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The Hitchhiker – Why Are You Here? (03/10/87)

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I’ll say this for The Miracle of Alice Ames, at least it wasn’t painful just to watch.  Why Are You Here? is the most visually offensive episode since New Year’s Day.

A limo rolls up in front of a club and an unctuous windbag pops his head out of the sun-roof.  He is “Jerry Rulack, Duke of the Night” on the TV show Night Sight.  I give the episode credit for its prescience in predicting the future of TV.  Not so much for predicting reality shows like The Kardashians, but for predicting how shitty TV in general would be.  The show being filmed in this episode is like every DJ portrayed on TV — they would draw an audience of close to zero.

Jerry gets out of the limo and leads us to “. . . clubs like this.  Currently the hottest or coolest club in town.”  He promises to take us in and ask the question which is apparently the beloved catch-phrase of the series which is sweeping the nation:  “Why are you here?”

We follow him through the crowd in the club.  A mixture of punks, dandies, flashing lights and coke-heads.  Nothing wipes that game-show host smile off his face, though.  And the finger-snapping — what the hell is all that finger-snapping for?  He approaches a woman at the bar who is dressed like the widow at a Corleone funeral and asks her name.  She is the only character I don’t hate so far as she screams “F*** off!” in his smirking face.  Then he springs his A-material, “Why are you here?” and she just scream-screams in his face.  And he never missed a snap with those fingers.

He travels through the club filming more weirdos, punks, coke-snorters, and — the horror! — two gay guys.  The blaring music, flashing lights, frequent camera edits and finger-snapping go on and on and on.  He sees a couple making out and asks his idiotic signature question, “Why are you here?”  The woman shows her boobs and the episode even manages to make that boring.

Jerry interviews some dandy in the coke-room.  He appears to be wearing a blazer over a wife-beater which shows way too much chest hair.  Was there ever a time when this would have been cool?  He also appears to be using a make-up pencil to accentuate his butt-chin.  He leads Jerry and his crew up to a private area to see “the most beautiful, sweetest, sought after, fought over, richest girl” in town.

The girl turns out to be Helen Hunt up in the VIP room surrounded by hanger-ons.  Jerry asks his usual insipid question, “Why are you here?”  She says, “Nowhere else to go,” and he gives her insipid answer a big raspberry, thumbs-down and childish face. Honestly, who would watch this shit? And who would watch this shit?

With the exception of Jerry’s barely-seen crew, every character in this episode is repulsive.  I had hopes that Helen Hunt might elevate the material, but was disappointed.  She has always seemed like a nice person, but she is just grossly miscast in this role.  Maybe her relatability was supposed to be a counterpoint to her bum-exploitation [1] and crack-smoking [2], but it really just made me want to watch Twister again.  Unfortunately Brad Davis, who is on screen nearly every second, is dreadful.

There actually was something here that could have been salvaged.  It was a target-rich environment for satire — the club scene, reality TV, divas — but nothing lands.

Garbage.

Post-Post:

  • [1] In the homeless meaning, not anal.
  • [2] In the drug meaning, not anal.
  • Rated 3rd worst episode of the series in IMDb’s increasingly credible ratings.
  • Also from this director:  The Legendary Billy B.  Despite being born in New Zealand and working down-under during the 1980’s, even Ray Bradbury Theater knew better than to hire him.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Your Witness (05/17/59)

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Attorney Arnold Shawn has his client Kenneth Jerome on the witness stand when his wife Naomi enters the courtroom.  His client has been involved in a auto accident which killed a woman.  Not being a Kennedy, he is looking at hard time.

Naomi is troubled by Arnold saying in court that he is searching for truth when he has been banging other women; and of course, the lawyer thing.  She flashes back to a conversation they had a month ago when she confronted him about the cheating.  Naomi accused him of dismissing it as if it were “a night out with the boys” which would have been a second problem.  Arnold said that after 10 years of marriage, having another woman show him some attention made him feel like “king of the barnyard” which is 1950s for cock of the walk.

Strangely enough her emotional flashback expands to include Al Carmody dropping by with info on the prosecution’s surprise witness Henry Babcock.  He is going to testify that when Jerome hit the woman, he was running a light.  Babcock is a model citizen, but Carmody and Arnold are sure they can dig up some dirt on him in pursuit of, you know, justice.

A month later, back in the courtroom, in what must be the longest hit-and-run trial ever, Arnold calls Babcock to the witness stand.  He testifies that Jerome hit the woman, backed up 50 yards to take a look, then drove off.  Unable to deny the facts, Arnold accuses Babcock of volunteering to testify because he wanted to be famous.

Seeing Arnold once again turn the truth into a lie, Naomi has another flashback.  Soon after the first flashback, Arnold says he was working late.  Naomi accuses him of lying, and has proof he was seeing the woman he had promised not to see again.  He casually continues eating a sandwich, and accuses her of being prudish.  She asks why he married her in the first place.  He answers, “Your father was an extremely influential man a dozen years ago and he had an extremely attractive daughter, also a dozen years ago!”  Oh shit!

