Jason-173 Reviews

The Vacant Lot (1994–1995)

Ah, what could have been.

[1 March 2003]

Two sketches worth recounting (they still bring up a chuckle (for me, anyway (and maybe for you too (especially if you saw the show))))...

1) Jesus in High School -- was Our Lord and Saviour once a gangly loser trying to make it through another pimply, teenage day? Well, it would seem so, yes. Except for that glorious afternoon at the swim meet where Jesus is the star athlete in the 50m freestyle. The gun fires and, as all else dive in, Jesus sprints across the water as fast as a gazelle. Back in the locker room, these heroics don't save him the humiliation of a bare-ass towel snapping.

2) The Acupressure Amateur -- on a bus, two businessmen sit side-by- side. One complains of a stiff neck. His colleague volunteers to help by using newly acquired acupressure techniques that should alleviate the discomfort. Soon, the amateur is pressing tentatively on his friends' neck. The friend lets out a groan and sighs with relief, but the acupressionist is startled to see he has released the man's bladder and it is soiling his suit pants. Desperately, he fingers his friend's neck like a saxophone, seeking the 'off' switch.

I regret this show never quite got its footing and wasn't allowed to mature as Kids in the Hall was. Kids in the Hall also had a rough start, but got a rare chance (for Canadian TV) to gain an audience and mature in quality. Much more amusing than Royal Canadian Air Farce at its best, the Vacant Lot remains a sad little footnote to what could have been.

Ark II (1976)

Never let the chimp drive

[5 June 2001]

An RV in the future - sounds like a fortune cookie message.

There was this creepy bearded weirdie who looked after the kids in the ARK II's 'crew.' Honestly, and I ask this not of the Ark II people, but of the dean of Space Academy and of Jason and the rest of Star Command -- what use are kids in dangerous missions and what the hell were you trying to teach us in the seventies?

Always let the adults wear the jet pack? Always stop for freaky hippies in rags at the side of the road? Drink lots of distilled water? Let the grown-up drive?

Well, definitely that last one. I remember one episode when they let the chimp drive. That damned monkey nearly bulldozed an entire village. I can vouch for that lesson personally. I once let the chimp drive.... Wait, that was my friend Steve... Whatever. It was a good show. Especially when Steve was carted off by the cops.

Caveman (1981)

Truly one of the greatest films of the 80s

[10/10 · 5 December 2000]

Very few films have the capacity to change the way we think and feel about the world around us. This is one of them.

This touching film is about daring caveman Atouk and his brave companion Lar, who are expelled from their tribes, journey through exotic, precambrian lands, learning about the people and world around them. Ultimately they form their own tribe and, more importantly, learn cameraderie, the heart of what it means to be human and to have love. Caught up in the chaos of a savage, ancient world, Atouk and Lar eventually have to struggle just to stay alive.

This movie lost the Best Picture Oscar in 1981, but history will likely remember "Caveman" for much longer. And with more fondness. The cinematography is excellent. Alan Hume's prehistoric world is photographed as a mystical paradise. Then, we see the horror of human greed, lust and cruelty, also stunningly photographed. There is also a nice scene with a bunch of people thrashing about in a large pile of dung. It looked so realistic, that for a moment, I felt like it wasn't a movie, but a documentary.

The acting is top notch, especially early performances from Dennis Quaid, who exposes his buttocks and Barbara Bach, who should have. In one scene, Dennis Quaid makes impressive use of method acting, urinating against a glacier. And Ringo Starr deserved the Oscar he unfairly lost to Dudley Moore that year.

Everyone needs to see this movie at least once. Although it might be a little disturbing, the violence is not gratuitous, the love affairs wistful and heartbreaking. Despite the tragic elements, however, the movie is inspirational. One of the best films to come out of the 80s!

