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!

Smart and streetwise!

Episode 3.13 “Down and Out in Soho”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 30th, 1999)

So, I guess the reality show is still a thing.  This episode begins with Ms. Nobel telling the Gang that she’s spoken to the show’s producer and she thinks it would be a good idea for them to do a community service project.  I find myself asking this every review but seriously …. how is this any of Ms. Nobel’s business?  Is Ms. Nobel a producer on Reality House now?

Anyway, the community service project involves hanging out with a bunch of Romanian immigrants.  This leads to a lot of scenes featuring the immigrants speaking in broken English and thick accents while the audiences laughs it up.  For a show that was supposedly all about celebrating diversity, City Guys certainly did enjoy poking fun at people with thick accents.

When Dawn comes across Euri, one of the Romanians, sleeping on the streets, she invites him to come live at the loft.  Jamal warns that the guy could be a thief but he’s outvoted by his loftmates.  Euri moves into the Loft and promptly steals a computer.  At first, Dawn is disillusioned and swears she’ll never help another immigrant.  Fortunately, Jamal and Dawn then run into Euri at a coffeehouse and he explains that his name is actually Joey and he’s from New Jersey.  Upon discovering that she was robbed by an American instead of a Romanian, Dawn feels a lot better.

In the B-plot, Cassidy starts a folk act with L-Train and Chris and pretends to be a bad singer so that Chris and L-Train will quit the group.  But if Cassidy wanted to be a solo act, why was she working with L-Train and Chris in the first place?

It was a bit of a confusing episode.  Apparently, everyone is watching the reality show but no one recognizes Chris or Jamal when they’re in public.  And we never actually see a camera crew filming the group.  If the Loft is full of cameras, wouldn’t they have  captured Euri/Joey stealing the computer?

Hopefully, this next episode will make more sense….

Episode 3.14 “When Al Met Dawn”

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

“After two months of Reality House,” Cassidy says as the episode begins, “the best part is that you really get to know your roommates.”

“The worst part,” Jamal says, “is you really get to know your roommate.”

Actually, for the past two and a half seasons, the characters on this show have exclusively hung out with each other, to the extent that it almost seems like they’re in a Ms. Nobel-centered cult.  It also seems like they should already know each other.

Speaking of getting to know each other, Dawn and Al are working on a science project together and they end up falling for each other and you know what?  They’re actually a cute couple.  However, Dawn is worried about the pressure of pursuing a relationship while on a reality TV show.  “I mean, look at Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck!” she says, “Their relationship was killed because no one would leave them alone!”  

Wow, Ben and his love life have been pop culture reference points for a while now.

(By the way, Dawn and Al’s science project is a big bulky television mounted on the handlebars of a bicycle.  The idea is that you can watch TV while pedaling but it seems like it would just cause more accidents than anything else.)

Since Dawn and Al are keeping things a secret, L-Train sets Al up on a date with another girl.  When the girl kisses Al, Dawns sees them and freaks out.  At the science fair, Dawn humiliates Al by accusing him of cheating.  Ms. Nobel, who has nothing better to do, tells Dawn that it was actually all her fault for trying to keep things a secret.  (Ms. Nobel isn’t wrong but again, why does Ms. Nobel have to get involved in everything?)  Dawn hijacks that Manny High radio station and asks Al to meet her at their favorite coffeehouse.  Of course, everyone else from the reality show and the school all show up at the coffeehouse so that they can watch Al and Dawn get back together.  It’s kind of cringey but, again, they’re a cute couple.

Meanwhile, Chris and Jamal are in love with the building’s new superintendent.  So, the Loft is actually in a real building as opposed to just being a Big Brother-style set?  I’m starting to think this show is not a realistic look at reality television.

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!

If I can turn it in tomorrow, it’ll be alright….

