Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 1.18 “The Dude of Love”

Posted on November 14, 2024 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 Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Someday, I’ll finish this show and move on to something good….

Episode 1.18 “The Dude of Love”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on February 21st, 1999)

This week, on Malibu, CA, Jason has a crush on a girl named Holly (Kristen Miller). Holly, however, is already dating someone else. She says that her boyfriend is an accountant and is too obsessed with work.

Does Jason:

accept that Holly is not single and move on
accept thar Holly is not single and wait to see what happens with her current relationship, or
act like a sociopathic little bitch?

If you guessed the third answer, you obviously know your Malibu, CA!

Needless to say, Jason acting like a sociopathic little bitch is hardly a new occurrence. When this show originally started, I thought that Scott was the more unlikable of the two main characters. He was just so smarmy and self-satisfied. But, as this season has progressed, I’ve come to realize that Scott is just a dumb frat boy who is trying to enjoy himself before his mid-life crisis hits. Jason is so just as smarmy and self-satisfied as Scott but he’s also whiny and that makes him a hundred times more annoying.

(Another annoying thing is that, whenever Jason breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience, he always awkwardly pauses before delivering his lines because the actor is obviously waiting for someone off-camera to cue him. This was especially noticeable in this episode.)

Jason’s plan, as usual, involves manipulating Murray. Murray has been hired to provide surfing updates on the local radio station (which broadcasts straight from the beach because there’s no way Peter Engel was going to pay for an extra set). Jason announces that he’s going to be Murray’s producer. Under Jason’s direction, Murray becomes “The Dude of Love,” offering up advise to lovelorn surfers.

First, Jason convinces Holly that she should call the Dude of Love for advice.

Then he convinces Murray that he’s sick so that Murray will stay home and Jason will able to take Holly’s call. Jason does an imitation of Murray and tells Holly to dump her boyfriend. Since the radio show is being broadcast literally from the beach, everyone can see Jason pretending to be Murray so I’m not really sure how this plan is supposed to work.

Anyway, Holly does not dump her boyfriend and it turns out that he’s not only an accountant but also a weight-lifter. The accountant wants to beat up Murray so Jason confesses the truth. The accountant tells Jason to stay away from Holly and to always save his receipts. Okay, the receipt thing was kind of funny.

Meanwhile, Stads, Scott, and Mr. Collins deal with Honest Ernie (Ricky Paull Goldin), a conman who sold the beach to Tracy. Of course, no one can sell the beach because it’s public property. Honest Ernie also sells fake baseball cards. Anyway, I’m not going to to waste my time detailing this dumb B-plot but the gang tricks Honest Ernie into buying a plot of land in Texas that doesn’t exist. Tracy gets her money back. Yay!

(That’s still technically fraud but whatever.)

Even by the standards of this show, this was a dumb episode. Murray deserves better friends.

Coach of the Year (1980, directed by Don Medford)

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Jim Brandon (Robert Conrad) used to be a member of the Chicago Bears, until he was drafted and sent to Vietnam. While Jim was serving his country, he was wounded in battle and when he returns to the United States, he’s now in a wheelchair. With his playing days over, Jim still wants to put his athletic abilities to good use. When the Bears front office tells him that they want to place him in the PR department as a glorified mascot, Jim tells them to forget about it and then starts to search for any opportunity to work as a coach. Unfortunately, no one is willing to take a chance on a coach who can’t walk across the field.

While he looks for a job, Jim is living with his sister (Erin Gray) and her son, Andy (Ricky Paull Goldin). When Andy gets caught (not for the first time) breaking the law, he is sent to the local reform school. It’s while Jim is visiting his nephew that he notices that the students at the Illinois State Training School for Boys like to play football. Jim suggests that the school needs an official team and that he would be the perfect person to coach them.

At first, the boys are rebellious and refuse to show Jim any respect but Jim slowly wins them over. When a prep school’s football team visits the reform school and makes some snide remarks, Jim challenges them to a game. If Jim’s team wins, it will not only prove that Jim can coach but it will also give the members of the team a needed boost of self-respect. If Jim loses, he’ll get fired and his team will probably try to escape before boarding the bus back to reform school.

Coach of the Year was a TV movie and there’s nothing surprising about it. It’s a typical example of an “inspiring” sports film, where an underdog team is led to victory by an underdog coach. The two teams play each other twice in the movie and, just as surely as you’ll be able to guess who wins the first game, you’ll also be able to guess who manages to beat the odds and win the second game. The film’s main selling point is that Robert Conrad gives a good performance as Jim Brandon. Conrad is believable as both a coach, a former star athlete, and a man who is not yet prepared to surrender his pride. Though Jim’s clearly the hero, the movie doesn’t idealize him. Sometimes, Jim can be too stubborn for his own good. Supposedly, in real life, Conrad was always the celebrity who ended up taking his appearances on Battle Of The Network Stars too seriously and that’s the way that Conrad plays Jim. It doesn’t matter if his team is made up of a bunch of juvenile delinquents or that their games are just for exhibition. Jim’s determined to win.

Coach of the Year is on Amazon Prime. Unfortunately, Battle Of The Network Stars is not.

A Movie A Day #272: Mirror Mirror (1990, directed by Marina Sargenti)

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Following the death of her husband, Susan Gordon (Karen Black) relocates to Los Angeles with her teenage daughter, Megan (Rainbow Harvest). An angry goth girl who always wears black and bears a superficial resemblance to Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, Megan struggles to fit in at her new school and quickly attracts the unwanted attention of the school’s main mean girl, Charlene Kane (Charlie Spradling). Fortunately, Megan has an old and haunted mirror in her room that can not only bring her rotting father back to life but which Megan can also use to kill all of her tormentors.

Of the many rip-offs of Carrie, Mirror Mirror is one of the best and I am surprised that it is not better known. The plot, with a teenage girl using paranormal powers to get revenge on all of the bullies at her school, may be familiar but Mirror Mirror is better executed than most of the other films of its ilk. The script is full of snappy dialogue and, despite the low budget, the special effects are effectively grisly. There’s a scene that does for garbage disposals what Jaws did for the water. One thing that sets Mirror Mirror apart from similar films is that Megan is sometimes not a very sympathetic character. Unlike Carrie, who was scared of her powers and only used them once she was pushed over the edge, Megan is initially very enthusiastic about using the mirror to get revenge for every slight, real and perceived.

The cast also does a good job, with Karen Black giving one of her least restrained performances. Keep an eye out for Yvonne DeCarlo playing a realtor and William Sanderson as Susan’s strange new boyfriend. The best performance comes from Rainbow Harvest, a talented actress who appeared in a handful of movies in the 80s and 90s and then appears to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Believe it or not, Rainbow Harvest was her real name.