Oct 31, 1980 Uncategorized

Sketches include a sports equipment store that sells very large and small items, a play reviewed by two professional wrestlers, a smog shrouded interview with the mayor of Los Angeles, an interview with a Cadillac spokesman about new models and a restaurant dinner that has people borrowing items constantly from the two.

John Byner – Host/Various Characters
Bob Einstein – Producer

Guest Stars
Jack Newman – Various Characters
Melissa Steinberg – Various Characters

Staff
Perry Rosemond – Producer
Allan Blye – Executive Producer
Bob Einstein – Executive Producer
Geoff Craigen – Editor
Stephanie Chaffin – Assistant to the Producer
Virginia Kavangh – Production Assistant
Garry Blye – Production Consultant

In the opening sketch, Dr. Byner ascends a very long ladder to start an examination of Karim Abdul-Jabbar, a professional basketball player.

Next, Professor Rousseau talks abut human anatomy and attributes his expertise to learning under his father. The professor pulls back a cover to reveal of what he is says is the skeleton of his father. After pulling back other covers to reveal his father as skeletons of his father as a boy, a dog, a cat, a mouse and a snake, Bob intervenes and ends the sketch early. As they move on to the next sketch, John reaches up to Bob’s jacket and says he is holding his father as a piece of lint.

In the next sketch, a customer enters a sports equipment looking to get money back on a set of golf clubs his wife bought and says they are unusable as they are six feet long. The store owner says those are Wellington clubs and states you need Wellington shoes to play them and pulls out golf shoes with two foot long spikes. The customer wants his money back but the owner says he can only exchange purchases and offers to give him Dorsett tennis equipment. The owner pulls out a tiny tennis racquet and a tiny can of tennis balls and this aggravates the customer. Finally, the owner gives the customer a bowling ball but the customer notices the ball has no holes and the owner gives him a bowling ball bag full of holes.

Two women sit down at a table at a male strip joint but their talk of art and classical music runs into descriptions of the unseen male strippers they see on stage and attempts to get back on topic fail miserably.

John hosts a segment in which two wrestlers, El Ciccone and The Masked Critic, review Old Town. The words soon lead to angry boasts and the wrestlers soon start boasting where they will review next before grappling with John talking loudly where they will review next.

With most of the screen obscured by smog, a reporter interviews the mayor of Los Angeles about getting the 1984 Olympics and the mayor says there will be no smog in 1984 for the games as it won’t be any worse than it is now.

In the next segment, a reporter talks with Arthur Leffingwell, vice president of General Motors Cadillac division, about the public’s demands for smaller cars. Arthur says they will give their customers what they want despite this and unveils the 1981 El Dorado model, which is half the size of the current model. To demonstrate that it’s just as spacious as the current model, Arthur gets a test family of six to get into the 81 model and they do so though it is an extremely tight fit. Arthur pronounces this test a success and shows him the 82 Seville, which is the size of a small toy car, and gets a few men to help the family though the elderly grandmother remains pinned inside.

A man and wife sit down for dinner at a restaurant but things go awry when the man is asked by other customers for one of the chairs, salt, a lighter and a cigarette, his fork, cream, his wife, the keys to the car, the table he is seated at and is asked to move to another chair. After his chair taken and he literally gives his right hand, the man gets upset and is given the advice to never come into the restaurant. John staggers off the set wailing and moaning in an imitation of Jerry Lewis and even pies himself in the face backstage as well as the camera following him.

With pie still on his face, John thanks the audience for watching the high brow comedy they put on tonight.

Oct 24, 1980 Uncategorized

Sketches include a couple dealing with secrets just before marriage, Super Dave in New Mexico to do a stunt involving arrows being shot at him, a very sensitive airport metal screener, a commentary by John Byner on nuclear power, a vampire visiting a doctor sketch that evolves into celebrity impersonations and a husband thinking his wife is unfaithful with good cause.