It's underrated films like this that don't get any publicity and the over-rated, pointless films do. I guess that's just the way Hollywood operates. This is one of the saddest, most touching, most unsettling, most moving films I've ever seen. It's one of the best. It nakedly shows the rudimentary nature of humanity, by showing our primal origins, when a fire, meat and the warmth of a lover and support of friends was all that kept us from the brink of death. "Caveman" captures and horrifies the viewer. There is something classical about the plot of "Caveman." If Aeschylus was alive today and making films, he would have made "Caveman."

The vivid imagery and music is outstanding, but the acting and intensity shown is very realistic. This is one of the most harrowing, gripping films I've ever seen, reminding me of so many other films of the era. "Quest for Fire" being one, but "The Killing Fields" being another. "The Killing Fields" is a movie about people who weren't exactly on the front lines, nor are they exceptional warriors. They're everyday people, like you or me, who do what they can to help one another out. "Caveman" is like this.

I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about this film that gets to me so much, but it is THE most haunting, emotional film experience one could hope for.

Excellent performances from the cast. A brilliant score by Lalo Schifrin. Scenes of high emotion, tension, drama, horror and even one or two pieces of light relief, usually involving Shelly Long.

An excellent film. Certainly one of the best foreign films in recent memory, "Caveman" is ripe for a new Director's Cut edition, or perhaps a modern English-version remake featuring John Malkovich. I have only ever seen the original, undubbed and not-subtitled version (I never figured out what language it was -- probably Swedish) and had difficulty with some of the more elaborate dialogues.

Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982)

Two Lions in Congress

[4 December 2000]

Sure, this was the funniest show ever. Right up until 'Kids in the Hall,' anyway, which gave NTNON about ten years reign. Do you realise NTNON was the first comedy troupe to make fun of ABBA? Respect is due. If you can picture Mel Smith dressed like Agnetha, you get the idea... And if it comes easily to your mind, I raise an eyebrow at you.

Just a young lad when this show was on-air, I was glued to the tv set like wet toilet paper.

Nowadays NTNON's humour seems fairly commonplace. But NTNON was the first to mock the MGM logo by zooming out on the roaring lion to show him mounting a female. Since this is done routinely in comedy now, the impact is lost. But at the time, it was mind-blowingly irreverent. And since this was the first time I had ever seen sex, it was also educational.

Fantastic Planet (1973)

Wah

[18 September 2000]

More wah wah pedal on the soundtrack than you could shake Peter Frampton's stick at.

This movie was really weird, but in a very captivating way. I like the little tribbles that barf up your clothes. I wish I had one of those.

The plot is hard to describe, so I will do it in a haiku:

Little people pets. My blue head floats up away. We stole the walkman.

There, I hope that helped you understand this film better.

Well deserved of the Cannes grand prize. If only for the creative use of the wah wah pedal. More movies should have wah wah pedals in their soundtracks.

Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979)

Surprise! It is crap after all.

[13 July 2000]

This is one of those films that starts with a bad title and only gets worse.

If I recall, I saw this at my friend Kirk's tenth birthday party and it was the first time I used the word 'dreck' in a sentence.

'Unidentified Flying Oddball' has all the appearance of having been written and filmed over a long weekend. Edited in someone's basement one night over a keg of beer.

One thing sticks in my memory like an oak splinter: the way Spaceman Tom never called King Arthur 'your majesty' or 'sire,' but instead just plain ol' good ol' 'King.' As in 'hey, King, get yer hands offa my girl, see.' If you like that sort of talk, and your brain development arrested in grade three, then the team behind 'Unidentified Flying Oddball' wants you.

The science was excellent, however. I know now that if I ever need to defend myself from a deathly laser beam, I need only wear the shiniest armour I can find ('Say, King, gimme yer armor! Now don't get all persnickety on me, see? I'll give it back all nice and proper-like, and polished up with good ol' American spit shine').

Disney produced this matted ass-hair sandwich in the days before they became the media Godzilla they are now. Their stock was leaning into the toilet in those days and, hey, so will you after seeing this film.

