Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.21 “Educating Leslie”

Posted on July 5, 2025 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 and Peacock!

This week, Leslie pursues a dream but there’s a demon in a bottle getting in the way…. (*cue the dramatic music*)

Episosde 3.21 “Educating Leslie”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on February 7th, 1988)

Leslie has a chance to win an acting scholarship. The only problem is that his acting coach, Darla Fontaine (Corrine Conley), is an alcoholic who believes her glory days are far behind her. Leslie pours out her liquor, convinces her to give life another chance, and wins the scholarship after putting on a putty nose and delivering a monologue from Cyrano De Bergerac.

This episode is certainly not something that I would normally expect from Check It Out! but there it is. Check It Out! has, over the course of three seasons, been a consistently silly show, one that featured Howard getting into impossibly dumb situations and the majority of the cast just going along with the weirdness of it all. There was one episode, during the first season, where Edna thought she was pregnant and cried when she discovered she wasn’t. Up until this episode, that was the only dramatic moment to be found in Check It Out!

It’s a bit odd that, for it’s second-to-last episode, Check It Out! would do an episode that goes so strongly against the usual style of the series but Check It Out! was never a particularly consistent show and the fact that Sean Roberge’s stockboy makes an appearance in this episode after a long absence suggests that this episode was probably meant to air earlier in the season than it did. As well, Viker is prominently featured in this episode but no one mentions the fact that, just last week, his wife gave birth.

As for the episode itself, it was a bit overwritten and Corrine Conley overacted in the role of the alcoholic diva. But, as usual when he was given a spotlight episode, Aaron Schwartz nailed it as Leslie and elevated every scene that was in.

This episode ends with Leslie winning his scholarship. As next week’s episode is just a clip show, one could argue that, as a series, Check It Out! ended with Leslie finally achieving his dream. That’s not a bad ending.

Next week …. the finale!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.10 “Shrink from Sendrax”

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, corporate sends a visitor to Cobb’s for reasons that are never exactly clear.

Episode 3.10 “Shrink From Sendrax”

(Dir by Jayne Schipper, originally aired on November 15th, 1987)

I’m just going to do a mini-review of this episode because I’m busy working on our big St. Patrick’s Day extravaganza here at the Shattered Lens!

Remember that new company that bought out Cobb’s? It can be easy to forget about them. Well, in this episode, they send a psychiatrist named Dr. Matthews (Graham Harley) to check on everyone’s mental health. Why would they do that? I mean, is Cobb’s grocery store really that important to them? It seems like a lot of money to spend on checking whether or not the cashiers are feeling good about themselves.
Admittedly, I haven’t had that many jobs and I’ve never worked in a grocery store. If you told me that I had no choice but to sit down and talk about my life with a psychiatrist as a condition of my employment, I would probably quit. It’s not that I have anything against psychiatrists. It’s just that I believe therapy should always be voluntary.
The episode’s highlight was Leslie wanting to spend hours talking to the psychiatrist about the party that was thrown when he turned two years old. Aaron Schwartz, who is often underused on this show, really got a chance to show off his comedic skills in this episode.
Gordon Clapp’s Viker also got a few good scenes. In general, any episode that features Clapp is, at the very least, going to make me smile.
Howard freaks out over the psychiatrist and the questionnaire that he’s forced to fill out. He gets some advice from 14 year-old stockboy Brad, played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge. This is Brad’s third appearance on the show and I get the feeling that he was originally meant to be a major character but the show’s writers couldn’t figure out what to do with the character.
This third season has had a lot of weird detours and characters. We haven’t heard anything else about Howard’s brother. The corporate liaison, TC Collingwood (Elizabeth Hanna), is occasionally pictured in the opening credits and occasionally not. What happened to the stockboy who had a crush on Marlene?
Anyway, to prove that he’s not crazy, Howard dresses up like a clown because he knows that only way to prove he’s not crazy is to act crazy while realizing that he’s acting crazy or something.
Marlene and Christian, the two most consistently interesting characters on the show, were not in this episode and that kind of made the whole psychiatry angle feel useless. The idea of Marlene and Christian reacting to ink blots is such a good one that I personally would have delayed production on this episode until Kathleen Laskey and Jeff Pustil were available to appear in it.

