It's Garry Shandling's Show: Force Boxman

Marty Feldman on the right.

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Force Boxman
Showtime
April 10, 1987
Sitcom
VHS
B-

I mistakenly thought this was the 1990 episode called "The Last Show," which itself is the third to last.  In any case, this means that there's a videocassette with '80s stuff I need to watch before I can get back to May 1990.  This episode, co-written by Ed Solomon and Jeff Franklin, closed out Season One and has Garry leaving his show for an action program to be filmed in New York.  He's replaced by Red Buttons, who charms Garry's friends and raises the ratings.

I realize I don't have all the IGSS episodes, especially from later seasons, but what I taped received 3 B-s and 6 Bs.

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Mr. Smith Goes to Nam

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Mr. Smith Goes to Nam
Showtime
March 18, 1988
Sitcom
VHS
B-

This Season-Two closer was the last TV appearance of Gilda Radner, who'd die in May of the next year.  The title thread has to do with Leonard recognizing Gilda's nurse, Blake Cumbers (Blake Clark, who was 2nd MP on M*A*S*H and had actually played a couple earlier roles on IGSS).  Leonard feels guilty for not defending Blake and the rest of the squad against the Viet Cong twenty years earlier.  As Garry notices early on, the episode is meandering, and we never do find out what happens with his Sea Monkeys.

David Greenlee, who plays Young Leonard Smith, would be a Checkout Clerk on Roseanne.  This is the second of two IGSS stories written by Richard Day, who would do seven for Ellen.   

The Garry Shandling Show: 25th Anniversary Special

Yes, I would rather watch Donny Osmond
on The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

The Garry Shandling Show: 25th Anniversary Special
Showtime
Copyright 1985 but aired sometime in 1986
Parody, Variety
VHS
C

We're going to step back a little in time, to this precursor to The Larry Sanders Show, although it more immediately paved the way for It's Garry Shandling's Show.  I saw it after watching the first season of IGSS and was disappointed.  It hasn't improved with age.  It's not bad but it's not particularly funny.  It's mainly of historical interest, from a time when Johnny Carson was till the King of Late Night TV but had faced some challenges.

Paul Willson, who would be Leonard Smith on IGSS, plays Garry's sidekick Pete.  Britt Leach, who was Davy Jones's manager on The Brady Bunch, Reporter Dan Blevik on M*A*S*H, and three different characters on Three's Company, is Dr. Robert Lebec here.  DeVera Marcus, who was Violet on Bosom Buddies, plays Dee here and would be Willa on Who's the Boss?  Helaine Lembeck, of Welcome Back, Kotter, is Mindy here.  Doug McClure is among the many people appearing as themselves.  Tom Trbovich, who did one Bosom Buddies episode, is this special's director.

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Laffie

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Laffie
Showtime
March 13, 1987
Sitcom
VHS
B

Shandling & Zweibel wrote this episode (the thirteenth in the series) that is both Baby-Boomingly nostalgic and cable-friendly tasteless.  (The prison rape joke would probably not have made it nowadays, although the "Nancy reaching orgasm while hiding a dog under her long skirt" sequence might've.)  Garry takes in a smart stray collie but Leonard Smith says this violates the terms of the condo contract.  "Laffie" nonetheless helps rescue Leonard from an oncoming miniature train.  Sixty-one-year-old June Lockhart appears as herself.

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Garry Met a Girl Named Maria

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Garry Met a Girl Named Maria
Showtime
January 23, 1987
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Ed Solomon's first of eight IGSS stories, collaborating with Janis Hirsch on her second of two, kicks off the return of the series after a hiatus (as Garry notes in his opening monologue).  Although it has some nice touches, like the map during the credits and the characters bursting or threatening to burst into song, I don't think it's aged as well as the episodes we looked at previously.  To some extent, it's a parody of the "regular character considering marrying a female illegal alien to prevent her being deported" plot, as Garry fully acknowledges, and I think naming her Maria (as was the name on What's Happening!! and Three's Company, while it was Angelina on Welcome Back, Kotter) is a nod to this trope that would reach its ultimate expression in that fall's series I Married Dora, on of course ABC.  But the stereotypes (not just Latino but gay) are presented without much finesse and the "Lou Gehrig" joke gets dull with repetition.