Incoherent plot, humourless gags, crummy special effects, poor sets. It's not a good kid's film. Not a good film, even though based on a Mark Twain story. But I may change my tune. Perhaps someday I'll see this movie the way I presume it was meant to be seen. On crack.

Math Patrol (1977– )

More Ministry of Education Acid Trips

[26 June 2000]

I think this show, already pretty freaky for a Government of Ontario programme(a giant kangaroo-detective who does sums), would have been much more popular if they had one anti-drug episode. Sidney hotboxes in his Chevy Acadian, tries to calculate pi and loses his goddamned mind.

As usual I am forced to wonder what became of Sidney. Today, I wander the streets of Toronto expecting him to leap out of a grate and say "if you spared me 25 cents of change, that would be 25 cents of change more than the 40 cents of change I have now. How much change would I have?"

The Stockard Channing Show (1980)

Wheat Germ

[24 June 2000]

Here's an actual scene from an episode of the Stockard Channing Show:

Susan suspects a nearby health food restaurant is up to no good. But Brad loves the sandwiches there and refuses to believe that the restaurant is anything but on the up-and-up. Susan decides that she's going to go in disguise to the restaurant to find the truth. Brad asks her to pick him up a sandwich. She leaves. He cries out after her, 'with extra wheat germ!!!' She pounds on the door in reply. The studio audience errupts into deafening laughter.

This show really wasn't any more entertaining than anything else on tv those days. But Stockard was funny.

Space Academy (1977)

My eraser, the space shuttle

[22 June 2000]

If there was one show I wish I could see again, it's this one. This one, and maybe the time that dog took a crap in our back yard while hopping on one leg.

Synopsis: A group of high school kids run missions to save stalled freighters, starving aliens or to get groceries. All the while learning about readin', 'ritin, 'rithmatic, love, friendship, and why it's not a good idea to go in a dark cave on a distant planet without a sidearm.

The Space Academy shuttles were shaped like the Pink Pearl erasers we were issued at my school each September. I would usually spend my mornings flying the eraser between desks, landing on strange and exotic textbooks, and confronting hostile alien pencils.

The great Pam Ferdyn starred in this show, and seemingly everything else in those days (It seemed like Ike Eisenmann was in everything too). Unfortunately, the best actor on the show, 'Peepo' failed to find work after Space Academy. Whatever happened to 'Peepo?' Or, as I liked to call him, 'Peepoo.'

UFO Robo Grendizer (1975–1977)

Goldorak

[29 April 2000]

This bland robot show (which aired as 'Goldorak' as I remember it) lacked the amorality, female nudity and blood splattering violence of 'Albator, le corsair de l'espace'(another children's cartoon on French tv in Canada at the time) -- thus it was less interesting to young boys in my grade.

Interestingly, the Quebec courts passed a law in 1999 forbidding parents from naming their child 'Goldorak.' I'm not making this up.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock (1978–1979)

The most awesome cartoon ever

[29 April 2000]

Not only was the animation cool (Blade Runner meets Hello Kitty), but it dealt with some pretty heavy issues -- falling in love with your enemy, killing your friends, betraying your morals, taking advantage of the weak, dealing with guilt, helping the needy, abandoning your daughter, having big hair, having a crew of men shaped like melons.

This show aired in Canada under the title 'Albator, le corsair de l'espace' and followed the adventures of a pirate space ship and it's young, angst-ridden captain, Albator (Captain Harlock).

This show was the reason I wanted to learn French. That and to stop looking like an idiot at school (east end Ottawa). The first word I picked up was 'au secours'('help') which is what Albator's hapless, spherical crewmen would constantly scream anytime their ship got into a battle. Also handy if you're being chased by a bunch of French bullies.

Albator's enemy was a race of gorgeous women with greenish skin. Albator had an affair with one of them, but then he had to kill her for some reason (I don't know why -- my French wasn't very good then). Usually, each episode included a lot of nudity and sex. Also, no one ever got shot and just cleanly fell down. People were blown to bits, blood splattered everywhere, heads left shoulders, crewmen suffocated in space, etc. You can imagine how popular this show was with eight-year-old boys.

