Second Look: Mr. Show with Bob and David ‘Who Let You In?’ – I Shit On You

‘Who Let You In?’ (aired 11/24/1995)

‘The Chase of the Chaste’ – B-

It’s 1995, so of course Mr. Show has to find their own way to make fun of the OJ Simpson case,  what must be the single most parodied event of the last thirty years. The idea is pretty good – OJ was driving a white Bronco that day, so the irony of the Pope being chased works on a few levels. That being said, the Pope material doesn’t carry much weight in the opening, more focused on inane 90’s network news banter (the other most parodied thing in American culture on sketch  shows) and Tim McCracken, a guy who runs the Pope Hall of Fame wing of the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. As always, everyone is on top of their improv game (particularly Tom Kinney), but there isn’t much beyond that except the broadest of OJ references.

‘Dudes Arguing’/’Nil’s Guitar Shop’/’Imminent Death Syndrome’ – B+

What begins as three grungies arguing over whether the Pope chase was classic, awesome, or core, quickly turns into a sketch that asks a simple question: how you react to someone who’s been told they’re about to die? The inclination is to be nice to them, to try and guide them through the last stages of their life gracefully, and sent them out as happy as possible. But what happens if that person is on the brink of death for decades? Cross’s character in the middle sketch is a nerdy guy who wants to learn guitar: but when he shows up for his first lesson, he’s told he is a rock prodigy, a man whose thrashing skills should be worshipped. Kinney and Odenkirk’s characters are lying, of course – and Cross eventually realizes that they are, and has to face his own impending death.

Having the knowledge he’ll be dead in a matter of hours, Nil (Odenkirk) promises him a spot on stage at the night’s concert. Thing is, he lives – and continues living, earning honorary doctorates and a job as a doctor simply out of sympathy – and people who want to make promises to make themselves feel good with no intention of following through on them. It ends with a long Odenkirk dialogue detailing Imminent Death Syndrome, and a list of celebrities that has it.

Up until that moment, the sketch was going along smoothly, not holding onto jokes too smoothly – but Odenkirk hangs on that moment, repeating celebrity names who could literally die at any point (Jerry Lewis was among them) with diminishing returns. It’s the only moment where the sketch feels like its being stretched out, and ends quickly after that, with Cross asking if Jeff Foxworthy had the disease, too. It’s a nice little poke at Foxworthy (whose mainstream appeal was at its peak at the time) to finish a sketch that was starting to wear its welcome.

‘Trial Of The Millennium’ – B-

More easy OJ jokes: this time, it’s the papal ring taking place of the bloody glove that didn’t fit OJ’s finger. Ha-ha, funny, funny – though this transition bit is helped by the banter between Jill and Tom, and the courtroom footage of Derrik (Cross), who stated that the only people who had papal staffs made were the Pope, Sigfried, and Roy. It ends on a high note, with the anchors busting out a hilarious network-y statistic: “85% of Americans believe the Pope is innocent, even if he did it.”
‘Spank’/’Expert Truck’ – B

‘Spank’ is really the appetizer before the main course of ‘Founding Fathers’, with a dash of ‘Expert Truck’ thrown in the middle as a palate-cleansing sorbet. For what it’s worth, ‘Spank’ is a funny idea, it just carries on a little too long: a sketch that shits on the people who like to make money shitting on America (but having no balls to really do anything about it), featuring Cross as Spank doing his act. Problem is, he can’t shit, piss, or puke on the flag: he’s eaten his fiber and beans, but he can’t defecate on the flag – a sign that he’s talking the talk of alternative America, but certainly not walking the walk. And what do Americans in the 1990s (and now) do when they feel wrong? They sue, goddamnit – and that’s where we see Spank last, in a courtroom waiting for a flag expert to arrive.

It then cuts to the expert lounge, where Jack Black begs for a job (“I’m hungry” he says, licking his hands and styling his hair), and they all set off in a beat up old pickup to drop the flag expert off at the courthouse. The flag expert then gives everyone acid, and tells them the hilarious story of ‘Founding Fathers’.

‘Founding Fathers’ – A-

‘Founding Fathers’ is so close to being a perfect sketch: it’s so damn close, except for one glaring thing: Tom Kinney’s Abraham Lincoln. It’s got this hacky northeastern accent, and while the other actors are playing their roles fairly straight, he’s parading around like a caricature of Lincoln from a different sketch. And he’s got so many lines, it almost overshadows great bits like Odenkirk’s Jefferson cursing all the time (“what a collection of assholes”) and the great debate between Lincoln, Franklin, Jefferson, Gwinnett, and Hancock (who I assume John Ennis is playing, since we see him sign something) as they try to figure out a way to make a flag that nobody can shit on, saving them the public embarrassment of the flag’s desecration (as Jefferson states, “a nation is it’s flag”).

The ideas are hilarious: Gwinnett gets it backwards, and makes a flag with ‘America’ written on the side of a toilet (which also reveals that he’s in a relationship with Benjamin Franklin); Franklin himself just brings in a box of shit; and Lincoln brings out the flag, with the groan-worthy joke that all 50 stars were Playmates he had slept with. A great sketch with hilarious costumes and dialogues (Odenkirk screaming “fuck!” at the top of his lungs is hilarious), based around this idea that America’s earliest leaders and minds could hang out in a timeless chamber like they were some kind of immortal revolutionary fraternity. Too bad that damn Lincoln character nearly ruins it all.

‘History Museum’ – C

Oh, Droopy. Bob and David often refer to him as one of the most loved characters of Mr. Show, for reasons I really just don’t understand. Sure, Bob sells the act well with his facial expressions and nasal-y delivery, but he’s such a vapid impression of careless early 1990’s burnouts that even in short sketches he’s not all that effective. Here, he gets a job at a history museum because he has Imminent Death Syndrome, and hangs up on a schoolteacher trying to organize a field trip. Hilarious, I guess?
Watching Murders – B+

The last skit of Mr. Show‘s first season is only ten seconds long, but it works really well on a meta level. As a celebrity, your success and failure is broadcast to the world, and even you can sit down on a couch and watch your own life (figuratively, of course) end in Hollywood. In that sense, Bob and David watching a newscast that’s showing footage of a double murder (which is them watching the news and getting murdered) is subtly clever, a little reminder that even when you think you can fade quietly into obscurity, you really can’t. It’s especially poignant in this day and age of TMZ, and acts a nice little reminder to the realities of celebrity media.

Grade: B

Season 1 Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– the shot of Brian Posehn as the Pope (basically the Pope if he were a Satanist) is hilarious.

– Bob also lists Juliette Lewis as an IDS-afflicted person, a joke that only works if you remember the 1990s in any significant way.

– Jill’s little banter with her co-anchor is great: after he says something about someone “doing their thing”, she says “better than thinging your do” and has a little laugh to herself. A great reminder of how awful and forced that banter is in real life.

– Bob: “Quentin Tarantino has it… Tarantino the actor, not the director.”