Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.17 “Banzai”

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, I finally get a chance to review the episode that I should have reviewed last week. Nature is healing.

Episode 1.17 “Banzai”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on February 8th, 1986)

Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) has decided that it would be a good idea to send someone over to Japan to study how the Japanese have become such efficient employers and employees. That is an idea that actually isn’t bad and totally makes sense. Give some points to the show for having a good idea for once.

However, for some reason, Mrs. Cobb wants to send over not an executive and not a store manager but an assistant store manager. That makes no sense. If you want to make changes, why wouldn’t you send someone over who has the authority to do so? As usual, Mrs. Cobb wants it to be someone from Howard’s store. The show has always implied that Mrs. Cobb is the richest woman in Canada and that she actually owns several businesses across the North American continent. It’s odd that the only one she ever seems to care about is Howard’s store.

Assistant Store Manager Jack Christian is on vacation in Fiji so Howard has to pick a temporary replacement who can go to Japan. Mrs. Cobb tells him to pick a woman and since Marlene has a criminal record and Jennifer is not in this episode, the job falls to Edna.

Edna goes to Japan and then returns with a lot of ideas for how to make Cobb’s better. Cue Howard’s comic exasperation as Edna demands informality in the workplace, a lack of walls, and a mandatory exercise period. Also cue the two Japanese workers that Edna brought back with her, who proceed to tear down the walls of Howard’s office.

Watching all of this, I had to wonder just how long Christian’s Fiji vacation lasted. This episode seemed to take place over the course of a month, maybe even longer. It lasted long enough for the staff to rebel against Edna and for Mrs. Cobb to change her mind about using Japanese methods in her business. And it lasted long enough for Edna to decide that she would rather go back to being Howard’s administrative assistant. Jack Christian did return by the end of the episode, which is good since Jeff Pustil (who played Christian) and Kathleen Laskey (who played Marlene) were the show’s two most consistent comedic performers. (Interestingly enough, they’re married in real life.)

This was actually not a bad episode. I always cringe a bit whenever I see any 80s or 90s sitcom attempting to deal with cultural differences, especially when the other culture is Japanese. Just judging from a lot of the shows that I’ve seen, it would appear that many Americans (and I guess Canadians) in the 80s felt like the only way to deal with Japan’s competitive economy was to make often juvenile jokes about Japanese tourists with cameras and the poor dubbing that most Japanese films suffered on their way to American screens. This episode of Check It Out! is actually respectful of Japanese business culture, even if the show’s message seems to be that it ultimately isn’t right for the more laid back culture of Canada.

As for what happens in next week’s episode — who knows? We’ll find out.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check it Out 1.16 “Dog Day After Dark”

Posted on January 27, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve had a busy day and I’m running behind because I’ve been doing totally responsible stuff and not because I’ve been watching trashy talk shows. Definitely not! Anyway, this review is a little late. That said, when you’re reviewing an obscure Canadian sitcom from the 80s, you can probably be as late as you want.

Episode 1.16 “Dog Day After Dark”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on February 1st, 1986)

Howard is super excited because not only is his birthday coming up but he’s also got a side hustle. He’s appearing in commercials for Cobb’s, dressed in a giant cheeseball costume and encourage everyone to buy the store brand cheese. When a group of protestors shows up at the store to protest just how unhealthy the Cobb’s cheeseballs are, Howard orders them kicked out. Their leader, wealthy hamburger restaurant heiress Sonja (Sheila McCarthy), vows to return and to make sure that all of Canada knows how unhealthy their diet truly is.

(Violent and wealthy vegans who want to control everyone’s lives? Check It Out! may be a silly sitcom but it still managed to predict our silly sitcom future.)

Meanwhile, Edna is busy trying to put together an after-hours surprise party for Howard in the breakroom. (Check It Out! has never been that consistent when it comes to portraying the staff’s feelings towards Howard. There are some episodes where Howard is a jerk and everyone dislikes him. However, in this episode, they all love him and can’t wait to celebrate with him.) Edna tells security guard Alf to distract Howard while she gets things set up. Unfortunately, Alf is so busy telling Howard about his cat that he’s not at his post when Sonja and her followers show up and take everyone hostage.