Bob Einstein – Super Dave Osborne
Tom Harvey – Various Characters
John Byner – Host/Various Characters
Luba Goy – Irma
Mike Walden – Commentator

Maurice Abraham – Director
Perry Rosemond – Producer
Bob Einstein – Executive Producer
Allan Blye – Executive Producer
Geoff Craigen – Editor
Stephanie Chaffin – Assistant to the Producer
Virginia Kavangh – Production Assistant
Garry Blye – Production Consultant

From TV.com
The opening sketch shows a line of men waiting to use a washroom stall with each man holding a toilet in his hands. After three men go in and out, the last man, who is holding nothing, enters and when a flushing sound is heard, he disappears.

John and his date Irma arrive home after a date and just as John, citing they have been going out for six months, is about to propose, Irma says she has something to tell him. Irma says she is Catholic, a Republican, doesn’t like sports or the sun and is ugly. John has no problem with anything except the ugly part and is outraged she waited six months to tell him. John moans about what he is supposed to do but Irma tells him she was kidding and she’s not really ugly. John says that’s a relief and after asking Irma to marry him and she says yes, John says they have to hurry over and tell Irma’s parents as the zoo they are in closes in five minutes.

In the studio, John sends it to Mike Walden and Super Dave Osborne. Mike states they are in New Mexico on the northeast boundary of the Wannamonga Indian reserve and he is joined moments later by Super Dave, Super Dave’s young daughter Erin and Little John Running Feather, a brave who Super Dave refers to as his blood brother. Super Dave explains that he will be performing a stunt where he is strapped to a target on a motorized wheel and Little John will shoot arrows into the target and avoid Super Dave at the same time. Super Dave is strapped into the target moments later but when Little John fires his first arrow as the target spins, it hits Super Dave in the right leg and two other shots hit Super Dave in the chest. After stopping the wheel to talk with Super Dave momentarily, Mike pronounces the stunt a success even as Super Dave agonizes in pain, curses Little John and wonders who is going to release him.

At an airport metal detector, a male guard waves through several people who do not trigger the alarm. However, when an attractive blonde tries to go through, she sets off the alarm and continues to do so despite removing her jewelry, dress and bra before she is allowed to go through. An ugly woman carrying a machine gun with ammo belts slung across her shoulders is next to go but despite setting off the alarm, she is waved through by the guard.

John reports from an area near the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and talks about the feeling that the accident in 1978 has led to after effects. To disprove the latter, John talks with a man who has a large bushy tail, another man with bright green hair, a third man with large, furry paws for hands and feet, a fourth man who looks to have another head on his body and finally the plant manager. The manger say nuclear energy is safe and causes no side effects even as the manager corrects John and says he is the wife of the manager despite his bearded, heavyset appearance.

A doctor sees his next patient, who is Count Dracula. The Count says he went to a Hollywood party and starts doing impressions of the various stars he bit on the neck. Tom, who is playing the doctor, breaks character and tells John, who is playing the vampire, he is using the sketch to do cheap impressions. Moments later, Tom starts doing a number of impression on his own and John is silent for a moment before doing an impression of Rodney Dangerfield and leaves the set.

In the final sketch, John plays a man arriving home to talk to his wife about her fooling around with a large number of men. When the husband says he heard she was fooling around with his stock broker E.F. Hutton and starts to say the broker said something, a large number of men appear behind the couple to hear what the influential man had to say.

 

Oct 17, 1980 Uncategorized

Season 1, Episode 1, Aired Oct 17, 1980
EP 1 In the first episode, sketches include parents dealing with a problem child, Super Dave performs his first stunt, a sketch involving stereotypes and a visit to a football training camp headed by George Allen.

