So I was in Las Vegas last week (and yes, I know I said I was sick in last week's column, but that was a lie), and while I was riding in a cab, the driver took his empty plastic soda bottle and casually tossed it out the window! Naturally, since my companions were from the Northwest, we looked at him like he had just given birth to Lil' Baby Hitler. And, looking at us like we were the biggest faggy hippies in the universe, he said, "WHAT? Street cleaners need jobs, too!"
Well, he did have a point, and his point was, "If you continue arguing with me, I'll drop your dead bodies off in the desert where vultures will stick their heads up your asses and eat your eyeballs out from the inside." So we shut up. HOWEVER! Now that I'm a good thousand miles away, I must protest this man's callous action and insist that throwing a perfectly good recyclable soda bottle on the roadway is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!
And as long as I'm protesting (and not in the stinky hippie sense), I think television networks are incredibly wasteful as well! Sure, they show "reruns," but with a minimal amount of work, they could actually make them worth watching. Example! I LOVE NBC's new entry, The Rerun Show (Tuesdays, 8:30 pm). This original new comedy employs a cast of sketch improv actors who perform actual scripts from Diff'rent Strokes, The Partridge Family, The Facts of Life, What's Happening!!, Saved by the Bell, and--if they get picked up for the fall--Charles in Charge.
And though they stick to the script, the cast still adds plenty of examples of "the holy grail of comedy" (incest jokes) and takes jabs at the foibles of original cast members (Todd Bridges' jail time, Dana Plato's Playboy spread). And in some episodes, original cast members--such as Danny Bonaduce from The Partridge Family and Dustin Diamond, who played Screech in Saved by the Bell--even return to re-create their roles.
Like most sketch comedy, the show can be hit or miss, but when it hits? Hoooooo-boy!! Heeeee-LARIOUS! So if you're looking to do some recycling that doesn't involve tearing labels off tin cans, give The Rerun Show a shot. And if you don't need my advice, then simply throw this column into the gutter... because, as we know, "street cleaners need jobs, too!"
