TV Review: The Grinder, the best legal show ever

Dean (Rob Lowe) with frenemy Timothy  Olyphant (Timothy Olyphant).

 In the past, I’ve heaped praise on Lookwell, the brilliant pilot by Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel that only got one episode in 1991. It starred Adam West as a wash-up actor who had played a detective on television, who now believed he had the skills to be an actual detective, with the help of his acting class. Spoiler: He did not have the skills, and hilarity ensued. (The full episode is available here on YouTube.)

It took 24 years, but a network has finally decided to run back that concept. The Grinder stars Rob Lowe as a successful actor, Dean Sanderson, finishing up his stint on an over-hyped, super sexualized show called… The Grinder. The show-within-a-show is awesome, and basically an over-the-top parody of things like CSI: Miami and NCIS. Each episode of The Grinder starts with a 30-second snippet of Dean’s acting, and the ridiculous situations of the show.

The actual show itself has Dean struggling to assimilate back to “real life,” with the main dynamic being the strained relationship between him and his brother, Stewart, played by Fred Savage. Stewart and his wife, The Waitress from Always Sunny (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), are seemingly the only ones not star-struck by Dean. Stewart is routinely exasperated by Dean attempting to practice law without a law degree, even more so when he manages to succeed (or at least, to succeed in his delusional mind).

Beyond the brothers, the main thing The Grinder has going for it is a deep and excellent ensemble cast. Dean and Stu’s dad, Dean Sr. (played by William Devane), is one of the standouts, as the small town lawyer partner of the firm they both work for. Natalie Morales from Parks and Recreation is another lawyer at the firm, who is annoyed and unimpressed by Dean. And Todd (Steve Little) gets laughs as being completely in the bag for everything Dean does. Even Stu’s kids are played by sharp, funny actors (Hana Hayes and Connor Halopsis) and have unique aspects, as opposed to being cloying and stereotypical.

The casting excellence extends to the guest stars. The show is only in its first season, but already, Maya Rudolph and Christina Applegate have stolen episodes as the therapist for the brothers and a single mother interested in Dean, respectively. Timothy Olyphant plays Timothy Olyphant on the show, a former friend of Dean who stabs him in the back by starring in The Grinder's New Orleans spin-off. 

Applegate and Lowe had my favorite meta exchange of the show, which can be seen here on YouTube. “You look exactly the same.” “So do you! Almost in a scary way, exactly the same.” (The other great meta moment: The latest episode is a flashback one to the early 1990s, with Jenna Fischer as Dean’s former girlfriend, and Dean complaining about how women get all of the great roles in Hollywood.)

If you’re looking for a satisfying, 23-minute weekly sitcom, then The Grinder is what you need to check out, especially since Modern Family has fallen off a cliff into a deep ravine, never to return to quality. As a result, The Grinder is my favorite network sitcom by far, edging out Mom, which is more of a mixture of comedy and drama.

Inexplicable TV Review: Tagteam, With Jesse Venture and Roddy Piper

[Left to right] Jesse and Roddy, and
the owner's evil wife and the owner.

So, back in the day, much like with Lookwell, there was an awesome idea for a television show that only had one episode and didn’t have anymore. This show was called Tagteam, and featured Jesse Ventura and “Hot Rod” Roddy Piper playing, what else, former professional wrestlers. A glorious YouTube clip of the pilot episode’s final fight scene is here.

The show is awesome for several reasons. First, wrestling is taken to be deadly serious. As in, these are real fights. When “Tricky” Rick MacDonald (Piper) and Billy “The Body” Youngblood (Ventura) refuse to purposely lose a match, the owner’s wife lies to him about the boys, saying they made a pass at her. The owner, who looks suspiciously like Vince McMahon, immediately fires them after the match.

This leads to a hilarrrrious montage of them trying to find work. They try furniture moving at first, but Billy’s back give out on him, and they drop a grand piano down a flight of stairs, through a window and on to their truck, destroying it. “I think we body slammed the truck…” Ha ha ha! What witty banter.

They find their true calling at the supermarket. Using just wrestling moves, they manage to subdue four would-be robbers, and this experience leads them to enroll in the police academy.

By the way, this pilot covers a lot of ground – probably because for some reason, there are only like three or four commercial breaks. Next, we see them at the police academy, which is also awesome. They have to complete an obstacle course, and of course, there is a nagging “funny” recruit, basically a homeless man’s Michael Winslow.

This whole police academy montage takes about 10 minutes, and then, the boys are on “plain clothes” detail, providing muscle for two fat older cops. They do an awesome job, the two fat old cops suck and let the witness get captures, and that leads to the fight montage in the linked YouTube clip above.

Just like Lookwell, this show is mostly awesome because it’s so incredibly dated, and because the concept is pure cheese. I’m not sure what they could have done for future episodes – I guess it would have been a straight police procedural, but geez, there isn’t much reason to watch one with two wrestlers over the other options available at the time.