Naomi is not so much on the pro-honesty band-wagon at this point.  As if Arnold hasn’t hurt her enough, he continues, “After all, it’s been 10 long years since you were 25!” Wait, she’s over the hill at 35?  That’s just into MILF porn range!  She is certainly no zero, but she seems to be rocking a size-zero dress — and back when that meant something.  This woman is svelte.  Brian Keith always seems like a coiled spring of hostility, and he is really brutal to her.  She is crushed.

Back in the courtroom, Arnold is cross-examining Babcock . . . I guess — I’ve never seen an episode of Law & Order, or Judge Judy.  Arnold brings up a lot of irrelevant facts such as why Babcock did not hear the woman earlier, that he doesn’t make much money, that he is lonely since his wife died, that he’s the janitor at a strip joint [1], that he is color-blind, and that he was fired from his job for having cataracts that impaired 85% of his vision. Well, those last two actually sound pretty relevant.  He is ruled incompetent as a witness and Jerome is found not guilty.

Naomi catches her husband in the hall.  She has the papers for him to sign so they can get divorced.  He thinks the current situation is fine and even suggests she get a little action on the side too. He tells her, “You could still be an attractive woman if you tried.”  See, he can be nice when he wants to.

In the parking lot, Naomi runs his ass down.  Too bad the only witness was just proven by Arnold to be an incompetent witness due to lousy vision.  D’oh!

This one is a little bit of a slog.  Naomi certainly isn’t the hag Arnold makes her out to be, but she is kind of dull.  Arnold is just thoroughly unpleasant with his cruelty and twisting of the law.  Two such presences do not make for a great viewing experience. However, the ending is pleasantly sharp and ironic . . . if you don’t think about it.

We are never told when Babcock had the corrective surgery.  If before Jerome’s accident, he should have spoken up.  If after then Arnold was right to nail him.  Either way, he has had the surgery by he time of the trial, so he could easily testify against Naomi.  But why would he after Arnold humiliated him on the stand?  Well, he was described as a model citizen.  Pffffft — should have stopped thinking while I was ahead.

Post-Post:

  • [1] The Chichi Club, where Arnold tells us young beautiful girls dance.  Sure, he shows a picture of the intersection, but we’re supposed to take his word about the girls?
  • And what cruel bastard hires an 85% blind man to work in a strip club?
  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.

Twilight Zone – Personal Demons (02/14/86)

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TZ goes mega-meta with an episode where the main character is TZ Story Editor and segment writer Rockne S. O’Bannon.  Strangely, however, they cast Martin Balsam who is 36 years older than the real O’Bannon.  The camera pans over the covers of several scripts written by the fictional O’Bannon:  Gunsmoke, The Mod Squad, SWAT, Dukes of Hazzard.

He is pecking away at a new script on a manual typewriter when his pal Harry bursts in.  It is rough going because he is determined to come up with an original idea.  He says for the last 20 years, or since everyone else stopped using manual typewriters, he has been doing rehashes of plots and recycled characters.  He is determined to come up with one fresh idea before he retires.

That day on the street, he sees a group of kids and standing behind them is a black-robed demon.  It begins to laugh and run at him.  Rockne gets into his car.  The demon claws at the window, leaving some serious scratches.

At a screening for one of his episodes, he tells Harry about the demon, but Harry is understandably skeptical.  Fortuitously, Rockne looks out the window and sees 3 of the little demons tearing up his car.  He calls Harry over, but Harry can’t see them.  The rest of the guests gather around the window, but they also do not see the creatures  The party follows Rockne outside.  The creatures are gone, however, the guests are able to see the damage done to his car.

That night he hears noises in the living room.  When he investigates, there is a whole gang of the demons tearing up his furniture.  When they spot him, he retreats to the bedroom.

The next day, Rockne has a business lunch with his agent.  he sees the demons flock into the restaurant and swirl around the other patrons who take no notice.  When they spot him, he runs out of the restaurant.

We next see Rockne in his house.  He has boarded up the windows, but took no time to clean up the debris from the demon’s shenanigans.  The phone rings, and he hears one of their cackles.  Then they start tearing through the boards to get in.  Rockne asks what they want.  One of the demons tells him, “to write about us and you’ll never see us again.”  As he types, the demons begin disappearing.

I’m not sure what to make of this.  I guess the most literal interpretation is that you can slay your personal demons by confronting them; for a writer, that means writing about them.  But we were never shown any of Rockne’s personal demons.  The desire to be a better writer is laudable not a character flaw, although that would explain a lot of TV.

This also seems a strange segment for a writer to write himself into.  As mentioned, his namesake is old enough to be his father.  He also pretty much describes himself as a hack.  Maybe having the character not resemble him was intentional, just to get some distance from Rockne Prime.

Ultimately, though, I was very entertained.  The demons ranged from truly menacing to amusing. The first one sighted actually gave me a bit of a chill and reminded me of Kim Darby spotting a li’l monster in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.  When they start marauding through his house, though, it is just a hoot.  Amazingly, within the same segment, both representations work.