Episode 3.11 “Marriage Go Round”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 23rd, 1999)

It’s marriage class!  The class — which, of course, includes Jamal, Chris, L-Train, Al, Dawn, and Cassidy — is divided into couples.  Ms. Nobel assigns the couples and, for a few weeks, they pretend to be married and deal with any complications that come up.  Ms. Nobel also decides what the complications are going to be.  Why does Ms. Nobel get all this power?

Anyway, Jamal gets mad because Chris is “married” to Jamal’s previously never seen or acknowledged girlfriend.  (Apparently, Jamal broke up with the white girl who had the racist father.)  Jamal spends the entire show worrying that he’s going to lose his girlfriend and then he does lose his girlfriend but who cares?  We’ve never seen this person before.  Meanwhile, L-Train is assigned to marry a girl who thinks that she’s too good for him, Al is assigned to marry Dawn, and Jamal is assigned to marry Cassidy.  Considering that Chris is supposedly in love with Cassidy, wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to be jealous of Jamal than for Jamal to be jealous of Chris?

 As you may have noticed, this episode was recycled from an old episode of Saved By The Bell.  It wasn’t that good of an idea when Saved By The Bell did it.  It’s even dumber when it gets the City Guys treatment.

Episode 3.12 “Movin’ On Up”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 30th, 1999)

Rock TV (that’s this show’s version of MTV) is holding auditions for the cast of the latest season of Reality House (a.k.a. The Real World).  Chris, Jamal, L-Train, Al, Dawn, and Cassidy show up late for the auditions and then get into a loud argument about who is to blame.  The producer is so impressed by their argument that he hires them on the spot!  As he puts it, they’ve got “in-your-face, New York attitude!”

The Gang becomes reality stars!

They move into a loft but apparently, there’s not enough conflict and Chris and Jamal overhear the show’s producer talking about cancelling the season.  Chris and Jamal decide to manufacture conflict to keep the season going.  Isn’t that what the show’s producers are supposed to be doing?  

Seriously, as a committed reality TV fan, this episode offended me.  Why would you ever cast a reality show with an uneven number of men and women?  Why would you pick people who already know each other?  Why would you not toss someone in specifically to start conflict?  Where’s the naïve newcomer from the Midwest?  Where’s the frustrated artist with terrible personal hygiene?  Where’s the girl who won’t shut up about being a virgin?  Where’s the frat boy with a drinking problem?  I mean, no wonder no one is watching this show!

While the gang appears on reality TV, Ms. Nobel deals with a terrible new assistant named Marcy.  It was pretty dumb.  Even dumber is that Ms. Nobel somehow got involved in telling Chris and Jamal how to behave on the reality show.  Why does Ms. Nobel get involved in everything?  Is running a high school really that easy of a job that she can just spend all of her time hanging out at the diner and the reality show loft?

The episode ended with the TV show still going and everyone still living in the Loft so I guess this reality show angle is going to be the new thing.  I guess we’ll find out for sure next week!

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!

Let’s see what’s happening at Manny High!  But first, let’s check out the theme song and watch as Chris and Jamal have way too much fun while wandering around New York City together….

Episode 3.5 “The Players”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 2nd, 1999)

Remember, way back during season one, when Ms. Nobel ordered Chris and Jamal to work together on the video yearbook?  That was kind of set up as being the season’s big storyline and then it was just abandoned.  Instead, Chris and Jamal got their radio show and people like me were left to wonder whatever happened with the video yearbook.

Well, in this episode, City Guys finally addressed the issue of the video yearbook.  When Chris and Jamal decide to make a movie and enter it into a film festival, Cassidy asks them what they know about making movies.  Chris and Jamal immediately mention the video yearbook.  Cassidy replies that they never finished the video yearbook.  

Later, Chris and Jamal ask Ms. Nobel, “When have we ever let you down?”

“Well, there was the video yearbook,” Ms. Nobel replies.

