TTH 4/13/26

Freaks and Geeks Rewatch - Tricks and Treats

As the episode title indicates, it’s Halloween time for our freaks and geeks. Halloween is an ideal holiday for which to explore characters who are attempting to redefine who they are and where they are in life. Once again, the episode’s theme is established at the Weir dinner table. Sam is initially insistent that he is too old to trick or treat, he intends to spend the evening going out to see The Nude Bomb with his friends. (Another awesome cultural artifact; this was a Get Smart reunion movie which I was so looking forward to seeing. My gosh, it was awful.) Jean was eagerly anticipating the annual tradition of passing out candy with Lindsay. Harold was his usual grouchy self.

After an early scene in which an English teacher assigns the freshmen to read Crime & Punishment, Sam realizes that trick or treating is one of the last remaining bastions of his childhood. He talks Bill & Neal into joining him one last time. Sam dresses up as Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, although most people believe that it is a Tin Man costume, Neal is Groucho Marx, and Bill hilariously puts on a wig and pantsuit as his Bionic Woman costume. Harris accompanies them - with a bloody fake axe in his head - and the quartet are greeted by laughs from onlookers. Whether they were specifically laughing at Bill, or at the fact that these kids were too old to trick or treat, is debatable. Unfortunately for them, they cross paths with Alan the bully and his friends. They take all of the candy away from our heroes. That was bad, but Sam’s day would soon get a lot worse.

Lindsay was torn between family loyalty and her belief that she too had outgrown the holiday. Daniel had invited Lindsay to hang with he, Kim, & Nick, but Lindsay still felt that she needed to be with her mother. That is, until she caught Millie kissing a boy. If her old mathlete friend had a boyfriend, then she too needed to go on a “double date” with her new freak friends. So, she bails on Jean, while promising that she will soon return home.

Jean was devastated, even more so when trick or treaters refused to accept her homemade cookies. By 1980 urban legends about tainted Halloween candy had long since metastasized; no child would dare take unwrapped candy, even from a trusted household. Jean talks Harold into going to the store to pick up some candy that she could safely hand out, but her heart clearly was not into it anymore. In a nice touch, Harold was dressed in a vampire costume; Count Floyd reference FTW!

As for the freaks, Ken’s initial plans for the evening fell through, so he sat in the back of Daniel’s car as a fifth wheel. They were aimlessly driving around for a while, despite Lindsay’s requests that they do something. Finally, they settled into classic Halloween pranks. They stomp on the occasional jack o’lantern on people’s porches. One of their victims was Mr. Rosso, who calmly replaced it with another carved pumpkin that he had in his house. After a couple of rounds of mailbox baseball, it was time for the piece de resistance, a carton full of eggs.

Lindsay hurls some eggs at a group of trick or treaters; as the car pulls away she realizes to her horror that she had just egged her own little brother. As Sam returns home, when his parents ask who did this to him, he merely says that it was a bunch of freaks. A brief moment of empathy from Harold follows, he awkwardly tries to comfort his son, but he just doesn’t have that parental skill. He reminded me so much of the dad in Breaking Away. Lindsay apologizes to Sam and thanks him for not turning her in. Sam gives his sister a truth bomb; he tells her that despite her attempts to reinvent herself, no one thinks that she is cool. She tells him that she knows. Lindsay then unwraps the costume that her mother had prepared for her. A snafu at the costume shop had resulted in her receiving the incorrect costume; instead of a princess costume she was given a prince outfit. She steered into that skid and joined her mother, who was dressed as a cowgirl, to hand out prewrapped candy to the neighborhood children.

This episode wasn’t quite as strong as the previous two, but it continues to show real growth in Lindsay’s character. They haven’t quite nailed Ken yet; Seth Rogen is still largely limited to angrily sneer as he throws out sarcastic comments. He does have impressive sideburns, however. Next week’s episode is one of the classic ones, it’s the one which really fleshes out Kim’s character.

Tonight’s the Night

Ryan Seacrest will announce the new Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame class sometime during this evening’s episode of American Idol. Yeah, corporate synergy and all, but the American Idol reveals of the class have not made for smooth television. The announcement tends to heavily spotlight the high profile names while racing through the lesser known ones. There’s gotta be a better way.

