Episode Report Card Cate: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT In The Blink Of An Eye
By Cate | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.29.1996
Back at Pa Camden's Family Feedbag, RevCam is giving Dopey some last-minute advice about his Meals on Wheels assignment. He says he really appreciates Dopey's help, which, I suppose, slightly makes up for the fact that he railroaded Dopey into this in the first place. Dopey tries to capitalize on this moment by asking to have his car restriction lifted, but RevCam says no in what is meant to be comic fashion.
At the dinner table, RevCam is boring the hell out of his family with stories about...um...casseroles, I think. Mary cuts in at one point with the great line, "Cheese covers a myriad of sins." If you take that in a different context, it would make a great motto for this show, don't you think? Mary comments that the casserole they're eating could use a little salt, and RevCam gets up to fetch it. The kids use his absence as the opportunity to dispose of the vile casserole on their plates. Believe it or not, this is one of the best scenes ever, and I actually laugh out loud when Simon tries to get Happy to eat his casserole and she refuses. It's even funnier when RevCam walks back in and catches them all in the act.
Dopey delivers food to an elderly shut-in who's clad in a wifebeater and bathrobe. Why this guy would want to invite the Dopester inside is beyond me, but he does. Dopey refuses, claiming to be "on a tight schedule." I hope that's RevCam's casserole he's handing to Mr. Shut-In. Oops -- I meant to type, "I hope that's not RevCam's casserole he's handing to Mr. Shut-In." I was going to change it, but upon deeper reflection, I realized that the first sentence really does express my feelings better.
Annie dines with the GramRents at the "great restaurant" next to the airport that her mom had recommended they visit. Personally, I find that the best restaurants are always around airports, don't you? Why, when I get a hankering for a cheap, greasy buffet and a lap dance, I know that the airport area is the hot spot to see and be seen. We learn that Annie's mom has just started drinking wine, and that she no longer gives a crap about her cholesterol. Okay, okay! Dying mother with a devil-may-care attitude, and Annie can't deal with it. Yeah, we get it! To be fair, it has interesting possibilities as a storyline, but as with most serious issues on this show, the writers don't quite pull it off.
Save me, Jeebus! Ruthie is having a tea party with her imaginary friend, and I have to watch it. The closed captioning says that this friend's name is "Hoowie," and as a recovering closed-caption editor, I can tell you that the captioning folks probably got that spelling from a script, meaning that the writer intended it to be spelled that way. I have to wonder, though, if the writer realized that "Hoowie" sounds just like "hooey."