In some scenarios, this could lead to a Die Hard situation, with Howard taking on the role for John McClane. And, indeed, that would be kind of fun. But this is Check It Out!, one of the most Canadian sitcoms of all time. So, everyone decides to celebrate Howard’s birthday even though they’re being held hostage, the terrorists are more goofy than dangerous, and, as the police and media rush into the store, Howard ends up eating one of the cheeseballs and getting sick on Canadian television.

(Despite being a very Canadian show, Check It Out! usually tried to obscure what country the show was actually set in so that it would have a better chance of finding an audience in the U.S.A. That said, it’s hard not to notice that all of the vegan terrorists have French names.)

This was a pretty silly episode bit it was hard not to appreciate the goofiness of it all. It was dumb but it was also light-hearted and good-natured, as the better episodes of this show tend to be.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.15 “Vanity’s Mirror”

Posted on January 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week’s episode is a classic of teen angst, vanity, and murder!

Episode 1.15 “Vanity’s Mirror”

(Dir by William Fruet, originally aired on February 29th, 1988)

Poor Helen Mackie (played by Ingrid Veninger)!

A student at Hamilton High, the shy and physically awkward Helen is as unpopular as her older and far more attractive sister, Joanne (Gwendoline Pacey), is popular. Helen has a crush on Scott Thomas (David Orth), who is Joanne’s boyfriend but little does she suspect that Scott is only nice to her because he’s trying to impress her sister. Scott’s friends, including Russell (who is played by Simon Reynolds, who also played Murray the bagboy on Check It Out!), all make fun of Helen and the fact that no one has asked her to prom.

However, things are about to change for Helen because she has gotten her hands on a gold compact. All she has to do is open the compact and shine the mirror in a boy’s direction and the boy will automatically fall in love with her. It happens with Russell. It happens with Greg (Zack Ward). And Helen hopes that it will happen with Scott as well. Of course, as with all the cursed antiques, there is a catch. Helen is driven to murder anyone who is in love with her.

Needless to say, Jack, Micki, and Ryan all show up and try to get the compact from Helen before she can use it to score a prom date. But this episode truly is Helen’s story and it is dominated by Ingrid Veninger’s performance as Helen. At first, it’s impossible not to feel sorry for Helen. Everyone at school is so cruel to her that you’re on her side. But once Helen actually starts using the mirror and killing her boyfriends, she becomes far less sympathetic. She gets way too much enjoyment out of killing people and the viewer is left to wonder if it was the cursed antique that corrupted Helen or if perhaps Helen is only now showing her true self. Has Helen always been evil or is she simply lashing out at a world that has always treated her like an outsider? It’s a fair question and not one that is easily answered.

In the end, having finally stolen her sister’s boyfriend and gotten the prom date that she always wanted, Helen climbs to the roof of her high school and then plunges to her death, taking Scott with her. Micki, Jack, and Ryan can only watch helplessly and then, to top it all off, the compact disappears once again. Someone (we don’t see their face) spots it on the ground and grabs it. Considering that the episode opened with Ryan and Jack finally rather cocky about their recent successes, this episode ends with a reminder that good does not always triumph.

In other words, this is a very dark episode but also a very effective one. If nothing else, it’s an episode that shows us why it’s so important to track down and take possession of the cursed antiques. There are a lot of Helen Mackies in the world.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.14 “Supermarket Superbowlers”

Posted on January 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week is all about bowling! Wasn’t CHiPs also all about bowling this week?

Episode 1.14 “Supermarket Superbowlers”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on January 15th, 1986)

Cobb’s has got a bowling team!

They’ve managed to get into the league finals and, according to Howard, all of the credit goes to their stockboy, Murray. Murray may not be good at bagging groceries but he is apparently a great bowler. He’s such a good bowler that it doesn’t even matter that Edna is a terrible bowler. In fact, Edna is so bad that she doesn’t even get to bowl. The only reason she is on the team is so she can step in if someone gets injured.