I have to admit that I actually laughed at that joke.  It’s not often the City Guys makes me smile but this episode succeeded.  Not only did I discover that I was right in my suspicion that Chris and Jamal just gave up on the video yearbook but there was also a funny B-plot in which L-Train, Al, and Dawn agreed to be tested for ESP.  They were asked to guess what a researcher was looking at on a card.  If they gave the wrong answer, they would get an electric shock.  Al and L-Train always got the answers right.  Dawn got shocked over and over again until the researcher finally revealed that the test was actually a social experiment to see how many time someone could be shocked without getting mad.  Again, I laughed, I’ll admit it.  Steven Daniel, Caitlin Mowery, and Dion Basco all really sold the story.

As for the main plot, Chris and Jamal try to make a movie together but Jamal wants to make a Spike Lee-style social drama while Chris wants to do an Austin Powers-style spoof.  Eventually, they realize that they need to work together so they splice their two films together.  Everyone loves the film, of course!  And you know what?  This plotline also worked far better than I was expecting, with Scott Whyte and Wesley Jonathan really selling both their fight and their eventual collaboration.  Jamal’s movie actually felt like a movie that the politically-minded Jamal would make while it’s very easy to imagine that Chris would probably be a huge fan of Austin Powers.  For once, the plot and its developments actually felt like an organic result of who the characters were.  This was a surprisingly good episode.  

Episode 3.6 “Raise the Roofies”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 2nd, 1999)

This episode opens with Al, Jamal, and L-Train giving Chris a hard time about his efforts to date Cassidy.  They mention that Cassidy is mad at Chris for dating that Greek girl behind his back.  Oh my God — continuity on City Guys!

Anyway, Cassidy has a new boyfriend and his name is Trent.  We know that he’s evil because his name is Trent and he’s a student at NYU.  No one named Trent is ever a good guy and, in the Engelverse, frat boys are always dating high school students and revealing themselves to be jerks with wandering eyes.

Trent has a roommate named Tom who compliments Trent on his girlfriend.  Trent reveals that Cassidy is in high school and she’s a “goody-goody.”

“I guess you’ll be sleeping alone this Friday night,” Tom says.

“Not necessarily,” Trent says with an evil laugh, “I’ll just need a little help from old friend, Mr. Roofie! …. And the best part is that she won’t remember a thing Saturday morning.”

Trent invites Cassidy to a frat party, which makes sense.  He also invites all of her high school friends, which makes far less sense.  Chris, in an effort to make Cassidy jealous, allows Al to set him up with an old woman, who turned out to be a taxi driver named Cookie.  Dawn meanwhile drinks a glass of punch that Trent was about to hand to Cassidy.  Dawn ends up passing out and while she’s being taken to the student health center, Trent takes Cassidy back to his room and attempts to drug her a second time.  When Cassidy refuses the drink, Trent tries to force himself on her.  Fortunately, Chris overheard some other frat boys talking about Trent’s plans and he breaks into the room.  Cassidy escapes and, upon learning what happened to Dawn, agrees to go to the police.

Wow, this was a heavy episode!  But again, the cast deserves a lot of credit for playing their roles with enough sincerity to make it work and the episode’s message was a good one.  

Wow, two good episodes of City Guys in a row!  I wonder what next week will bring!

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!

Season 3 of City Guys begins with a new school year!  Interestingly enough, everyone was either a junior or a senior when this show began so you really do have to wonder why they’re all still going to Manny High.  I mean, L-Train was investigating colleges just a few episodes ago!

It’s almost as if TNBC just didn’t care….

Episode 3.1 “Greece Is The Word”

(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on September 11th, 1999)

Oh, Christ.  Let’s get into this….

A new school year has begun!  Al and L-Train are looking forward to hazing freshmen.  Dawn has sworn that she is not going to spread herself too thin this semester.  Jamal shows up on campus and all of the students applaud.  Chris shows up and explains that he spent his summer in Greece and had a romance with a girl named Ariana.  Chris and Jamal do not do their stupid radio program so maybe that’s something that the show has finally abandoned.

