Mr. Show With Bob And David: "It's Perfectly Understandishable" & "It's Insane, This Guy's Taint"
Hello, fellow graduates of Monk Academy!
A funny thing happened on my way to reviewing these two episodes of Mr. Show With Bob And David: I completely forgot what one of them was about. As I noted some time ago, I've gotten in the habit of watching each episode twice (once before I write the recap to refresh my memory, and once afterwards for fact-checking purposes and for any stray observations I might have missed), but as a rule, it's not really that necessary: in addition to seeing them when they first aired, I've watched pretty much every single episode at least half a dozen times, first on my homemade VHS copies (shush, don't tell Interpol) and then later on DVD.
Not so with "It's Insane, This Guy's Taint". I remembered the title sketch, of course, and I also recalled that the hilarious "Car Wash Change Thief Action Squad" bit was in this one as well, but everything else was a mystery. The DVD box was no help: "For Those Who Cannot Breathe"? "Intervention"? "Be Kind, Rewind"? What the…? This sounded more like a litany of failed indie movies from the mid-2000s than a list of Mr. Show sketches. I didn't remember any of them, and had no idea why.
Luckily, I was able to call up an old friend who's known me since that long-ago era known as the Eighties, and who frequently serves as my proxy memory when my own, ravaged by drugs, alcohol, age, and indifference, fails to come through. She reminded me that I had forgotten to tape the episode when it first aired, and that my original DVD (before I replaced it with a new box set with that sweet, sweet A.V. Club cheddar) had a scratch at the beginning of disc 2 that prevented me from watching it. Which means that I hadn't actually seen this one in twelve years! I felt like I was seeing TV like our primitive ancestors watched it, but I survived, and now I'm here to tell you the tale, which I think you'll all agree is the most boring thing to ever occupy three paragraphs.
Anyway, we're coming to the end of the line with our Mr. Show TV Club Classic recaps; more than halfway home now, and luckily with a pretty solid pair of episodes. Only two more installments to go, so if you've got any special requests — and no, I'm not going to go back and rewrite these to make them funnier, so you eight thousand nitpickers can shut up about that — now's the time to make them; I'm feeling generous and will be pleased to oblige in these last few weeks we have. In the meantime, here's episodes 5 and 6 for your quoting pleasure.
EPISODE 5: "It's Perfectly Understandishable"
What Worked: With most of the skits on Mr. Show, I was sold on them (or down on them) from the first time I ever watched them; it was rare that I'd change my mind from liking a sketch to disliking, or vice versa, even with repeated viewings. "Monk Academy", where David Cross plays a ne'er-do-well visiting his buddy at a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, was an exception. I didn't really care for it at first; it seemed overlong and scrambled, and its central parody was oversold. Watching it the last few times, though, I've really grown to love it: it's one of Mr. Show's stupidest ideas, but the total commitment really sells it, along with how deeply the parody of '80s lovable-loser comedy runs, and the moments of sheer absurdity along the way. "Those Amazing Actors", which runs on the conceit that performers are generally an evolutionary rung below trained seals, is pretty great, and amongst its many strengths is getting to see Jay Johnston 'corrected' for his acting in a romantic scene by getting peanut butter smeared all over his face.
What Didn't: "Blind Girl", where the guys woo a blind woman by describing things to her, has a clever idea, but the execution is a bit of a mess, and it's not one of Bob Odenkirk's best acting moments. Likewise, "Emergency Psychic Hotline" seems like a gag that's been done a million times before; the funniest bits of it are David's loverman outfit and Jill Talley's hypnotically awful earrings — in other words, stuff that has nothing to do with the sketch. Even David's Don King neologisms fell flat for me.
The Cast: Karen Kilgariff does a decent job in "Blind Girl", but again, it seems to me that as in some other sketches I've found weak (like "Rudy Will Await Your Foundation"), one of the big flaws is that the cast isn't entirely into it. You can usually tell when someone has a problem with a script, because this is a show that runs on great comic performances. That said, there's some great stuff in this episode: Some of y'all have been down on John Ennis this season, but I think he's fantastic as Lane Wellesby, Trainer To "The" Stars, incessantly deploying his whip. Bob completely redeems himself in "Monk Academy" (and David does a terrific job as well), and it's also significantly bolstered by the presence of relatively unfamiliar faces, including Jerry Messing as the rich fat snobby kid William Van Landingham III and the delightful return of Sam Sarpong as Professor Murder. Dr. Baloney's career didn't really take off after this, though.