Gordon Clapp and Aaron Schwartz were great but, overall, this was pretty dumb episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.5 “Not For Commercial Use”

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the news comes to Cobb’s!

Episode 3.5 “Not For Commercial Use”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 18th, 1987)

The local news station is coming down to Cobb’s to do a story on how things have changed at the store now that the company is under new management.

Really?

Is it just a super slow news day or something? The insinuation is that it’s actually going to be a 30-minute news special, all about an obscure grocery store in the suburbs of Ontario. (In this episode, Check It Out! finally admits that the show is taking place in Canada.) I mean, even if it is a slow news day, I just can’t imagine that a thirty-minute story about Cobb’s would be a huge ratings grabber.

Howard is excited about the idea of being on television. He calls his Aunt Lil and promises to tug on his ear so that she’ll know that he’s thinking of her. Howard imagines himself as a TV star. There’s Howard hosting a talk show! There’s Howard as a tough detective. It’s all kind of silly but, in its way, kind of cute. Howard is a lot more likable this season than he was during the previous two seasons. And Don Adams, who can sometimes seem a bit indifferent when it comes to playing Howard, actually gave a lively performance in this episode.

TC Collingwood (Elizabeth Hanna), who I guess is supposed to be the liaison between the store and the corporate offices, does not want Howard to appear on TV. She feels that Howard is a bit too …. I guess “dorky” would be the right term to use here. She thinks that Howard is going to embarrass the store with his bad jokes and his Bogart impersonation. TC would rather focus on employees like Leslie, who now wears a chef’s hat and who has apparently transferred from working as a cashier to working in the deli.

(One thing that I’ve noticed is that, during season 3, the show finally hired enough extras to make the store seem like a real place. There are now employees and shoppers all over the place. Marlene is no longer the only cashier and Leslie appears to have a good crew working with him at the deli)

As for Howard, he does manage to get on television. He simply cannot be stopped! He wanders in front of the camera. He tells bad jokes. He does even worse impersonations. TC ends up locking him in a meat locker but it turns out that the CEO of the company really enjoyed Howard and his antics. Good for Howard, I guess.

This episode continued this season’s pattern of being far better than the two that came before it. For once, every member of the cast was allowed a chance to shine. This episode was worth watching for Viker’s attempt to tell a knock knock joke alone. Check It Out! was a deeply silly show but at least in the third season it’s finally got consistently funny.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Howard’s paranoid and with good reason! They are all out to get him….

Episode 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 17th, 1987)

After the new stockboy, 12 year-old Brad (played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge), shows Howard a newspaper article about how the company that purchased Cobb’s has been sending corporate spies into its stores to evaluate management, Howard gets extremely paranoid. He becomes convinced that there must be a spy in the store. He gathers Brad, Leslie, Christian, Viker, and Marlene into the stockroom and asks them if they’ve noticed anyone strange in the store. He also suggests that any one of them could possibly be the spy.

Or maybe — just maybe — the spy is the new butcher who keeps asking Howard all sorts of questions about the other employees. He would seem to be the most likely suspect and we know it’s him because the episode opens with him getting his assignment and talking about how he can’t wait to get Howard Bannister fired. Howard, of course, is so paranoid about the possibility of there being a spy in the store that he expresses all of his fears and frustrations to the spy. In other words, this is yet another episode episode where Howard is a complete moron. The previous season was split evenly between episodes where Howard was competent and episodes where Howard was an idiot. The episodes featuring stupid Howard were always funnier than the episodes featuring smart Howard so I think the showrunners made the right decision to focus o Howard’s stupidity in the third season. No one wants to watch a show about a good boss. What fun is that?

