreciate the episodes where they learn a lesson from losing a game as opposed to the ones where they magically pulling off a last-minute victory.

The California story arc may have been uneven but it ended on a good note.  Next week, I assume we’ll be back in Indiana.

Film Review: The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker (dir by Colette Camden)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

How dumb can people be?

That is the question that’s posed by the new Netflix documentary, The Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker, and the answer would appear to be that they can be extremely dumb.  The documentary takes a look at the story of Caleb “Kai” McGillvary, who went from being an internet sensation to an accused murderer over the course of three months in 2013.  Even more so, though, it’s about the people who enabled him, through a combination of their own stupidity and greed.

Kai first found fame when he was credited with stopping a hate crime.  A man named Jett McBride smashed his car into a black pedestrian and, while the pedestrian was trapped between the car and a parked truck, McBride attacked the people who attempted to help.  Kai, who was a hitchhiker who McBride had apparently picked up just a few hours before, jumped out of the car and proceeded to hit McBride three times with a hatchet.  A local news reporter interviewed Kai afterwards and was immediately taken with Kai’s spaced-out style.

At the time, it’s perhaps understandable that people were so happy that Kai had prevented McBride from killing several people that they didn’t stop to ask themselves why Kai had a hatchet with him in the first place.  Still, it does seem like it would have been a good thing to consider before the reporter uploaded his interview with Kai to YouTube.  And when Kai became a viral sensation (though I have to admit that I had never even heard of him until I saw this documentary so perhaps viral is in the eye of the beholder), maybe a few people should have said, “Before we try to make him a star, maybe we should consider that the only thing we know about him is that he’s been traveling around the country with a freaking hatchet in his backpack.”

Instead, the reporter tracked down Kai for a second interview.  Kai played guitar and expounded on his philosophy of life.  (Jack Kerouac would have kicked Kai out of a moving car but other people were impressed.)  Jimmy Kimmel had him on his show as a guest, though the interview was cut short by the fact that Kai was obviously unstable.  Despite the fact that Kai was an unpredictable alcoholic with a violent streak, there was talk of giving Kai his own reality show.  One of the documentary’s cringiest moments comes when someone says that it was felt Kai could be an unhoused Kardashian and that he could star in a show about how happy people were to be living on the streets.  None of those plans really came to fruition but Kai still remained popular enough that someone was always willing to buy him a drink or let him crash at their place for the night.  When a prominent New Jersey attorney was found beaten to death in his home, police were surprised to discover that the last man the attorney had been seen with was Kai, the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker.

This documentary is about the odd nature of fame in the internet age.  It’s been said that, due to social media, everyone has at least 15 devoted fans and that’s probably true.  That said, this documentary is even more about stupidity.  Kai is not interviewed but the people who made him famous are spoken with and, with one or two exceptions, every single one of them comes across as being either extremely stupid, extremely callous, or both.  Everyone was so eager to discover (and profit off of) the newest sensation that none of them stopped to consider that Kai was an obviously unstable alcoholic who was hitchhiking across the country with a hatchet.  Indeed, he would later brag that Jett McBride went crazy specifically because Kai gave him a joint laced with LSD.  (For the record, when Jett McBride was arrested and taken to prison, he tested positive only for marijuana.  So, Kai probably was lying about that but who would brag, even falsely, about inspiring someone to commit a hate crime?)  Everyone was so eager to make Kai a star that no one stopped to wonder if they should.

Anyway, it’s an interesting documentary.  The main lesson is don’t trust anyone who just happens to have a hatchet on them, regardless of whether or not they’re a funny stoner who can play the guitar.  It’s a good lesson to learn.

Retro Television Reviews: The Last Child (dir by John Llewellyn Moxey)

Posted on 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 The Last Child!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

Welcome to the “near future.”

Panicked by hysterical claims about overpopulation and environmental catastrophe, Americans have sacrificed the majority of their civil liberties.  Smiling policeman stand on every corner and in every public hallway.  Of course, once their authority is challenged, those smiles quickly disappear.  Crude posters have been put up everywhere, demanding that everyone watch their consumption of natural resources.  The social engineers and the eugenicists are in charge.  Anyone over the age of 65 is ineligible for medical care and encouraged to consider euthanasia.  Couples are allowed to have only one child and the government requires that anyone who gets pregnant a second time have an abortion.  Anyone who questions the policy is told that they have no choice but to follow the law.  It’s their civic duty.  The media, meanwhile, runs headlines declaring that the one child policy has led to world peace.
Alan and Karen Miller (played by Michael Cole and Janet Margolin) have already had their one child.  That their child died shortly after birth doesn’t matter in the eyes of Barstow (Ed Asner), the Himmleresque head of the Population Control Police.  Every couple is allowed one child and that’s it.  When Karen gets pregnant a second time, she is determined to have the baby.  She and Alan know that their only hope is to cross the border into Canada.  Helping them is a retired U.S. Senator (Van Heflin, in his final performance) who is opposed to the government’s policies.  Caught in the middle of Karen’s brother, Howard (Harry Guardino).  Howard works for the Population Control Police and he knows just how far Barstow is willing to go to keep Karen from having her baby.

The Last Child opens with a title card informing us that the film takes place in the “not-too-distant future.”  Along with all of the propaganda posters, that’s the only real sign that this film is meant to be taking place in the future.  There’s no “futuristic” technology.  Everyone dresses in the latest 1971 fashions.  Everyone drives the latest 1971 automobiles.  Though the decision may have been motivated by the film’s low-budget, the lack of the typical sci-fi trappings serves the film well.  The Last Child does not take place in a sleekly designed future and it doesn’t takes place in an apocalyptic wasteland.  Instead, it takes place in a world that is just as shabby as you would expect a world controlled and decorated by a government bureaucracy to be.  It’s a gray dystopia, populated by people who have given up their individuality.  It’s a world that’s visually boring by design and that makes it all the more disturbing.

The Last Child is an effective and well-acted film.  It probably feels more plausible today than it did when it aired back in 1971.  In many ways, with its portrait of unfeeling government officials and bland authoritarianism, it’s the perfect film for the age of COVID.  Indeed, the government’s policy of refusing to provide life-saving care for people over the age of 65 is reminiscent of what many pundits advocated for at the height of the COVID pandemic.  As for the film’s one child policy, that too is a concept that has become recently popular with many American academics.  Among many members of the so-called “elites,” there’s a definite need to try to control people and that very real need is what makes The Last Child so disturbingly plausible.  In The Last Child, sanctuary is found in Canada.  Today, of course, Canada is at the forefront of the euthanasia trend.  Of course, in 1971, the Prime Minister of Canada was Pierre Trudeau and not Justin.

Pierre Trudeau’s personal motto was “Reason before passion” and that’s certainly the philosophy that fuels the dystopian society at the center of The Last Child.  It’s a film that holds up today as both a thriller and a prophecy,

Music Video of the Day: Where Do We Go Now? by Gracie Abrams (2023, dir by Gia Coppola)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s music video of the day, we have a music video directed by Gia Coppola!  Gia is the granddaughter of Francis Ford and the niece of Sofia and Roman.  She also directed one of my favorite films of the past ten years, Palo Alto.

Enjoy!