Someone does get injured! Murray breaks his arm and right before the big game too. However, Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) has told Howard that she wants the store to win that championship trophy and she’ll give everyone on the team a $500 bonus if they win. But if Edna plays, they don’t have a chance. In order to keep Edna on the sidelines, Jack Christian tracks down a former pro bowler and hires him to be the temporary stock boy. “Big Ed” Politowski (J. Winston Carroll) is a total slob who doesn’t appear to have taken a shower in months but apparently, he’s really good with a bowling ball.

Seeing how disappointed Edna is, Howard decides to fake a foot injury so that he’ll have to withdraw from the team and Edna will be able to play in his place. But, no sooner has he faked one injury than Christian drops a bowling ball on Howard’s other foot. (Why was Christian walking around the store with a bowling ball? I’m not sure.) Big Ed picks up Howard to take him to the hospital, which leads to an unseen but definitely heard crash in the parking lot.

The end result is that Howard ends up on crutches, the store does not win the trophy, and no one gets five hundred dollars. But everyone is really impressed by the fact that Howard faked an injury just so Edna could play. Of course, if Howard hadn’t faked an injury, they might have won the tournament and they would all be five hundred dollars richer. Apparently, Cobb’s only hires those who have a very, very generous spirit.

This was a fairly forgettable episode, one in which there really weren’t any stakes other than a trophy and a little extra money. Considering the big deal that Mrs. Cobb made about wanting to win that trophy, no one seemed to be particularly worried about any bad consequences from losing the game. Considering that Murray broke his arm at work, no one seemed to be worried about whether or not he would recover or perhaps sue the store. There were no consequences to anything that happened in this story and that’s fine. Not everything has to be a matter of life and death.

Probably the most interesting thing about this episode is that neither Alf the Security Guard nor Jennifer the Cashier appeared. In-universe, I going to assume the episode took place on their off-days but you do have to wonder if either one of them could bowl.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.13 “Love Is A Many Splendored Alf”

Posted on January 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, my favorite character returns!

Episode 1.13 “Love Is A Many Splendored Alf”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on January 8th, 1986)

Viker’s back!

Played by Gordon Clapp, Viker is the store’s electrician. He’s only appeared in a handful of episodes this season, though Wikipedia says that he’ll become a regular during season 2. Viker is one of the best characters on the show. Technically, he’s the goofy dumb guy but what makes Viker special is that, while he’s definitely goofy, he’s not really that dumb. Viker can put his thoughts together, it’s just that he put them together differently than everyone around him. Viker lives in a world of his own, one that has its own peculiar set of rules. Alone amongst all the characters on the show, Viker is always honest and tries to directly answer every question that he’s asked. For instance, when Howard asks him if he has an idea as to what is making the store’s light flicker on and off, Viker replies, “Yes,” and leaves it at that. Howard, after all, didn’t ask him what the idea is.

Viker is at the store because Cobb’s is having electrical problems. The lights are flickering on and off. (It takes Viker a few minutes to notice because, as he explains, his blinking his synchronized with the flickering.) The cash registers are humming. The refrigerator in the break room has broken down. The store’s freezer also breaks down, leading 800 pounds of melted ice cream and a bunch of TV dinner rotting in an alley. Can Viker figure out what the problem is?

No, of course, he can’t. Fortunately, Alf the Security Guard can. When Alf gives the broken refrigerator a good slap, the refrigerator comes back to life and the lights stop flickering. So, I guess it was all the refrigerator’s fault! To be honest, I don’t know much about how things are wired in most stores but …. well, let’s just go with it.

Alf …. poor Alf! Alf has a tough week in this episode. Edna sets Alf up on a date with her friend Helen (Nonnie Griffith). Helen likes that Alf is a plain-spoken, blue collar guy. Helen is less impressed when Alf gets drunk on their date and tries to crack open his escargot. She is especially not happy when he pours a pitcher of water on the flambé. After the disastrous date, Alf is convinced that he’ll never see Helen again. Fortunately, for Alf, Helen just happens to be in the store when he gets the refrigerator working and basically saves everyone’s job. Helen is impressed enough to give Alf a second chance. Awwwww!