Fun stuff.

Post-Post:

  • Classic TZ Legacy:  Martin Balsam was in The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine and The New Exhibit.  There was also a man on the wing of the plane vibe.
  • Skipped segment:  Cold Reading is actually a better, more ambitious segment than Personal Demons.  First, the insufferable Dick Shawn drags it down for me. Second, it is just one damn thing after another.  While that was great for the episode, not so much for writing about it.  Events in a radio script begin physically manifesting in the studio.  Very enjoyable — more fun stuff.

Twilight Zone – Gramma (02/14/86)

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There is just not a lot to grab on to here, but that is a reflection on my deficiencies, not the segment’s.  For almost all of the run time, the only character is 11 year old George and he is very good.

The story taps into some shared but seldom discussed fears:  Fear of the otherness of really old people, fear of responsibility, and fear of helplessness.  And all are handled well.  There is some witchery involved, but the human elements are the scariest.

George is left alone with his Gramma while his mother goes to see his brother in the hospital.  The ancient, morbidly obese, intermittently senile old woman is terrifying to George under the best of circumstances.  When he is the temporary man of the house, his anxiety escalates.

I watched it, then watched it two more times with different commentaries, then read the short story.  Both the segment and the story are very good.  The short story really didn’t need to be 28 pages, but that’s typical Stephen King.

And that’s about all I have to say about that.

Post-Post:

  • Based on Stephen King’s short story in Skeleton Crew.  I have the hard-back with a cover price of $18.95.  That would be $42 in today’s dollars so I must have bought it hugely discounted at CostCo.  I’m not sure I ever actually read this story since it was the 3rd to last story and I have a habit of bailing before I finish anthologies.
  • There is a toy monkey on the kitchen counter that looks suspiciously like the one on the cover of Skeleton Crew.

Double Check – Thomas Walsh (1933)

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1,154 pages and 2.8 pounds — interesting in concept, but nearly impossible to read.

Devine was a small, slender man, thin-featured and quick of manner.  So it’s not Andy.  Or Divine.

He is a banker who is telling Detective Flaherty about blackmail letters he has been receiving. Unfortunately he lacked the foresight to save the letters for the police.  After getting a phone-call from the extortionists, he called the cops. The only clue is that he heard one of the men use the name Jigger.

Flaherty’s partner Mike Martin knows a Jigger Burns and says, “Jigger is a peter man.” I don’t even want to Google that.  Luckily, we are soon told that means he is a nitro expert.  The only blowing he does is -up safes.  Because Jigger was recently seen talking to Johnny Grecco, they somehow make the leap to question Grecco.  They head to the Esplanade to pick him up.

Grecco is not at the club, but one of his lackeys points out his girlfriend charmingly referred to as “the Polack.”  She is giving dime dances for $.25 so Flaherty hires her for a song.  Martin heads over to Flaherty’s house after he gets another threat about him calling the police.  While Flaherty is waiting for Grecco to show up, Martin calls in to say, “Someone laid a pineapple in Devine’s car.  Him and the chauffeur was blown to hell.”  Maybe it was that peter man.  Because of the nitro, I mean.

Flaherty returns to the club and looks around.  He asks, “Where’s that tall blonde, the Polack girl?”  She called in sick, tired of being the butt of two series of jokes impugning her intelligence [1].  He plays the cop-card, gets her name — Anna Brinski — and her address.  He busts into her apartment and finds her holding a pair tickets to Los Angeles, packing a whistle and a clipboard because the tickets said coach class.  That is enough for Flaherty to haul her downtown, although I’m still not seeing the connection.  A man comes to the door.  After a struggle, Flaherty shoots him.  As he is searching the body, Anna conks him on the head with a brass vase.

Flaherty wakes up half an hour later, but Anna is gone.  He identifies the dead man as Devine’s assistant, but can’t figure out his involvement.  He finds a piece of paper with “1934” written on it.  He staggers down the stairs of her apartment.  In front of Anna’s building, a man tries to shoot him from a passing car.  It would have been much easier to kill Flaherty in Anna’s apartment but the car could never have taken that tight corner at the base of the stairs.

After seeing an explosion in Devine’s bank, Flaherty goes to the only hotel in town tall enough to have a 19th floor.  Oh, and he calls the house dick.  Hehe.  Maybe to catch the peter man.  In room 1934, he finds Anna, Grecco, and the very much alive Devine. Flaherty puts all the pieces together.  The man killed in the explosion was a decoy for the similarly built Jigger. [2]  His pieces were not put together.

“Anna screamed suddenly, seeing the sudden bulge in the banker’s pocket.”

Since it is neither the house dick nor the peter man, it is just a pistol.  Yada yada, a bunch of cash and two honest cops.

Post-Post:

  • [1] How does she find her way to work in the morning?  Wakes up, goes home . . .
  • [2] Hey, the plot to Fletch!
  • First published in Black Mask in July 1933.
  • Born that month:  Joan Rivers & Gene Wilder.
  • The 2nd story in the collection to mention a flivver.