Bob Einstein-Super Dave Osborne
Tom Harvey-Various Characters
John Byner-Host

Guests
Pat Morita – Prisoner
Kate Lynch – Various Characters
George Allen – Football Coach
Mike Walden – Commentator

Maurice Abraham – Director
Perry Rosemond – Producer
Allan Blye – Executive Producer
Bob Einstein – Executive Producer
Geoff Craigen = Editor
Richard Allen (II) -Set Decorator
Leslie Haynes – Makeup Artist
Gary Chowen – Hairstylist
Stephanie Chaffin – Assistant to the Producer
Virginia Kavangh – Production Associate
Garry Blye – Production Consultant

The episode opens with a number of phone operators talking to television viewers about what show they are watching. Suddenly, one shouts out that they finally have one person watching Bizarre and they can start the show now.

After the opening credits, the first sketch shows a couple worrying about their nine year old son Billy sent home from school for a fourth time from school for behavioural problems. Billy talks with his father and says he’s the same at school as he is at home even as he lights a cigarette, asks for a glass of bourbon and curses. A few moments later, the door bell rings and young Melissa arrives to tell Billy to come home or she’s divorcing him. Billy leaves with Melissa and says he’s heading to the race track and his mother gives him a bottle of bourbon to keep him warm.

In the next sketch, John throws it to Stockholm, Sweden where Mike Walden tells the audience that Super Dave Osborne is getting ready for his stunt. Super Dave tells Mike Walden says he’s doing the stunt for the challenge and the money and climbs into a special car that cost his sponsor three hundred thousand dollars. After Mike steps away, a large metal claw usually seen in a junkyard swoops down, grabs the car, lifts it in the air and drops it in a crusher with Super Dave talking the entire time via a special microphone. Moments later, the car is crushed into a metal cube and Super Dave yells in pain. When the cube emerges and placed next to Mike, Super Dave indicates he is all right and will buy Mike a beer as soon as he gets out of the cube.

Next, a sketch is introduced by a woman saying that what you see isn’t necessarily true. In the sketch, two policemen that look to be from the South put a Japanese man in a jail cell. However, the cops dialogue indicate they are Irish and British in reality and the prisoner’s language indicates he is Jewish. Moments later, a black man dressed like a pimp enters and the police indicate he is the public defender but the lawyer, speaking with an Italian accent, says he’s actually a woman. As the sketch draws to a close, a dog lying on the floor stands up and meows.

In the next segment, the song You Don’t Bring Me Flowers is heard playing with a photo of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (who was Prime Minister of Canada at the time) and his estranged wife Margaret on the screen and two sets of lips lip synching the song.

Next, the show goes to a training camp run by former professional football coach George Allen, who has a reputation for running physically tough camps. A reporter, Tom Harmon, asks the coach to demonstrate his new neck exercise and why some players dislike it. The coach summons a player named Jablonski over and asks him to get in the pit. Jablonski protests that he just did two thousand push-ups on broken glass but gets in a nearby pit that looks about six feet deep. A few moments later, a player runs and kicks Jablonski’s head off his body and it lands some distance away. The coach tells Jablonski he’s got thirty seconds to get his head back and the headless player jumps out of the pit and runs downfield where he joins several other headless players in searching. Seconds later, the player puts a head on but it is the wrong one and he tosses it off and resumes searching.

In the next sketch, the Animal Healing Hour is started from the Calgary Veterinary Cathedral and hosted by Doctor Enzlo Veal. Dr. Veal asks that all sick animals at home should be gathered around the television and they will be healed. Doctor Veal relates how he cured a parrot of its stuttering and its owner stuttered her thanks. People start bringing up animals to be healed with a woman holding her sick cat first but the Doctor says he’s not a vet and tells her to go away. Next, a man brings up his pet turtle Biff that he says hasn’t come out of his shell in four days. Dr. Veal holds the turtle in his hands and after squeezing tightly, he peeks and says the turtle is out now.

John closes the episode by saying good night before a shot rings out. John slumps to the floor as an announcer asks the audience to tune in next week to find out ” Who Shot J.B. ? “.