(In other words, it’s a good thing Viker couldn’t figure out what the problem was!)

As far as this episode goes, I never really believed that Helen would have been attracted to Alf in the first place so that story kind of fell flat. And seriously, if you’re dating a guy because you like how direct and blue collar he is, what are you thinking serving him escargot and flambé? But I was happy to see Viker again and I appreciated that this was an episode where everyone in the store acted as eccentrically as possible. Check It Out! works best when it leans into absurdism.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.11 “Love on Sale”

Posted on December 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Attention shoppers, tonight’s episode is weird.

Episode 1.11 “Love on Sale”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on December 11th, 1985)

Weird episode.

Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) wants to open up a store in Saudi Arabia so she assigns Howard to give a speech to a group of “Arab investors,” while she spends the night seducing a sheik. Howard agrees and is told that, if everything works out, he could end up as the President of Cobb’s International. Going from being the manager of grocery store to an international business tycoon would be quite an accomplishment. Of course, Mrs. Cobb also expects Howard to dress up like Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. This leads to both Edna and Murray punching him out because they initially don’t recognize him in his costume.

Meanwhile, Murray is trying to raise $150 so that he can buy Howard’s old car, which is apparently sitting on a bunch of milk crates somewhere. Murray is a teenager who doesn’t even know how to drive but he really wants that car. How can Murray earn $150?

(Just consider that apparently, Murray doesn’t even make $150 a week from his job at Cobb’s.)

After a customer gives Murray a five dollar tip after Murray introduces him to a female shopper, Murray decides that he’ll start hooking up the single shoppers in return for a ten dollar payment. Howard thinks that this is a fine idea, as long as Murray doesn’t try to hook up anyone who is married. (Personally, I can’t think of anything that would make grocery shopping more awkward than having a 15 year-old bagboy trying to convince me to date someone while I’m looking over the produce but whatever.) Soon, Murray is making all sorts of money but then a Vice detective shows up and arrests Howard for running an escort service.

While dressed like Lawrence of Arabia, Howard is thrown in jail. In his cell, there are two burly men who continually threaten to beat him up, a skinny guy who talks about how he ate someone’s face, and a male lawyer who is wearing hot pink high heels. Murray, Christian, and Alf show up at the station and explain that they were all involved in getting people dates at Cobbs and, as a result, they’re all tossed in the cell as well.

Somehow, Howard and his employees do get released because, the next day, Howard comes to work and discovers that every swinger in the city is eager to shop at his store and Mrs. Cobb is not upset about Howard missing the meeting with the investors because Mrs. Cobb was able to seduce the sheik. Howard says that he can’t wait to be in charge of Cobb’s International because then he’ll be able to get a harem, which leads to Edna punching him.

Weird, weird episode. It’s hard to even review this episode because it really does take place in its own rather surreal reality. That said, I kind of appreciated the episode’s nonstop jokiness. There wasn’t a serious moment to be found here and, while some of the jokes fell flat, some of them worked surprisingly well. It’s an extremely silly episode that doesn’t add up to much but it’s just weird enough to be entertaining.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.10 “Car Pool”

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, everybody wants something they’ll never give up.

Episode 1.10 “Car Pool”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on December 4th, 1985)

One rainy morning, Howard comes to work, just to discover that his assistant manager, Jack Christian, has parked his new BMW in Howard’s space. As Jack explains it, there wasn’t any other place to park in the small lot. The other employees all mention that all of their parking space were also taken by customers. Howard tells his employees that he’s going to call Mrs. Cobb and tell her that they need a bigger parking lot.

That conversation does not go well. As Howard explains afterwards, negotiations with Mrs. Cobb always involve “give and take.” In this case, Mrs. Cobb gave Howard his job back after initially firing him and she even agreed to let him keep his parking space. And then Mrs. Cobb took away everyone else’s parking space.