Anyway, Ms. Nobel thinks that a school dance will be the perfect way to start the year.  Cassidy and Chris immediately volunteer to organize the dance.  It can be a 50s dance, they decide.  Everyone can wear leather jackets and poodle skirts and they can have a hula hoop contest!  Is there some reason why these schools can never have a normal dance?  

In order to research the 50s, Chris and Cassidy go to an arthouse theater that is showing …. you’ve already guessed, I’m sure …. GREASE!  Chris and Cassidy end up making out while watching the movie so they are now officially dating.  Except …. uh-oh, what’s Ariana doing in New York!?  Her father is in New York on business so Ariana decided to come with him so she could see Chris.  It turns out that she still thinks that she’s dating Chris.  It also turns out that Ariana delivers all of her lines in heavily accented broken English and the audience thinks it’s hilarious.

What’s dumb is that Cassidy already knows that Chris had a romance in Greece.  He told her about at the movie.  So, it’s not like she doesn’t know who Ariana is.  Cassidy got into a relationship with Chris fully aware that he had feelings for Ariana just a few weeks previously.  But, instead of telling Cassidy that Ariana is in town, Chris decided to lie to both of them.  He tells Ariana that he doesn’t have a New York girlfriend and he doesn’t tell Cassidy a thing.  Chris thinks that he can pull it off because Ariana is only going to be in town for a day but what if Ariana decides to stop by the dance before she leaves the country?

And yes, that’s exactly what happens.  Ariana gets upset and yells in broken English, which the audience finds hilarious.  Chris, who is dressed up like Elvis, apologizes to Cassidy.  Cassidy says that they’re going to have to take their relationship slowly.  So, I guess that means the writers still hadn’t decided whether they really wanted to commit to Cassidy and Chris as a couple.  We’ll see if this is another one of those storylines that gets abandoned or not.

This was the type of episode that drives me crazy, in that all of the conflict could have been avoided by people not being stupid.  It’s certainly not a good start to everyone’s second senior year at Manny High.  Hopefully, things will get better in our next episode….  

Episode 3.2 “Mr. Baseball”

(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on September 11th, 1999)

After spending the previous two seasons as an unathletic goofball, Jamal is suddenly revealed to a star baseball player in this episode.  In fact, Jamal is so good that he has never been struck out and there’s also a scout coming to the game to check him out.  Of course, Jamal lets the fame go to his head.  And, of course, Jamal strikes out with the scout watching.  Jamal’s immediate reaction is to announce that he’s quitting baseball and then to get into a fight with a random Paul Rudd look-alike on the roof.  Ms. Nobel, however, gives him a good talking to and Jamal decides to keep playing.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Chris and Jamal do still have their radio show but, with Jamal devoting all of his time to baseball, L-Train takes over as Chris’s co-host.  While the whole radio station thing has never made much sense to me, I do have to give credit where credit is due.  In the role of L-Train, Steven Daniel was often this show’s secret weapon and he shows it here, managing to get laughs from even  the lamest of jokes.  L-Train often got the worst lines but Daniel always delivered them with such sincerity that it was impossible not to smile.

Meanwhile, Dawn is upset that the Manny High’s mascot is a hunter.  She wants to change the mascot to a big apple.  Everyone laughs at her until she mentions that the Big Apple will always be accompanied by cheerleaders.  Did the Manny High Hunter not have cheerleaders?

Anyway, this wasn’t a bad episode at all, even if it was all a bit predictable.  Wesley Jonathan was not the most convincing athlete that I’ve ever seen but he did do a good job of portraying both Jamal’s anger and his shame after he struck out.  Even Cassidy gets a decent storyline, one which sees her getting thrown out of the game for excessive trash talk.  You go, Cassidy!

Maybe season 3 won’t be so bad after all….

(We’ll find out next week!)

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!

Today, the 2nd season of City Guys come to an end with L-Train considering his future and Al considering the true meaning of friendship.  Let’s get to it!