(It’s kind of like how we loved The Office when it was all about Michael screwing up but, when it became about new boss Andy proving himself, we all tuned out.)

It turns out that not everyone at the new corporation is supportive of the whole spy thing. T.C. Collingwood comes to the store and informs Howard that his butcher is the spy. Howard replies by giving the spy a lot of work to do. I guess that’s one way to handle it but it doesn’t change the fact that Howard told the spy that everyone at the store was incompetent and should be fired. This episode makes less and less sense the more that I think about it. Can’t corporate just look at whether or not the store had made any money and use that to determine whether or not Howard’s doing a good enough job? This episode didn’t make much sense.

Incidentally, Edna was on vacation during this episode. How many vacation does Edna get in the year? It seems like she’s never at the store. I have a feeling that Howard is going to run off with T.C. Collingwood at some point in the new future. Maybe that’s for the best. At least then Edna wouln’t have to flee to Florida every month.

Next week …. Howard wants to be a TV star! We’ll see what happens.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out 3.2 “Hey, Take Me Over”

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Howard continues to dream of a better job. Good luck with that, Howard.

Episode 3.2 “Hey, Take Me Over”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 10th, 1987)

Cobb’s has been sold! Because the new owner is a huge corporation that owns several luxury resorts, Howard convinces himself that he’s going to be promoted to running a hotel in Tahiti. (Howard’s background in hotel management has been one of the few consistent things in Check It Out.) Instead, corporate vice president T.C. Collingwood (Elizabeth Hanna) comes down to the store and tells Howard that he needs to start wearing a smock that says “Howie, Store Manager” on it.

Howard does what any reasonably immature, 50ish man would do. He quits. But then Edna explains that Howard will lose his pension if he quits so Howard decides that maybe wearing the smock won’t be so bad. “You’re throwing away your future,” Edna says at one point, as if Howard isn’t clearly approaching the age when most people retire.

This episode really drove home one of the biggest issues with Check It Out!, which is that Howard was written to be an ambitious man in his 40s but he was played by Don Adams who, when the show began, was already in his 60s. Now, it should be admitted that Adams looked about ten years younger than his actual age but still, Howard comes across as a bit too old to still be fantasizing about suddenly changing careers. There’s a principle that everyone rises to their level of incompetence. They keep getting promoted until they reach a job they can’t do and then, they get stuck there. Howard’s level of incompetence appears to be working as a general manager of a grocery store.

Howard eventually does put on the smock and agrees to keep working at his job. What’s odd about this is that Howard was already wearing the smock during the previous episode. Obviously, the episodes that made up the final season of Check It Out! were not aired in their intended order.

For all of the flaws to be found in this episode, it was still better than the majority of the second season. It would appear that, with season 3, the show’s producers and writers finally settled on Howard being an incompetent manager and the store being a mess. That’s definitely the right way to go. When it comes to workplace sitcoms, incompetence is always funnier than hypercompetence. (Just consider the U.S. version of The Office, in which the funniest episodes featured the office in chaos and the cringiest episodes were always the ones the centered on how good Jim was at selling paper.) No one respects Howard and Howard has no idea how to do his job. That’s a lot funnier than whatever the second season was trying to do.

Finally, I should mention that T and T‘s Sean Roberge has a small role in this one, playing the new bagboy. If I’ve learned anything from doing these retro television reviews, it’s that, in the late 80s, syndicated Canadian television shows really did seem to share the same small pool of actors.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.19 “Turner’s Tale”

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get trippy as Mr. T tells a story about a magical forest.

Episode 3.19 “Turner’s Tale”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on May 12th, 1990)

T.S. and Decker discover a little kid named Daniel (Amos Crawley), who is hiding out underneath the boxing ring at Decker’s gym. Figuring that Daniel ran away from home after getting in trouble for something, T.S. tells Daniel a story while Decker tries to track down Daniel’s parents.