Needless to say, no one is happy about this. (Considering that we already had a whole episode about Marlene organizing a union at the store, it’s a little surprising they don’t all stage a walk out in protest.) However, Christian has a solution. He organizes a car pool. He agrees to pick everyone up in his van and drive them to work. He’ll only charge each of them $5 for the trip to the store and then $8 for the trip home. (“The drive home is mostly uphill,” Christian explains.) After everyone agrees, Christian then swindles Howard out of an additional $40 to cover expenses.

Unfortunately, the van has faulty brakes and Christian ends up slamming into the back of someone else’s car while driving everyone to work. As a result, everyone ends up in the hospital and Christian ends up getting sued by the woman who was driving the car that he hit. He agrees to settle for $15,000, which he raises by selling his BMW to Howard.

However, no sooner has new luxury car owner Howard started wearing aviator shades and a scarf then a cop (played by Don Lake) shows up and inform Christian that the old woman he hit was actually a con artist and has been arrested. The cop hands Christian back his money and Howard gives Christian back his BMW. Then the cop mentions that the old woman tried to flee from police and crashed into a BMW, which causes Christian to faint. The cop, however, is more concerned with talking to his bookie on the phone than with checking to see if Christian is still alive.

I haven’t even mentioned the scene where Edna explains that she doesn’t care about employee parking because she just parks illegally in the street. When Howard asks her about the parking tickets that she gets, Edna says that she just tears them in half and tosses them in a nearby garbage can. Way to go, Edna! Of course, when the cop first shows up, there’s an extended sequence of Howard claiming that Edna is actually named Doris and that the Edna that the cop is looking for has gone on vacation to Cuba.

There was a lot going on in this weird but funny episode. In this episode, the show acknowledges that, while dumb people can be funny, dumb people who think they’re smart are even funnier. Everyone in this episode thought they were more clever than they actually were. Howard thought he could talk Mrs. Cobb into expanding the parking lot. Christian thought he could swindle the other employees (and it turned out that actually he could, even if his own natural bad luck ultimately thwarted him). Con artist Ruby Wexler thought she could swindle Christian (and she nearly succeeded). In the end, only Edna actually got away with anything, with the cop explaining that Edna had accidentally been issued diplomatic plates and was therefore not subject to traffic laws. This episode definitely made me laugh more than any other episode of this show that I’ve watched so far. Check that out.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.9 “Phantom of the Market”

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone is stealing disgusting gourmet food!

Episode 1.9 “Phantom of the Market”

(Dir by Stan Harris, originally aired on November 27th, 1985)

Howard is super-excited because he has been named Cobb’s Manager of the Year! The manager of the year wins a Hawaiian vacation for two because, apparently, there’s not a single Cobb’s manager who has a large family. I get the feeling that the whole manager of the year thing is a scam to give the the company’s managers an excuse to go to Hawaii with their secretaries. That’s certainly what Howard is planning to do, though at least he’s actually unmarried and dating Edna.

(Being a Canadian company, I would think Cobb’s would reward its employees with a Discovery Islands vacation but no, Cobb’s would rather send its employees to the USA.)

Howard’s employees even go through the trouble of making and hanging a big banner congratulating Howard. Of course, they hang it upside down but Howard is in such a good mood that he doesn’t even yell about it. Unfortunately, Howard’s mood is soon ruined when a corporate stooge (played by Grant Cowan) shows up and tells Howard that his store is missing $400 worth of gourmet meat and that Howard is going to lose his job if he can’t figure out what has happened to the missing inventory.

Feeling that it might be an inside job, Howard and Alf spend two nights at the store in hopes of catching whoever it is. The first night, Howard falls asleep and wakes up in his underwear. Somehow, the thief took all of his clothes without waking up Howard. Howard wraps himself in the banner, which I would think would make him look even more undressed than when he was just wearing shoes, boxers, and his undershirt. (How did the thief undress Howard without taking his shoes off? Again, how did Howard sleep through that?) The second night, Howard discovers that Cobb’s actually has a basement and that basement is occupied by Henry Weinberg (Antony Parr).