Who do I think will get the call? I’m not going to make formal predictions - voters have a tendency to throw unexpected curveballs - but I can make a few educated guesses. First, I believe there will be a total of 8 inductees in the artist category. There are 2 acts on this ballot whom I believe the Hall really wants to see inducted; if either finishes 8th in the voting the Hall will judge that they came close enough and add them to the class. Once again, the institution’s lack of transparency leads to all sorts of conspiracy theories. I don’t think they go into this with nefarious intentions, but they are going to do all they can to insure that Mariah Carey and Iron Maiden will make it in this year.

Who else? As I have previously said, as much as I don’t think he belongs, I also know how to read tea leaves. Phil Collins is getting in. Wu-Tang Clan has a clear path carved out for them, so their chances appear great. Billy Idol has left hints that he has already received the good news. That makes 5. I’ll say that Oasis will make 6, and this might be more hopium than anything else, but my fingers and toes are all crossed for the Joy Division/New Order combo. Early on I liked Melissa Etheridge’s chances, but I haven’t seen much buzz surrounding her since, therefore I think Luther Vandross will make it in as the 8th and final inductee. That sucks for INXS, maybe next year.

If that is in fact the actual roster of inductees, it’s a relatively “meh” group, making it all that more important that there should be a strong group of honorees among the side categories. I’ll make my annual statement that the single most indefensible oversight is the fact that Estelle Axton is STILL not in. Hopefully this is the time for her long overdue, and sadly posthumous, honor. The fact that this year’s ceremony is being held in Cleveland makes it an ideal time to honor Ohio natives Devo. I will make yet another plea for both Emmylou Harris and War. And if the nominating committee still stubbornly refuses to place The B-52’s on the ballot, a side category selection could be their entrance point. Finally, I really want to see another backup group inducted. The JB’s, The Revolution, and The Wailers would all be excellent choices.

There will be much to discuss on Wednesday. I’m hoping that those in charge chose wisely and that my comments will not be too much of a venting session.

CBS Gives Up

CBS has finally announced what will replace The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when it ends its run next month. Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen will move up 1 hour into the 11:35 time slot. Um, yay? Nothing against Byron Allen. Those of us old enough to remember him as a 19 year old co-host on Real People could have never foreseen that he would go on to build a massive business empire. Seriously, check out the guy’s portfolio.

But, a large part of his business holdings are built on cheap programming, of which Comics Unleashed is a prime example. A panel show in which Allen facilitates a discussion among 4 fellow stand up comedians, it has a no politics policy lest it risk offending audiences. That results in the safest comedy imaginable. In addition, on any evening it’s very unlikely that any of the comics appearing are anyone that the average American has even heard of. No worries if the result is dull, the budget is so low that it easily earns a profit. Even better from CBS’s perspective, it costs them nothing. Allen is purchasing the air time from the network.

This is all so unfortunate because late night had long been a second thought at best for CBS. They gladly ceded that time slot to NBC & ABC and concerned themselves more with primetime supremacy. It was only when they hired David Letterman that the network made a full commitment to late night TV & it has thrived ever since. Not anymore, they have completely thrown in the towel. They may as well just revive the old Crime Time After Prime Time Branding. America is ready for a revival of Silk Stalkings.

My Sordid Past As a Game Show Contestant

I did once put my knowledge of arcane trivia to good use. Let’s go back to a time when a young Dane Cook taught us all how to laugh. Way back in 1995, I was a contestant on a sports trivia game show.

I look exactly the same today

The show was called Sports Busters. Don’t feel ashamed if you never heard of it; it only ran for 13 weeks and is so obscure that it doesn’t have either a Wikipedia entry or an IMDB page. Luckily I have photographic evidence that it actually existed and was not a figment of my imagination. It aired in New York on the old Sports Channel cable network. It might have been picked up nationally by other regional sports networks, but I’m not certain about that. There is a good reason why the show did not last long, the format was atrocious.

Tight battle but I would pull ahead

In the green room the previous episode’s returning champion told us that the taping only takes 10 minutes or so. That sounded weird to me, even with commercial breaks a show should run a lot longer than that. The reason why was that the show included interactive elements. I’ll get to that shortly. The host of the show was Tom Kennedy, but NOT the same Tom Kennedy who was the long time host of Name That Tune. The format was simple; the three contestants drew straws to see who would go first and we each took our turns at the board. Similar to Press Your Luck, the board consisted of a series of running lights over assorted categories. The contestant presses a plunger and whichever category it stopped on was the one you had to answer a question about. If you get it right, you get points and then the next guy takes his turn. A correct answer did not result in a control of the board. Instead you answer your question and move on.