Episode 2.13 “Saving Private Johnson”

(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 5th, 1998)

It’s career day at Manny High!  Dawn wants to be a doctor.  Al wants to be a stockbroker.  L-Train wants …. well, L-Train doesn’t know what he wants.  In fact, he’s so upset at his bad midterm grades that he decides that he’s going to drop out of school and join the Marines!  Ms. Nobel is stunned and says that she feels like she failed with L-Train.  L-Train tells her it’s not her fault.  Ms. Nobel wishes him luck and she also wishes for peace….

It’s interesting to watch this episode today because we know what the future would have held for L-Train if he had joined the Marines.  L-Train would have eventually ended up in either Afghanistan or Iraq.  From that perspective, this storyline feels a bit different in 2022 than it probably did in 1998.  Of course, L-Train doesn’t end up joining the Marines.  He’s not allowed to join because the Marines discover that he’s dyslexic.  L-Train returns to school, confident that he will now be able to get good grades and go to a good college.

This is one of those “very special episodes” that shouldn’t work but it does.  This largely due to the performance of Steven Daniel, who bring just the right hint of melancholy to the scene in which he tells Nobel that he’s dropping out of school.  L-Train was often a one-joke character but Steven Daniel always played him as being someone who was secretly far more intelligent than even he realized.  Daniel took the role seriously, even if the show’s writers often didn’t.  Steven Daniel was often this show’s secret weapon and this episode shows why.

Episode 2.14 “A Gift Of Friendship”

(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 12th, 1998)

It’s the Christmas season and Dawn and Cassidy are in charge of the canned food drive.  Ms. Nobel is proud of them but, unfortunately, some of the students aren’t as concerned about helping out as Ms. Nobel believes they should be.

For instance, Chris, Jamal, and L-Train are all excited because Chris’s uncle has a place in Florida and he’s willing to let them use it during the Christmas break.  They just have to pay their own way to Florida and that won’t be difficult.  Chris has a rich father.  Jamal has a middle-class father.  L-Train gets a job walking dogs.  However, by going on vacation, they won’t be around to help “feed the poor.”  Ms. Nobel tells them that she’s very disappointed in them.  Considering that 1) it’s their Christmas break and they can do whatever they want with it and 2) none of what they’re planning has anything to do with the school, I have to kind of wonder just how exactly it is any of Ms. Nobel’s business.

Meanwhile, Al hasn’t even donated any food!  Al keeps saying that he’ll bring some food “tomorrow” but, unfortunately, Al can barely afford to feed himself.  Al’s father has been laid off and Al is planning on dropping out of school so that he can take on a full time job so that he can help support the family.  Ms. Nobel is not happy to hear this and that’s not really a shock.  I mean, first L-Train tried to drop out and now Al!  Plus, Chris and Jamal would rather spend their break on Florida beach than getting mugged in New York City!  Ms. Nobel has failed them all!

Anyway, it all ends on a good note.  After Jamal reveals that Al’s family is struggling, Everyone goes to Al’s apartment and they give him and his family food.  Ms. Nobel dressed up as Santa Claus and announces that there is a janitorial job at the school for Al’s father.  Al realizes that there’s nothing wrong with accepting help.  It’s not a bad message for Thanksgiving and Christmas, though I did have to wonder just how exactly Ms. Nobel could just magically give someone a job.  I mean, seeing as how Mr. Ramos is going to be working at a school, it seems like he would have to at least pass a background check before he was hired.  Also, does Ms. Nobel offer a job to all of the out-of-work parents who have children enrolled at her school or is she just making an exception for Al?  Indeed, for all the time that the students spend singing her praises, Ms. Nobel really only seems to care about L-Train and Al.

Obviously, this episode presented me with a lot of unanswered questions.  But it also ended with everyone gathered in front of a Christmas tree and singing Silent Night and that was a nice moment.  It appealed to my sentimental side.  That said, I do hope that Chris, Jamal, and L-Train still went down to Florida because, seriously, they had nothing to feel guilty about!

Happy Thanksgiving!