The well-dressed and well-fed Henry explains that his family used to own the land on which the store was built. Henry has been living in the basement of various Cobb’s stores for several years and he’s been stealing their food. He gives Howard a box that he says contains the ashes of his grandfather. Howard is surprisingly accepting of all this.

The next day — yay! All of the missing inventory is back. Howard gets to keep his job and go to Hawaii. Henry shows up in the story and tells Howard that he stole replacement food from all the other grocery stores in the area. After Henry leaves, Alf informs Howard that Henry is actually a comedian who used to do a bit about putting his grandfather’s ashes in a box. As Henry speaks, Howard discreetly spills the ashes onto the flood and kicks them underneath a shelf. Yikes!

This was kind of a strange episode but, in this case, the weirdness worked to the show’s advantage. In previous episodes, Don Adams sometimes seemed to be overacting. In this episode, everyone was acting bizarrely and, as such, Adams’s exaggerated reactions actually fit well with the situation. Add to that, this episode featured the return of Viker, the dumb but very confident electrician played by Gordon Clapp. As played by Clapp, Viker’s earnest stupidity was definitely the high point of the episode.

Next week, everyone car pools to work! I really can’t imagine that going well but we’ll find out what happens soon!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.8 “….Or Get Off The Pot”

Posted on November 25, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After celebrating Thanksgiving and my sister’s birthday, all in the same week, I’m exhausted but I still managed to review yet another episode of Check It Out! So, I guess …. check it out below!

Episode 1.8 “….Or Get Off The Pot”

(Dir by Ari Dikijian, originally aired on November 20th, 1985)

As this week’s episode opens, Edna (Dinah Christie) is excited because it’s her 7-year anniversary with Howard! Seven years ago, Howard took her out to celebrate Secretary’s Day and they ended up going back to his place. What some people would call a clear breach of workplace etiquette, Edna calls the beginning of something wonderful. She can’t wait to see what Howard is going to do for their anniversary!

And what is Howard planning on doing? He’s planning on going bowling with the guys.

YIKES!

Realizing that Howard seems to have real issues with commitment, Edna follows a friend’s advice and she demands that Howard join her in seeing a relationship therapist. Howard is not a big fan of therapy and he tries to get out of it by moving back his bowling game and offering to take Dinah to a theme restaurant afterwards. (The restaurant’s theme? Bowling!) Edna does not agree. Therapy it is!

Needless to say, the therapy doesn’t go well. There’s only one happy couple at the session and they’re married but not to each other. Everyone else is miserable, despite the fact that their therapist is played by Helen Seymour, who played the nice (and doomed) laundromat owner in the original My Bloody Valentine. Edna eventually gives Howard an ultimatum about proposing to her but she changes her mind after Howard apologizes for taken her for granted. After a night of anniversary sex (“You apologized several times,” Edna says), Howard agrees to marry her someday and Edna agrees not to run off with her building’s gardener.

Meanwhile, the employees of Cobb’s pool their money to buy Howard and Edna an anniversary gift. Why would they do that? Like seriously, they’re always talking about how little they get paid but now, they’re pooling their money to buy a gift for someone else’s anniversary? Anyway, Christian takes their money and buys Howard a new golf club. Good for him!

This episode didn’t add up too much but, on the plus side, Don Adams and Dinah Christie had more chemistry in this episode than they had in previous episodes. This is the first time, since I started watching this show, that I’ve believed Howard and Edna as a couple. That said, their relationship is still probably the least interesting part of this show. So far, the best episodes of Check It Out! have been the ones taking place not in the office but on the salesfloor.

Next week, someone is stealing the store’s pricey gourmet food! Can Howard catch the Phantom of the Market!?

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.7 “A Rosenbloom By Any Other Name”

Posted on November 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Advance warning: This episode is pretty dumb.

Episode 1.7 “A Rosenbloom By Any Other Name”

(Dir by Ari Dikijian, originally aired on November 13th, 1985)

Oh God, this episode.