As you can guess from the episode of this title, the majority of the episode is a dramatization of the story that Turner tells. (The story is also told in rhyme, just so you know what you’re getting yourself into.) In Turner’s story, Daniel (Sean Roberge) and his sister Terri (Kistina Nicoll) move into a happy forest that is populated by people dressed up as mice, rabbits, and owls. When Daniel enters a forbidden part of the forest and picks a flower, the police show up and Terri is taken away. So, Daniel has to go to the police captain’s castle and admit what he did so that Terri can be set free and the forest can be happy again….

What? No, I’m not kidding. That’s the plot of this episode.

Okay, this is a weird one. For 24 minutes, T and T goes from being a show about Mr. T solving crimes to a show about a teenager walking through a magic forest and trying to return a forbidden flower to the cops. I can’t imagine that anyone really watched T and T for the action but if they did, this episode probably really pissed them off.

But I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting sentimental as I mature but this episode was actually really sweet and kind of cute. Mr. T really got into telling the story and there was a funny moment where Turner suddenly realized that he had no idea how the story was supposed to end. One thing that has always remained consistent about T and T is that Mr. T was always at his most likable when acting opposite kids and trying to teach life lessons. He and David Nerman made for a good team in this episode and watching them play off each other, it was easy to understand why Decker was the only one of the show’s supporting characters to appear in all three seasons of T and T. There’s not really much else to say about this episode. It was clearly made for kids and the lesson is that you should never be scared to tell your parents the truth, even if it means getting punished. It’s pretty simple but the episode had a few funny moments and everyone seemed to be having fun.

Sometimes, that’s enough.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.16 “TV Turner”

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a documentary crew proclaims T.S. Turner to be the West’s greatest crime fighter.

Episode 3.16 “TV Turner”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on April 21st, 1990)

A Japanese television crew shows up at the Canadian police station and tells Detective Hargrove that they asked a computer for the name of the greatest crime fighter in North America. The computer replied with “T.S. Turner,” so they have traveled to Canada to interview Turner. The only catch is that they have no idea where Turner is and they don’t know anything about him.

Meanwhile, Turner is preparing to leave for his interview with the Japanese documentary team when …. wait a minute, I thought they didn’t know where to find Turner. I thought they hadn’t even called Turner before arriving in Canada. So, why is Turner getting ready to leave for his interview? This is a confusing episode.

Anyway, an old friend of Turner’s asks him to help her track down her missing husband, who lost his job after he was framed for a theft at work. Turner blows off the interview to search for him. This means that the film crew instead interviews Hargrove and then Terri about Turner. The film crew is disappointed to learn that Turner does not drink and he’s not a womanizer. A random criminal (Phillip Jarrett) gives an interview about the time he was arrested by Turner but it turns out that he’s thinking of a different Turner.

Finally, Turner shows up at the station. However, before he can do the interview, Terri’s latest client (Angelo RIzacos) grabs a gun and threatens to shoot his way to freedom. By an amazing coincidence, it turns out that the client is also the missing husband! Turner convinces the man to put down the gun by explaining that everyone now knows that he was framed for the theft.

(That said, the guy is still looking at serious jail time. He threatened to shoot up a police station!)

The film crew decides not to interview Turner because he’s not exciting enough. The end.

Weird episode. I was expecting it to be a clip show but instead, it was just people talking about how Turner didn’t drink, have sex, or fight any supervillains. I guess the idea was to show that Turner was a good man and that’s what made him a hero. That’s a nice message but it also leads to Turner losing his chance to be the subject of a documentary. Turner’s just too good for the world, I guess.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due. After sleepwalking through most of season 3, Mr. T actually seemed to be invested in this episode and the scene where he talked the guy into putting down his gun was very nicely done and acted. As an actor, Mr. T had zero range but he could be likably earnest and that’s certainly the case here.

