The New Show

Watched this series in Jr. High the season it was on, and while the series was short lived, it included some very funny sketches. My favorite, and the one I wish I could dig up the videotape on, is the Steve Martin parody of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' video. Dressed as the KOP, Martin walked down the street, and had to stomp on some 'tiles' to make them light up, then gave a typical Steve Martin shrug and glance to the sky for divine intervention. The Den of Revulsion was another memorable clip ('Eeeeewwwww!'), and for some reason their spoof of phone sex sticks in my mind - the backwoods brothers that actually go to the trouble of establishing credit to speak with 'The Naked Lady' (Catherine O'Hara I think), who talks to them while taking care of her kids and ironing for her husband. It was a series that with a little better writing and a better time slot (prine time on Fridays, I think, matched up against 1st season Miami Vice), this show could have gone places.

I remember a skit where buck henry and a female (playing his wife) were driving along a deserted road. Buck Henry notices something odd, a waterfall or something relatively common. He tells his wife to take a picture, but the wife forgot the camera. As he is yelling at her because of this, they drive by increasingly odd items. Bigfoot first, and then a unicorn?, the loch ness monster, and finally aliens. The aliens even invite them out of the car to pose for a picture, but once again, the wife has forgotten to pack the camera. Hard to remember details, but funny stuff even still. Thanks to everyone else for bringing back some long lost memories. A DVD release would be much appreciated.

I only remember a couple of episodes of this. The best skit I saw was the Steve Martin "Billie Jean" parody (which I could not find under the Steve Martin Television Appearances section on IMDB).

Another skit that stands out was the "Cartoon Bloopers" skit. The idea was so original and ridiculous at that time, although the idea has been somewhat over-used in recent years. Like, "The Jetsons", George is supposed to enter a room, and the space-age door slides up half way and gets stuck, and you can hear him laughing on the other side of the door. Great stuff!

Would love to see a "Best Of" DVD for this show!

8 out of 10 stars.

My dad has a VHS recording of The Best of the New Show (yes they had a "Best of" show with the few episodes they had) which has some bits which still crack me up. There was the Frightened Family, a neurotic family whose hair-raising experiences actually raise their hair. ["I was just thinking about that BUG again!"] And the Den of Revulsion, where hopefully you don't see a little bit of yourself. ["That's like using someone else's toothbrush!" "What's wrong with that? I do that all the time!" "Ewww!"] There were lots of great guest spots, too; Kevin Klein, Gilda Radner, Paul Simon, Steve Martin... (Kevin Klein and Gilda Radner playing an ice-skating team from such a poor country they couldn't afford skates; Paul Simon coming to Roy's Food Repair (John Candy as Roy) to get the salt from the bottom of his pretzel bag put back onto the pretzels; Steve Martin in a spoof of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" video...)

Anyway, there were definitely some worthless skits, but no more of a ratio of bad to good than the current SNL. I hope someday someone stumbles across The New Show and releases it on DVD.

Though it popped up in other places and other shows, 1 sketch from this show is the famous Steve Martin "Billie Jean" video parody of Michael Jackson's big hit. Beyond that, I recall a skit that mocked Orwell's 1984 (an old book that appropriately was getting renewed media attention that year) torture chamber scene where people were asked what they were afraid of and they were tortured with it. The example I remember was when the shackled actors said "spiders," and people dressed in huge muppet-like spider outfits attacked them. Contrary to other reviews, these 2 skits were funny at the time. Of course, I was 10 years old.