Seriously, I’m just going to start things out by admitting upfront that this episode was a bit too frantic for me. Obviously, a lot of great comedy has come out of misunderstandings but in the case of this episode, most of the misunderstandings were just too stupid to be amusing.

So, basically, cashier Jennifer Woods (Tonya Williams) has been promised a raise by Howard and she is really looking forward to using that money to pay off her new car. But, when she receives her paycheck, she discovers that the raise did not go through. Marlene, ever the trouble maker, tells her that Howard must have lied about trying to get her the raise.

But Howard didn’t lie! He submitted the paperwork to a Mr. Federson at the corporate headqyarters and Federson has yet to approve it. Howard marches into his office and discovers Edna on the phone. Howard tells Edna to hang up and call Federson. Edna says that (for some reason) she’s already on the phone with Federson.

“Ask him where the Hell Jennifer’s raise is!” Howard says.

“Where the Hell is Jennifer’s raise?” Edna repeats.

Federson takes offense to the way the question was asked and hangs up. Howard tells Edna that it’s her fault for using that tone with Federson but Edna replies that she was using Howard’s tone and, for what seems like an hour or two, they debate who is responsible for which tone. Howard tells Edna to call up Federson and apologize for her tone. Edna calls Federson and apologizes for Howard’s tone and Federson tells her to tell Howard to man up and apologize himself. Oh, and Jennifer’s raise is now cancelled because Canada apparently has very lax labor laws.

While this is going on, Howard is also having to deal with an old woman named Mrs. Rosenbloom (Helen Hughes), who is standing outside the store in the Toronto cold. Howard brings Mrs. Rosenbloom inside. Mrs. Rosenbloom says that she’s waiting for her son, Sheldon but she’s not sure where he is or what his phone number is. “I don’t want to be a bother,” Mrs. Rosenbloom continually says as she bothers Howard for everything from a chair to a cup of soup.

Meanwhile, Jack Christian and Murray build a gigantic display of taco chips. Unfortunately, the display gets to be too high and it falls over on top of Mrs. Rosenbloom. Luckily, she appears to be okay. “Those chips have sharp edges!” Howard exclaims.

Marlene encourages Jennifer to sue the company for discrimination, as Jennifer is the only black person working at the store and also the only one to not get a raise. Howard panics when he learns that Jennifer has hired Marlene’s boyfriend, lawyer Cy Richards, to sue the store for 10 million dollars. When Cy (Ted Simonett) does eventually show up at the store to meet with Jennifer, it turns out that he’s actually Mrs. Rosenbloom’s son, Sheldon. He changed his name when he opened his law office. Cy is happy to have found his mother but he’s even happier to sue the store.

But then, largely because there’s only two minutes left in the show’s running time, Jennifer decides not to sue the store because Federson comes by the store to meet with her and he decides to give her the raise. Federson is played by Clark Johnson, who would go on to appear on shows like Homicide and The Wire. Howard takes one look at Federson and exclaims, “You’re black!”

“It runs in the family,” Federson replies.

(Yes, it’s just as cringey as it sounds.)

Jennifer may have dropped the lawsuit but Howard is still going to court because now Mrs. Rosenbloom is suing because of the chip display that fell on her.

There was a bit too much going on in this episode and so much of it could have been avoided by Howard and Edna not being idiots. I mean, how does a secretary keep her job if she doesn’t know enough to clean up her boss’s language before quoting it back to someone at the corporate office? How does Howard not know better than to have someone else apologize for him? How can he promise someone a raise that he apparently doesn’t have the power to deliver? In short, how does Howard still have a job? On The Office, they went to pains to establish that Michael was good at selling things as a way to explain why he was still in charge of the branch. On Check It Out, Howard is so thoroughly incompetent that it’s difficult to believe that the store hasn’t burned down yet. And, of course, there’s the fact that Howard, having worked for the company for 20 years, is stunned to discover that a black man has a position of corporate authority. I mean, that really doesn’t say anything good about Howard or the company.

Shows like Check It Out make me happy that I’ve never had a real job.