After round 1 was where the show ran off the rails. It was time for the viewing audience to participate. During the commercial break an announcer told the audience to get their phones ready so that they could answer trivia questions of their own. Another commercial break, and there were 5 questions that a viewer could phone in their answers through a 900 number. Yet another commercial break, and those answers were revealed. It wasn’t until the next commercial break that the broadcast returned to us. By this phone around 15 minutes must have elapsed since the last time viewers had seen the studio portion of the show. You had forgotten about us, right?Don’t worry, we were still present. Time for the bonus round.

In round 2 correct answers earned double points. Here was a huge structural flaw in the show made itself clear. When time ran out, the game ended - even if the third, or even second contestant did not have a chance to answer as many questions as the first one did! I was lucky enough to draw first straw; that’s not the only reason why I won, but I did have a built in advantage.

In the lightning round, I needed to answer 9 questions within 90 seconds. The returning champion was kind enough to offer advice. He said that if I don’t know an answer, I should say “pass.” If I had answered a question incorrectly, the host would have wasted precious time by saying “I’m sorry, the correct answer is ___.” By passing instead, he quickly moved on to the next question. That advice gave me the time I needed to answer the necessary 9 questions and I won the grand prize: a trip to Jamaica!

The episode in which I was the returning champ taped immediately thereafter. This time I did not benefit from a lucky draw; time ran out on me and I finished in second place. The grand prize in that episode was a 5 day trip to the Richard Petty Driving Experience in Charlotte. No offense to the good people of Charlotte - and it probably would have been loads of fun to drive a racing car, even at a reduced speed - but Charlotte is a considerably less exotic destination than Montego Bay.

Thus endeth my game show career. A few months later VH1 was developing an updated version of Name That Tune, and some of my coworkers encouraged me to audition for that show. The producers told me they were looking for musical savants. I qualified as that, but they also wanted the sort of overly exuberant contestants such as what one would see on The Price Is Right. I can only fake that sort of enthusiasm so much, so I did not get a callback for that one.

It was a fun experience, and my underlying fear that I would flame out and embarrass myself on television proved to be unfounded. I can’t say that I enjoyed seeing what my winnings did to my tax bill that year, but it was worth it. It was a good thing that I remembered it was Keith Smart who won the Final Four MOP award in 1987, and not Steve Alford as many people assume.

TV Of the 21st Century - Line Of Fire

Line Of Fire is dramatically different from most of the shows which I have discussed in this segment. There is little I can say about it, mostly because ABC cancelled it while it was still finding its footing. In addition, it made a negligible cultural footprint. Unlike most of the series that I talk about, there are no clips to share from YouTube. No promo reel, no clip of the opening title sequence. A user uploaded all of the episodes, but I’m not about to embed a 45 minute long clip.

This show is a relic from the era in which networks would routinely extend the runs of their top shows to cover the entire season. The nets wanted each season to premiere in late September yet still air the season finale in May. That would mean placing several shows in a lengthy mid-season hiatus. In this case in 2003 ABC pulled NYPD Blue from the schedule for 3 months and replaced it with Line Of Fire. It did not do well in the ratings at all, and ABC did not even air the complete run of the show. I liked it a lot and wish it had gotten a better chance. It showed a lot of potential.

This show starred Leslie Bibb as a rookie FBI agent. There was a parallel story line involving a powerful mob boss portrayed by David Paymer. The other main character was an undercover FBI agent played by Anson Mount. Leslie Hope of 24 fame played the head of the local agency branch.

Part of the power of this show came from the casting. Bibb was so young at the time, and while her character showed the usual rookie growing pains, there was also a pronounced “stronger than she appears on the surface” vibe to her. Paymer was similarly the sort of character easily misunderestimated. There is a stock character that he generally plays; here he used his established persona to strong effect. One would not think that a seemingly nebbish guy could be so quietly terrifying, but he was.

As I said, ABC pulled it from the schedule before airing all of the episodes that had been shot, so it’s unclear where the central story lines were going to end, nor what plans there were for a hypothetical second season and beyond. Line Of Fire can best be described as a show which demonstrated unfulfilled potential. It was a nice hidden gem which would have had a better chance of thriving in the streaming era.

Originally aired on: ABC

Currently streaming on: Nowhere, but the episodes are all available on YouTube

Closing Laughs

Oh man, it’s Monday the 13th. I roll a little differently from most people. I roll my eyes over Friday the 13th superstitions, but Monday the 13th? Yikes. Be careful out there, everyone. Have a great day. See you all again on Wednesday.