Anyway, this was an odd episode, even by T and T standards. There’s only five more to go!

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.13 “The Curse”

Posted on September 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, after two months, I guess it’s time to finish up reviewing T and T.

I have to admit that I had to remind myself just what exactly this show was about before I watched the 13th episode of the third season. It’s not a show that really sticks in your mind when you’re not watching it. In case you need a refresher, the third season of T and T finds T.S. Turner (Mr. T) working for lawyer Terri Taler (Kristina Nicoll), who is apparently the sister of Amy Taler, the crusading lawyer that Turner worked with for the previous two seasons.

Episode 3.13 “The Curse”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on March 31st, 1990)

When T.S. demands that Alfredo (Sam Malkin) pay an outstanding bill for Terri’s legal services, Alfredo reacts by putting a gypsy curse on T.S. T.S. does what anyone would do. He fakes his death and has his friends hold a fake funeral in order to guilt Alfredo into paying the bill.

What?

Again, it’s been nearly two months since I last watched this show. When I was taking care of my Dad, the last thing that I was thinking about was an obscure Canadian comedy/action show from the late 80s. So, I guess I had forgotten just how silly T and T actually was. And really, I can’t fault the show for being silly. I mean, it’s a show that stars Mr. T. Of course it’s going to be silly! That said, you know that a show is running out of ideas when they trot out a gypsy curse. The idea of T.S. Turner faking his own death had potential but the episode itself just kind of fell flat. By the third season of T and T, it was obvious that Mr. T was so bored with the show that there really wasn’t much difference between Turner pretending to be dead and Turner being alive.

The majority of the episode is taken up with Turner’s “funeral,” which is held at Decker’s gym. It’s a bit of a missed opportunity, especially when you consider that T and T was in its final season. Joe Casper returns and so do three of the show’s recurring crooks. But not present are Turner’s Aunt or his niece, both of whom were key characters during the show’s first season. And, needless to say, Amy Taler does not attend the funeral of the man she got out of prison and worked with for two full seasons. It really does leave the viewer wondering, once again, just what happened to Amy’s character and why the show’s third season insists on acting as if Terri has always been Turner’s partner.

Anyway, the scheme works. Alfredo pays his bill. Turner reveals that he’s not dead. The funeral turns into a party. That’s kind of nice.

I’m nearly done with this show. That’s nice, too.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.4 “Cry Wolf”

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone from the past shows up but it’s not Amy.

Episode 3.4 “Cry Wolf”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on January 26th, 1990)

While filming footage for what is sure to be a riveting cinematic essay on urban decay, high school student Martina (Joanne Vannicola) films a drug deal going to down in an abandoned warehouse. (The world of T and T was full of abandoned warehouses where people were either selling drugs or hiding stolen money.) Unfortunately, Martina runs out of film before actually capturing the drugs being exchanged. Everyone who sees the footage says that it doesn’t prove anything.

Martina decides to take justice into her own hands. I’m not really sure why. Martina’s obsession with tracking down the drug dealers and getting them arrested feels somewhat unhinged and it’s a bit disturbing to see coming from a teenager. I mean, Martina doesn’t know the drug dealers. She is apparently not a user of cocaine. She’s just decided that these people deserve to be taken down by her. One gets the feeling that Martina is going to grow up to be a member of the secret police.

Martina’s investigation leads her to a suburban couple who capture her and make plans to eventually kill her. Fortunately, Martina’s best friend is Joe Casper (Sean Roberge) and he is able to enlist his mentor, T.S. Turner, to save Martina’s life.

That’s right! Joe’s back. He was a semi-regular during the second season, appearing in the opening credits even though he rarely got to do anything on the show. Still, the return of Joe would, in theory, be the perfect opportunity for the show to explain what happened to Amy. Amy and Joe were close, after all. It seems like it would be natural for Joe and Turner to say something about missing Amy and perhaps provide us with a clue as to why Amy has been replaced by Terri.

