[7.3/10] I’d say this is a good not great episode that nevertheless won me over on the backs of a few truly ridiculous but still hilarious sketches in the back half.
I wasn’t necessarily crazy about the bits with a prison mogul executive producing the show, but when they turned the whole thing into a Wizard of Oz-esque reveal that a tiny orange kitten was actually pulling the strings, I got a kick out of it. Maybe it’s just the combined silliness/cuteness of the idea suckering me in.
The bit about the new alternative to prison where people just follow you around announcing your crime was a decent enough high concept premise, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Bob salvaged the bit with his acting in the cold calls, but otherwise this one probably should have been shorter since the gag didn’t have that much mileage in it.
The bit with guy who gets his entree splattered on his suit felt like it was one or two drafts away from being great. There’s a solid idea there -- the way that the manager seems helpful but is actually being kind of oblivious and making things worse, and I appreciate the way it escalates into weirder territory in that classic Mr. Show way -- but the sketch comes of pretty jumbled and needed to be tightened up so that the different beats of it were more in sync.
That said, I loved the “Pallies” skit, spoofing both Goodfellas and the amusing ways that profane and/or violent movies are edited to meet TV broadcast standards. The highlight was Bob’s middle finger salute being turned into a thumbs up.
I also really loved the supermarket war between Gibbons and Fairlies. Again, comic escalation is this show’s forte, and the way that Fairley’s adds got more and more aggressive in their insinuations about the store’s competitor, and how the Gibbons guy got more and more desperate in his response ads, was great. I especially like the would-be counter of how Gibbons’s number of stores declined as the sketch went on.
And last but not least, I got a lot of laughs out of the “Story of the Story of Everest” skit. It’s so hard to know how many times to return to the well on a specific bit, but having Jay Johnston continue to knock over the shelves full of thimbles not only gave him a chance to show off his superb physical comedy, but found that sweet spot where repetition is initially amusing, then dull, but then wraps back around to being funny again. The skit ran out of gas a bit when he saw the movie version, but still, it’s a great exercise in absurd comedy.
Overall, the front half of this one is middling-to-weak, but the last few sketches pull the comic irons out of the fire.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2018-07-29T17:26:25Z
[7.3/10] I’d say this is a good not great episode that nevertheless won me over on the backs of a few truly ridiculous but still hilarious sketches in the back half.
I wasn’t necessarily crazy about the bits with a prison mogul executive producing the show, but when they turned the whole thing into a Wizard of Oz-esque reveal that a tiny orange kitten was actually pulling the strings, I got a kick out of it. Maybe it’s just the combined silliness/cuteness of the idea suckering me in.
The bit about the new alternative to prison where people just follow you around announcing your crime was a decent enough high concept premise, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Bob salvaged the bit with his acting in the cold calls, but otherwise this one probably should have been shorter since the gag didn’t have that much mileage in it.
The bit with guy who gets his entree splattered on his suit felt like it was one or two drafts away from being great. There’s a solid idea there -- the way that the manager seems helpful but is actually being kind of oblivious and making things worse, and I appreciate the way it escalates into weirder territory in that classic Mr. Show way -- but the sketch comes of pretty jumbled and needed to be tightened up so that the different beats of it were more in sync.
That said, I loved the “Pallies” skit, spoofing both Goodfellas and the amusing ways that profane and/or violent movies are edited to meet TV broadcast standards. The highlight was Bob’s middle finger salute being turned into a thumbs up.
I also really loved the supermarket war between Gibbons and Fairlies. Again, comic escalation is this show’s forte, and the way that Fairley’s adds got more and more aggressive in their insinuations about the store’s competitor, and how the Gibbons guy got more and more desperate in his response ads, was great. I especially like the would-be counter of how Gibbons’s number of stores declined as the sketch went on.
And last but not least, I got a lot of laughs out of the “Story of the Story of Everest” skit. It’s so hard to know how many times to return to the well on a specific bit, but having Jay Johnston continue to knock over the shelves full of thimbles not only gave him a chance to show off his superb physical comedy, but found that sweet spot where repetition is initially amusing, then dull, but then wraps back around to being funny again. The skit ran out of gas a bit when he saw the movie version, but still, it’s a great exercise in absurd comedy.
Overall, the front half of this one is middling-to-weak, but the last few sketches pull the comic irons out of the fire.