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needn't bother
B for execution, T for tired, way tired, material
By Rossiter Drake
Perhaps NBC executives interpreted the off-Broadway success of the theatrical spoof “The Real Live Brady Bunch” as a sign that the television-viewing public might be feeling equally nostalgic for other “classic” sitcoms like “Diff'rent Strokes,” “The Partridge Family” and “Married… With Children.”
Perhaps Fox's “Celebrity Boxing” convinced them that millions of Americans would like nothing more than to spend an evening on the couch communing once again with B-grade celebrities like Danny Bonaduce and Todd Bridges.
Or maybe they just saw these old shows as irresistible targets, the Edsels of a generation that’s moved on to comedies not yet seen as relics.
How else can one explain “The Rerun Show,” a scatological send-up of schmaltzy sitcoms from yesterday (“Bewitched”) and today (“Saved by the Bell”)?
To be fair, the show occasionally reveals flashes of inspiration. Executive producers David Salzman (“MADtv”) and John Davies (“Second City Presents”) have essentially adapted the MAD magazine parodies of yesteryear onto the screen, with the help of a talented eight-member ensemble.
Paul Vogt, who channels the spirit of Mrs. Garrett in vicious parodies of “The Facts of Life” and “Diff'rent Strokes,” is a gifted impressionist who manages to squeeze laughs out of pedestrian dialogue. Ashley Drane and Daniele Gaither are bawdy physical comedians who add energy and sex appeal to the proceedings. And Mitch Silpa bears an uncanny resemblance to Adam Sandler, both in appearance and in style. His goofy, exaggerated mannerisms provide the same guilty pleasures.
Even so, “The Rerun Show” falls flat. Never mind that the impressions are often dead-on, or that the plots capture perfectly the homogenized sitcoms they satirize.
And true, the tongue-in-cheek jabs at disgraced child stars like Bridges, Bonaduce and Dana Plato are occasionally funny, albeit obvious and mean-spirited. (Clearly, Bonaduce isn't bothered; he guest-stars on the “Rerun” pilot, donning a garish crimson wig to reprise his role on “The Partridge Family.”)
The problem is, quite simply, that this material is tired. We've seen it all before.
Our appetite for parodies of defunct sitcoms has already been exhausted by endless “Saturday Night Live” skits and such feature-length films as “The Brady Bunch Movie,” “Scooby-Doo” and ”Dennis the Menace.”
Late-night talk-show hosts and the Fox network have exploited the cast of “Diff'rent Strokes” to the point of stupefaction. And though the studio audience whoops and hollers when Candy Ford, as Gary Coleman's Arnold Jackson, mugs for the camera and intones, “Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?”, the audience at home merely checks it off a list of TV moments that have been done to death.
According to Salzman, it took three years of pleading and cajoling to sell studio heads on the simple concept that drives “The Rerun Show.”
Now that the first six installments are in the bag, there's no telling how long the show could last, should it succeed in NBC’s Tuesday night lineup, sandwiched between “SPY TV” and “Frasier.”
With plenty of half-baked sitcoms out there ripe for the mocking (“Full House” and “Who's the Boss?” spring instantly to mind), the possibilities are endless – just not very exciting.
August 1, 2002© 200
2 Media Life-Rossiter Drake is a San Francisco writer.
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