Tony Plana, whose TV debut was as Amid on What's Happening!!, plays Maria's brother Jorge.  Richard Karron, who was an Officer on Three's Company, is again a Priest on this show.  Assistant Director Peter Barth again appears as himself.  And Barbara Cason, who was a Nurse on Mork & Mindy and Miss Fritzinger in The Brady Girls Get Married, makes her third appearance as Garry's mother Ruth.

It's Garry Shandling's Show: It's Garry Shandling's Problem, But It's Jo-Jo's Show

It's Garry Shandling's Show: It's Garry Shandling's Problem, But It's Jo Jo's Show
Showtime
October 15, 1986
Sitcom
VHS
B

This sixth episode is the first of two written by Janis Hirsch, who did two for Square Pegs.  It features contest winner Jodi Jones from Texarkana.  At first, she's treated as a special guest, the credits (although not the theme song) giving her equal billing with Garry.  But then Nancy's sex-addict friend Morgan (Christine Kellogg, who would return in a different role) arrives and draws attention, especially from Garry.  There's more playing with form here than the last episode we looked at, and I laughed out loud at the "newspapers piling up" gag as well as Nancy's deadpan follow-up.  I was also surprised by the relatively sexually explicit plot, but then it did debut on cable.  Late '80s Fox would bleep Jo Jo's insult of Garry.  (IMDB says it's "asshole.")

Geoffrey Blake makes his last appearance as Lewis and doesn't have very much to do.  Lynette Mettey, who played four different nurses on M*A*S*H, is Dr. Brody here.  Paul Willson, who had a couple roles on Mork & Mindy, appears for the third time in the role of Garry's neighbor Leonard Smith (often referred to by his full name).  Kate Mulligan plays Bethany, her first of six roles on the series.  Production Manager Peter Barth appears as himself, as he occasionally would that season.  And, yes, comedian Norm Crosby appears as himself, complete with tux and mic, at the sex clinic.

This episode is the 400th show I've reviewed to receive a B.  The series would have a hiatus of about three months and then come back as strong as ever.

Mork & Mindy: Cheerleader in Chains

Mork & Mindy: Cheerleader in Chains
ABC
April 22, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Three of the show's female writers did this episode: Winifred Hervey, Cindy Begel, and Lisa Kite.  And, as the title suggests, the plot is about Mindy in jail, for refusing to reveal her source.  It's a funnier episode than most this season, even if some of the humor is a little simple, like Mork's line about the Ronald Reagan pen having no point.  (For one thing, it would make more sense if it were a pencil.)  Note that although one of Mindy's cellmates is a big black woman, this is not used in the same way that the big black men were on the "jail" episodes of Bosom Buddies and Three's Company; Mindy yells at the woman and then worries about being beat up, but nothing happens.  And the "butch" matron is presented relatively sympathetically.

Paul Willson's second Mork role is as their neighbor Bob Miller.  Instead of playing a psychologist as he did on The Bob Newhart Show and Bosom Buddies, Phillip R. Allen this time is a politician named George Logan (and he keeps breaking character to laugh at Williams).  Sixty-six-year-old Barbara Billingsley guest stars as mild-mannered murderess Mrs. Louise Bailey, with Mork remarking that she looks like Mrs. Cleaver.  (This was a couple years after her memorable appearance in the movie Airplane but before the Still the Beaver TV-movie.)

Mork & Mindy: Clerical Error

Mork & Mindy: Clerical Error
ABC
February 28, 1980
Sitcom
DVD
C-

This is another episode where I don't question the sincerity but I do question the execution.  Mork is unsuccessfully looking for a job.  (Confusingly, his experience at daycare is horrific, but maybe this April Kelly script was written before the previous episode.)  He meets a priest and decides that he wants to be one, so he can help people.  Soon he's dressing like a priest, in a church, and people are coming to him with their problems, including a suicidal man.  Mork suggests "50 Ways to Meet Your Maker."  Luckily, this is just what the man needed to hear, to realize he was being foolish.  The "advice" scene is mostly played for laughs, so we're not supposed to worry about the man until Mindy does.  But not much of the episode is funny, with the low point actually when Mork meets a bride and wonders why she's not invisible.   (As in, you can't see the bride before the wedding.)  I suppose there's a way this episode might've worked a little (like C+ level), but this ain't it.  I might've gone with a D+ but I do like Remo's wedding cake and the naughty line about the pickle.

Paul Willson makes his first of two Mork appearances, as the Suicidal Confessor; later in the decade he'd be Leonard Smith on It's Garry Shandling's Show.