By:
The Dude on the Right
Normally on Mondays it’s our latest podcast of
“Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up!”, but Stu Gotz is stranded on the east
coast and now knows the furry of what a
nor’easter is. So I
figured that rather than do a solo podcast recapping my weekend, nor do any
guessing or blaming or analyzing about today’s huge news story, namely the
shootings at Virginia Tech (why do they hold press conferences when they don’t
have any answers yet), I thought I would do a blog about a couple of new shows
coming to the Starz cable
network.
A little while ago the mailman left this giant piece of cardboard (he
obviously couldn’t figure out how to deliver this thing as it was folded
haphazardly to maybe fit in his mailbag.) This piece of cardboard held the
screener for “The Bronx Bunny Show.” Not having gotten any screeners from the
Starz people before I was intrigued, and really hoped the show would be
entertaining so I could give a glowing review and maybe be sent more screeners
from them. I watched the screener. All I know is thank goodness there seemed to
be a mailing screw-up because about a week later I was resent the screener for
“The Bronx Bunny Show,” (the both of them made nice “Elton John” style
spectacles), but on the better side, this later mailing also included “Head
Case,” which actually made me laugh.
Both shows premiere on Starz on Wednesday, April 18th, as part of “The Starz
Comedy Hour.” “Head Case” seems to lead the hour at 11PM (EDT), followed by
“Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand-up” (which I didn’t get a screener
for), followed by “The Bronx Bunny Show” around 11:45. So I suppose I first just
blast the Bunny show, before I get to the potential of “Head Case.”
“The Bronx Bunny Show” has two puppet characters, Bronx Bunny (a brown
bunny), and Teddy T. (a panda). They “move” from the Bronx to LA to stage an
“interview” show where they ask questions to celebrities that “Leno, Letterman,
and certainly not Oprah” would ask. So yes, the language is adult, and the
questions are meant to be provocative, and Teddy T. is supposed to be the “rude”
one. For the screener I watched the guests were Howie Mandel (the “Deal or No
Deal” dude) and Stacy Kiebler (from wrestling and “Dancing With the Stars.”) Now
I don’t know if this is “scripted” or not, but Stacy didn’t seem to get it, and
pretty much was asked questions about getting naked, which, well, a popular
satellite radio personality has already perfected. Howie Mandel at least seemed
to get the concept of the show, and played along, complete with being
“disgusted” at Teddy T. taking a dump during the interview, especially with Mr.
Mandel being germ-a-phobic, and having a great joke about him playing “Deal or
No Deal” with his wife. But again, the puppet’s interviewing wasn’t anything new
for me, and I kept fixating that whomever was doing the puppeting of Bronx Bunny
seemed to be doing a crappy job with the “mouth-moving” part of the puppeting. I
hate to say it, but “The Bronx Bunny Show” just wasn’t funny for me, that the
questions are actually asked by someone else who does it better, and thank
goodness the screener was only about 20 minutes long.
Then, with the new mailing, I popped in the screener for “Head Case” and saw
a show that seems to have potential.
The concept of “Head Case” is pretty simple: Dr. Elizabeth Goode (Alexandra
Wentworth) is a therapist to the stars, but she is sometimes as scatterbrained
as the celebrities she is trying to help. She has an office assistant who likes
to blab about who is coming in, and she shares her office space with Dr. Myron
Finkelstein (Steve Landesberg), who’s practice is failing so he keeps trying to
cherry-pick her clients.
With that we are introduced to “fake” therapy sessions with real celebrities.
My screeners included Jason Priestley, Rich Eisen, and Shelby Lynn among others.
The best part was that the celebrities worked with it, especially Jason
Priestley who let “Dr. Goode” therapy him into dressing in women’s clothes and
wearing make-up, while Dr. Finkelstein was more Andy Dick’s kind of therapist
since he could prescribe drugs.
Of the two shows I think “Head Case” might just end up on my TiVo to see
where it goes because it was quirky and made me laugh. I guess the 10-week run
of the series is already set, but my hope for “Head Case” is that they just
don’t try to ram a new celebrity or two down our throat every week, and that we
start to develop what happens in their subsequent sessions (i.e. Does Jason
Priestley show up next time dressed in drag now that he is comfortable in it?)
And so this blog hasn’t really been a blog, but more a review of two TV shows
on cable, for adults. Sadly I really didn’t like “The Bronx Bunny Show,” but
“Head Case” has a lot of potential in the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” tone, and keeps
it tight enough at only 15 minutes long so you might not get bored saying
“Alright, I get it already. She’s a kooky therapist.” Then you watch it the next
week, when, if it would get to the 16 minute mark, you would be saying again
“Alright, I get it already. She’s a kooky therapist.”
Sorry about the review-length blog, but I don’t really have a spot for
reviews of TV shows (maybe I need to set up a new area on the site since TV is
part of my life, but I’m sorry, I digress), but Podcast-wise I’ll be back on
Thursday with some “American Idol” recaps, among other things, and next week Stu
and I should be back together to get a "weekend/last couple of weeks" wrap-up
done.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