The photos are from iMockery, which have their own awesome review of this show here.

Pitching Perfect Projects: Eating Dinner and Looking For Work

I've got two somewhat-related project ideas tonight. For those unfamiliar with my previous post on this topic, you can check out it out here and here. The concept? Pitching ideas that I think would make fantastic movies or television shows. First up...

- Eating Dinner. This is based on the idea of Roger Ebert's old reviewing partner, Gene Siskel. Ebert has said several times that Siskel always asked himself one question about every movie he watched: Is this film better than just sitting in on dinner with the leads? I love that standard, because it's relatively simple to understand.

However, instead of using it as a standard to judge movies on, why not just film movies or a show based on the concept? Of course, there is the legendary My Dinner With Andre, which stars the great Wallace Shawn. Most of y'all probably remember him as the funny dude from The Princess Bride, another great performance. If he's willing to sign on for the show, then great! If not, then we'll have to look elsewhere.

Some of you might be thinking - Hey, what about Shatner? He did have a show that was pretty similar to what I was pitching. However, the problem with him is that Shatner himself is too much of a buffoon, and doesn't have enough chops, to make it work. You need someone who brings something to the table besides a broad caricature. Preferably, you would involve someone who isn't widely known for just one role, or who has range as an actor. Actors with developed personas - Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin - wouldn't really work for this, and a complete unknown wouldn't be believable as an equal of whoever he was talking to.

Assuming there is no limit to who I can cast, then I find George Clooney and Edward Norton to be the best choices. Clooney just exudes cool, between his presence in Ocean's Eleven and tagging anything hot that moves in Hollywood, yet I don't really know much about the guy. The same thing goes with Norton, except he also seems slightly nuts. He seems to have a slight sense of humor about himself, given his appearances on Stella and Modern Family. In the past, he dated Courtney Love and Salma Hayek, which is range in pretty much every conceivable way.

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Now we got a stew going...

- Looking For Work. Now, this is the show that Shatner could be on, if he wasn't busy with his show based on Twitter.

The premise is somewhat similar to Lookwell!, which I've written about in the past. In that show, Adam West played an out-of-work television detective, Ty Lookwell, who was deluded into thinking he could actually solve crimes now. It was nonsensical, and absolutely awesome.

The twist in this show is that the actor would just play him or herself. Obviously, Adam West would still work for this, as would anyone else who is normally seen as being available for just about any role with a paycheck - George Takei, Michael Caine, Carl Weathers. You can imagine it as the poor man's version of Curb Your Enthusiasm, except that it would be a scripted show with the character playing himself.

Part of the beauty of this is that it allows you the opportunity for tons of silly nostalgia and self-referential humor, especially when it comes to the business. The show should be a spoof of some of the more outlandish aspects of the trade - remember how Robert Goulet had a sitcom? - by putting the lead in ridiculous situations every week that he or she is completely serious about. (Spoofs work best when the people don't realize they're in a spoof; nobody ever cracks up in Airplane! or The Naked Gun.)

Guilty Pleasures - TV Funhouse, Home Movies and Lookwell

The always classy Wonderman.

Lately, I've had three TV shows / shorts in heavy rotation on my computer / DVD player.

1) TV Funhouse, both the SNL skit and the standalone show that ran on Comedy Central for a year. Both are primarily created and voiced by Robert Smigel, aka Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The SNL version is normally more political and related to current events, and generally of much higher quality. My favorite would be Conspiracy Theory Rock, which has an added level of ironic humor because it *was* edited out of future broadcasts by NBC / General Electric.

The Comedy Central show doesn't hit the highs of the SNL version, which is to be expected because it stretched Smigel to half-hour segments. The show is a combination of a crude mockery of Blue's Clues, with an incredibly docile host interacting with Truimph-like animal puppets, and Smigel's cartoons. The mock host segments are very hit-or-miss, and go so over-the-top with vomit and drug and animal testing jokes that they're hard to stomach at times. But the cartoons are consistently funny - Wonderman is a good example of the funnier cartoons.

2) Home Movies, which I've been putting in my away message like crazy. This actually lasted about four seasons, and focuses on Brendan, an eight-year-old making movies with his friends Jason and Melissa.

A lot of their skits are hit-or-miss, so Coach McGuirk (H. Jon Benjamin) really makes the show. Click here for his take on swearing, losing, women, prison and drugs.

3) Lookwell, a failed TV pilot by Smigel and Conan O'Brien, starring Adam West as a washed-up TV actor. A shocking stretch, I know. Only one episode was ever made, and it's on a lot of trackers and on YouTube. If you like Adam West on Family Guy, then imagine that for 22 minutes. I'll end with some good Lookwell quotes:

Ty Lookwell to a police officer: Perhaps if you watched a little bit more television you'd be better at your job.

Ty Lookwell: The working class mind is strange and unpredictable.

Ty Lookwell, as he's being arrested: I'm not a car thief I'm an actor!