However, that doesn’t happen. In fact, Turner acts as if he barely knows Joe, despite the fact that he practically adopted him during the second season. “Why are you kids always here?” he growls when he sees Joe and Martina in Decker’s gym. And seriously, why is everyone always in Decker’s gym? The place is a dump! And is there no one at the gym who could tell T.S. that the hot pink bodysuit that he wears while boxing looks kind of silly?

Anyway, T.S. goes down to the suburbs and saves Martina. As usual, it doesn’t take much effort because the drug dealers are all kind of wimpy whereas T.S. Turner is Mr. T. It was only as things ended that I realized that Terri didn’t even appear in this episode. With Amy gone and Terri not being all the important, T and T is feeling more and more like T.

This episode was pretty dumb but I did appreciate that the drug dealers were essentially just two suburbanites who had no idea what they were doing. That was a nice twist. But otherwise …. yeah, pretty dumb.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.17 “T.S. Turner For The Defense”

Posted on February 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s time for …. another clip show? Didn’t we just do a clip show last week? Far be it for me to complain about having an easy review to write but how does any show get away with doing two weeks straight of clip shows?

Episode 2.17 “T.S. Turner For The Defense”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on May 1st, 1989)

“Things don’t look too good for Amy when, after upsetting the law society, she gets threatened with disbarment. But even I got nervous when she doesn’t show up for the hearing and it’s left to me to defend her.”

Oh yay! For the first time since the start of the second season, an episode of T and T opens with Mr. T offering up a synopsis of the episode’s plot. It’s been so long since this weird but fun trick has been employed by the show that I originally assumed that this episode was originally meant for the first season. But then I spotted the character of Joe Casper in the background of a courtroom scene and Joe didn’t become a regular character until the second season. Who knows why Mr. T introduced this episode. I’m just glad that he did.

As for the episode itself, Amy’s adventures with T.S. Turner have finally led to her facing disbarment proceedings. Unfortunately, right before heading with Amy to the hearing, Amy’s attorney has a heart attack. Amy blows off the hearing to go to the hospital with her friend and, for whatever reason, it doesn’t occur to her to call Turner or anyone else at the hearing and let them know what’s going on. I mean, her lawyer had a heart attack. Under normal circumstances, this is the sort of thing that would lead to the hearings being postponed.

So, with Amy missing, T.S Turner takes it upon himself to defend her at the hearings. Keep in mind, T.S. is not a lawyer. Amy did not hire Turner to defend her. If there’s not much reason for the hearing to proceed without Amy or her actual attorney, there’s even less for the “law society” to allow T.S. Turner to serve as her counsel. Maybe they do things differently in Canada but seriously, none of this makes any sense.

Maybe I’m overthinking things. Like last week’s episode, this is a clip show and obviously, the main concern of the writers was to find an excuse for everyone to talk about Amy’s previous adventures on the show. Unfortunately, Amy’s adventures have never been as interesting as Turner’s so the clips pretty much all fall into the same three categories: Amy gets mad, Amy gets captured, and Amy flirts with some loser to get information. It all gets repetitive fairly quickly.

Halfway through the episode, Turner calls Joe to testify. “What about you, Joe?” T.S. asks Joe on the stand, “Have you ever gotten in trouble? Tell the court about it, Joe.” Joe proceeds to talk about how he first met T.S. and Amy and it’s hard not to notice that Joe’s entire story centers on T.S. but not Amy. Perhaps realizing that Joe hasn’t been of any help, Turner takes the stand himself and talks about …. himself. We get several flashbacks of Turner beating up criminals and it’s hard not to feel bad for Amy, who isn’t even the center of attention at her own disbarment hearings.

“Every legal indiscretion she has committed is justified,” Turner says as Amy finally steps into the courtroom, “because she has helped so many.”

That’s all it takes for the Canadian Legal Society to decide that Amy can continue as a lawyer. Yay!