Emergency! (1972–1979)

Emergency memories

[29 April 2000]

You will never see more grilled cheese sandwiches grilled anywhere than here. It's like they never had anything better to do between emergencies than bake cookies and fry sandwiches.

Also, what is 'd5w with a lactate ringer' and why were they always injecting people with it?

Remember how they used to spring from a deep sleep to respond to a middle-of-the-night emergency? My God, if I tried to do that my heart would explode.

My favourite moment from the show: Gage catches DeSoto fiddling with his hose in the back of the truck (season six).

Joni (1979)

Joni

[26 April 2000]

This movie tugs on your heart like 3-pound nylon and a bonefish lure. Every girl I knew in 1980 owned the 'Joni' book. My favorite part is when Joni draws with the pen in her mouth. In conclusion, I like pens.

Message from Space (1978)

I never looked at walnuts the same

[26 April 2000]

This Godzilla of a film featured a hysterical Japanese cast and dubbing so bad it gave me diarrhoea. The scenes on 'Mars' were shot with a migraine-inducing red lens for some reason. Special effects were done by chroma-keying several walnuts (I'm not kidding). They actually bothered to release some plastic models after this film was released. I turned them over in my hands muttering 'Walnuts from Space' and they were still on the shelf at our local toy store four years later. Pray you never see this film.

The Krypton Factor (1981– )

Unforgiveable garbage

[22 January 2000]

For weeks I saw the advertisements on television. I thought it was a sci fi drama in the same vein as Six Million Dollar Man, with liberal dollups of Superman and Battlestar Galactica thrown in. I reasoned it was an epic series about Superman's long-lost home planet of Krypton. I couldn't wait for the premiere. The teaser ads were very dramatic, people running in slow motion, space-age jumpsuits, ominous music, etc...

The night I turned on the TV to watch, I felt a sense of disappointment and anger that has lasted to this day. There was DICK CLARK! Of all people! Where was Superman? And this was a GAME SHOW!!! And a TERRIBLE game show at that -- something like 'Battle of the Network Stars,' but without Kate Jackson. How could Superman let something like this happen?

The gods were kind -- it was cancelled within a handful of days. But Dick Clark, as we are all just starting to realise now, is inhuman, immortal, and goddamned unstoppable. And he returned twenty years later with another load of prime time tripe called 'Winning Lines,' which is nothing like 'Battle of the Network Stars,' especially without the stars or the bathing suits or Kate Jackson.

I love Dick Clark because of American Bandstand (the 70s incarnation -- possibly the campiest pail of schlock to ever spill into my living room). But I will never forgive him for the Krypton Factor. And neither, I think, would Kate Jackson.

Polka Dot Door (1971–2000)

Hallucinations from the Ministry of Education

[12 December 1999]

The show was hosted by two, dreary Ontario civil servants and a series of stuffed animals who neither moved nor spoke -- and yet played the starring roles. Much like the Ontario government.

Polka Dot Door, like other Ontario government shows such as the Math Patrol, Body Works or Sol, had that unmistakably bland 'do-as-we-say, is-good-for-you-no-questions' taint to it. But in a smiling, artless, stir-up-no-trouble-children way. The Canadian way.

The hosts never lasted long in their jobs. This timid little children's show would chew them up at an alarming rate.

Events in each episode were scheduled to the second, like the unionized ministry office TVO is. Our hosts would dutifully read children's stories at an exact time, monitored by a monolithic clock at centre stage. Each day had a different 'theme' and the hosts were forced to march in a small circle, often holding one of the stuffed animals, chanting inspirational songs about the day's theme. Like characters out of a Kafka tale, our civil servants would never leave the pink room or their slavery to the clock and woud babble incoherently about the polka dot door and the world beyond, glimpsed in short filmed sequences where the outside was shown (usually a shoe factory or a farm).

