inDecision 92: Election Night: Fragment

inDecision 92: Election Night: Fragment
Comedy Central
November 3, 1992
Politics
VHS
B-

Future Senator Al Franken and company, including Joy Behar, Roy Blount, Jr. and Buck Henry, cover Bill Clinton's election from a humorous and decidedly Democratic angle.  There are some slow moments, but it's worth watching again for things like footage of Calvin Trillin at the Republican Convention interviewing "the wrong George Bush," i.e. the giddy, somewhat goofy eldest son of the President.  Note that CC used this opportunity to promote not only Gaffney's Women Aloud but three of the classic sitcoms it was then airing:  Bilko, Car 54, and That Girl.  (I don't have enough space to tag Phil Silvers, but, yes, he was also on a great episode of Gilligan's Island.)

Mork & Mindy: Pajama Game II

Mork & Mindy: Pajama Game II
ABC
January 7, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
C

In this Begel & Kite story, Harvey Lembeck and Maureen Arthur return as Mearth's classmates Ovits and Zelka.  I'm not sure if this is the episode where Lembeck collapsed during filming, or if he was making a return appearance in an unaired episode, but he did die two days before this aired.  In any case, his character isn't given much to do, but Zelka ends up staying longer and having a sleepover with Mearth.  Mindy is worried because her son and Zelka look like adults in late middle age even if they have the mentality of small children.  Also Mearth has possession of a Bronco girlie magazine (later revealed to belong to Mr. Bickley).  I suppose there was a way this episode could've worked, but it's a little creepy, and I don't find the extended "safari" scene with Williams and Winters as funny as Dawber or the studio audience seem to.  Note that Williams makes another Popeye reference, much less proud than the one the year before, the movie having bombed in the meantime.

This is the 1500th program I've reviewed.

Mork & Mindy: P.S. 2001

Mork & Mindy: P.S. 2001
ABC
December 17, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Cindy Begel and Lisa Kite's first of five Mork stories has Mearth demanding to go to school.  Mindy finds out, by Orson paging her while Mork is asleep, that he sent Mork an application for a prep school on Ork.  Mork turns out to not want his baby to go to school already, even though it's only one day a month.  But Mindy talks him into it.  Mearth has trouble adjusting to the other kids, and a strict teacher who looks like an 11-year-old Earth girl.  (Mork is surprised to hear she's still alive.)  Mork and Mindy accompany their son to Ork and things go better.  This would've been a C+, but I liked seeing the decor of the classroom, and I was pleasantly surprised by the guest stars, see below.

None other than Eric Von Zipper, 58-year-old Harvey Lembeck, who had taught Williams (and John Ritter among others) in an acting workshop, cameos as Mearth's classmate Ovits.  Forty-seven-year-old Maureen Arthur, who had "funny bimbo" roles in '60s sex comedies like The Love God? and How to Commit Marriage (more so in the former), here plays Zelka, who has a crush on Mearth.  Both would return in the following episode.