Periodically, everyone would hallucinate an apparition named 'Polkaroo.' Polkaroo would do mischieveous things like flip up Marigold's skirt, take a crap in the bookcase or hide his stash in Dumpty's pants.

Incidentally, I saw Dennis (one of the longer-running hosts) in a production of Godspell playing John the Baptist. He was pretty good.

The Bradys (1990)

Of late, and I know not wherefore, the Bradys have lost all their mirth...

[7 December 1999]

Mike Brady running for office? Bobby handicapped? True enough, the original Brady Bunch wasn't funny. But why rub it in with this schlock??

I have to admit, when Bobby gazed up like Bambi at Mike and asked if he'll walk again I did get a little choked up. But then I immediately started laughing! God strike me down. I've loved the Bradys since the beginning, so I felt a little torn, but let's be serious, there's nothing dramatic about the Bradys. So why try? This attempt at drama, turning the Brady Bunch into the Colbys was ridiculous!

There was something really wrong-headed about this show. I kept waiting for footballs in the nose and lies about George Glass and arguments about using the toilet and Pork Chops and Applesauce! And if everyone was supposed to be there, then where the hell was Cousin Oliver?

The Brady Brides (1981)

The scorn was undeserved.

[7 December 1999]

People heap a lot of scorn on anything Brady, but it's undeserved. The original show taught me about as much about human relations as Gilligan's Island. Brady Brides -- and all the subsequent attempts to revive the Zombie Brady -- have always seemed like trips home for me.

It was almost pathologically unfunny. Just like the original. But how could you not love it? Marcia and Jan looked fantastic -- in fact, I think they could've saved the show if it was titled 'the Brady Strippers.'

When it first came out, everyone in my class loved it. We had puppet shows when I was in grade six. Two of them were Brady Bride puppet shows. I was in neither, despite my hand's striking resemblance to Wally - very hairy and meaty.

What Will They Think of Next? (1976–1979)

Where's my robot assistant???

[10 October 1999]

What a strange little show this was. And a cheap one. Corporate videos (cheap - like free) combined with black velvet pastel paintings (tastelessly cheap), Tiiu Leek (cheap - but only if she's paying) and Joseph Campanella (cheap suit).

Show synopsis: the disembodied heads and shoulders of Leek and Campanella talked about how our lives would be changed by gasoline made from carrots or wristwatches that count how much coffee you drink. Or why we catch cold from licking bus seats.

I would sit there, my Beefaroni getting cold while my jaw dropped to my lap, amazed at the technological wonders and scientific discoveries awaiting us in that far-flung future of 1983. Today, I'm not driving a flying car, I don't have a sassy robot to do my laundry and human life expectancy is still not 195. So I feel a little cheated by the Science International team.

The haunting theme song, similar to Smetana's romantic 'Ma Vlast,' was weird and inappropriate. I find myself humming it over the sink as I marvel at my Gillette Mach 3. "What will they think of next?!" Joseph Campanella would say. Although I can never say it with as much amphetamine-drenched enthusiasm as he could. Did they only tape him saying it once and then splice it in the hundreds of times he said it over the course of the show? And is a gas furnace really that incredible?

Bits and Bytes (1983– )

Who wrote this series? George Orwell?

[1 October 1999]

They were dark days: TVO was trying desperately to fill its mandate to educate, trying to replicate the success of 'Sol,' which educated thousands of young Ontarians to speak French like schizophrenic eunuchs.

'Bits n' Bytes' situated Billy Van in a dark, windowless room with a gigantic television monitor. Like your worst nightmare, Luba Goy would appear on screen and command Van to perform mindless computer tasks on a Commodore PET or Government of Ontario ICON.

10 Print "I affirm that TV Ontario is educating me for the computer revolution in a light and entertaining manner."

20 Goto 10

Buried on Sunday (1992)

2 Reasons to watch

[1 October 1999]

Two things make 'Buried on Sunday' worth watching:

1) When Louis Del Grande picks his nose during a Privy Council meeting.

2) When Tommy Sexton spontaneously combusts and tries to put out the fire using Vodka.

Both of which were based on real life events, infusing this film with a dark sense of gritty realism.

Bizarre (1979–1986)

This was a comedy?

[1 October 1999]

Well, I suppose if Luba Goy was in it, it must technically have been a comedy. Apparently Ziggy Lorenc (Canadians only take note) once also had a small role playing a piece of furniture. That about sums it up. Oh, and the constant presence of bouncing breasts. There, that about sums it up.

Why the great Billy Barty kept returning to the site of this mess I'll never know. Maybe the breasts.

Hong Kong Phooey (1974–1975)

Pass me the Won Tons, I pass on Phooey

[1 October 1999]

Oh, I wish I could've been hiding in the opium smoke that afternoon Hanna and Barbera dreamed up Hong Kong Phooey, the idiot janitor dog who leads a double life.

The noted Chinese actor Scatman Crothers played the kung fu fighting Shih-tzu with a lot of pep, swirling around in more racist Asian stereotypes than a contemporary Chinese laundry soap commercial (let me refresh your memory: 'my husband , some hotshot!' And the unforgettable: 'ancient Chinese secret, huh?!').

But at least the acting was superb. Undoubtedly, Crothers is best remembered for this challenging role as Phooey. When Jack Nicholson rested his axeblade in Crothers' spine in 'the Shining,' who among us didn't spit out popcorn and sputter 'my god, he just killed Hong Kong Phooey!'

Some things about this show touched viewers very deeply. How many times have you been caught humming the catchy theme song - 'Hong Kong Phooey, Number One Super Guy' - as you waited for your laundry to finish? Or considered changing into more comfortable clothes in the office filing cabinet? Or wondered if enough tassels and Chinatown detailing would turn your own Honda Civic into a Phooeymobile? Didn't you also want to date Rosemary, the police switchboard operator? Don't you wish you had someone like Spot in your life - someone to do all your work, solve all your problems and let you take all the credit?

Hong Kong Phooey was, by all measures, a real jerk. Really vain and pretty clueless. I never had a lot of respect for him. He was not the sort of guy I would be friends with. He was the sort of person into whose drink you'd put your cigarette ashes when he wasn't looking. He wasn't from Hong Kong, solved no crimes and really didn't know Kung Fu. He was a real fraud. I guess he had dreams and hopes for himself, but so did Jabberjaw. And Jabberjaw, let's not forget it, could at least play the drums.

Gilligan's Island (1964–1992)

Ah, the memories...

[30 September 1999]

They decided not to name this series 'Gilligan's a Pain in the Ass' and I think that's a shame.

I think this show made a huge impact on me as a child. I admired Skipper's relationship with his 'little buddy' and I spent time whacking my friends with a sailor's cap. I rolled my eyes and grimaced at most things they said. When washing my face, I pretended to be Ginger applying make-up. When doling out toilet paper, I became Mr. Howell greedily clutching for more money. But perhaps I wasn't the only one?

There were some truly funny moments in the show, believe it or not. The Professor rescues Mrs. Howell, who had been buried alive in a cave. Ever dignified, she emerges holding the skeleton of her umbrella, filthy and torn head to toe. "Mrs. Howell!" The Professor cries, "are you well?" "Not very," she answers dryly.

Much fuss has been made over the sexual permutations of the castaways, but I never gave that a second thought. Except of course when Skipper would command that Gilligan come to bed. Now. But when Mary-Ann would bake Gilligan a coconut cream pie (his favourite), I always saw it as sweet and nurturing gesture on her part. Some have speculated that the coconut cream indicated Mary-Ann's repression and unconscious suggestiveness. The cream loaded up high and frothy, they see a XXX-rated attempt at seduction of the dweeby, onanistic first mate. But, I just don't think the writers ever stopped drinking long enough to infuse that sort of subtext into the script. I'd rather watch Ginger and Mary-Ann doing their calisthenics anyway. Remember those Capri pants Ginger wore? Holy Moley.