Los Angeles: Elm Street

Props to BeachyKeen and teeus for helping me out with some research for this recap.

MPDP emerges from the back of the Trading Spaces truck to do the intro. She's wearing jeans and a long-sleeved, button-front shirt. That's a pretty unswanky entrance for a Hollywood episode. Heck, when they did "Los Angeles: Willoughby Avenue," (with celeb wannabe Chris Wylde) wasn't she wearing something with marabou on it, for God's sake? I guess, a year later, she's all jaded and shit and celebrities are no big deal. Maybe she's tired of trying to keep schmancy clothes paint-free. (I think I've read somewhere that she's the only one who gets a clothes allowance, though...I'm not sure about that. Don't quote me.) She tells us that Andy Dick and Sara have "invited" them to redo a kitchen and office, respectively. Then there's an unfunny clip from their current TV show, Less Than Perfect, which I'm told is More Than Aptly Named. I've never seen it. I can't really stand sitcoms, for the most part -- Friends and Will and Grace excepted, and even those wear on the soul at times. How many times can you tell Ross to shut up?

Shot of Sara, her husband Mischa, Andy, and his ex-girlfriend Lacy. I wonder if celebrities have to sign the same contracts as Joe Linoleum and Sally Hausfrau? Shot of Sara's meh-looking office with its jumble of furniture. The curtains are a weird, shiny, bright blue fabric. They're not fabric per se; they're tarps. Tarps! Or shower curtains or something. Suddenly I feel a lot better about the ratty towel that's currently covering the window in my upstairs bathroom. Shot of Andy's "downstairs kitchen," which at first I took to be a basement kitchen, but I guess maybe the first level of his house is a flat or something, to be rented out? Who knows? We don't get much of a gander at whatever posh palaces these B-list swells inhabit. In any event, neither one is offering a room in which he or she seems to have much investment -- pretty typical for a celebrity episode. This is probably as good a place as any to mention that Andy is friends with a very good friend of mine...but believe me, it's not going to get in the way here.

Shot of Vern, Gen, and Ty eating on the patio of some restaurant. Gen puts a long fry (French or "Freedom," take your pick) in each side of her mouth, like a walrus. Ty, naturally, has to one-up her by sticking a fry in each nostril. Appetizing. How sorry do I feel for Vern, having to eat with the kindergarten contingent? Ty's fries fall out of his nose and back onto his plate. What do you want to bet he ate them?

Back to Andy and his kitchen. It's really two rooms -- a cooking area and an eating area, of roughly equal size with fairly high ceilings. The cooking area has a wall of upper and lower cabinets, and under two windows with nice panes, a wall of lower cabinets. The sink is on that wall, between the windows. There's a stove against the wall in front of the sink area, sort of awkwardly placed. The cabinets are all painted white and pretty blah-looking; they've seen better days. There's no fridge anywhere that I can see. Weird. The walls are beige. The floor is very grotty-looking old tile or linoleum. The eating area has one larger window with some sad flowery curtains, and opposite that, another row of upper and lower cabinets, like those in the cooking area. The wall has a white chair rail, above which the wall is a faded yellow colour and below which it is a soft celery green. There's a round wooden table surrounded by four black wooden armchairs in a style I love: heavy-looking and solid, like you might see in a 1940s office or something. I want those chairs. Above the table is a fixture that looks like it might be original to the 1920s-era house. The ceiling is coved.

Andy says he doesn't know what you could do with $1000 to fix up that kitchen. I think $3.49 worth of Spic 'n' Span would go a good distance, myself. He says if he had all the money in the world to fix it up, he'd start with a bulldozer. It's not that bad at all. It could be a really nice space with a little effort -- maybe not the celebrity kitchen InStyle is dying to feature, but very nice. Lacy suggests showing off the architecture. Andy says he really never goes in there because it's so hideous. He thinks that because Sara and Mischa also have a 1920s house, they "get it," and that's a good thing. He says he has some ideas for their office, and that he and Lacy will make a good team. He can't imagine doing this with anyone but her. Translation: She's the only person he knows who wants to be on the show enough to do all the work. Andy starts to pay Lacy some compliment about what a good teammate she's going to be, but chooses some word that gets him bleeped. Lacy reminds him: "TLC."

Sara and Mischa are outside playing with their pooches. Their office has white walls, high ceilings, three large windows with good light, and warm-toned hardwood floors. It's a nice basic space. There are three doors (closet, bathroom, hallway) in the room which break up the wall space. There's the usual jumble of office furnishings, including a filing cabinet, a bookcase, and a fairly small desk. There's an orange tub chair and a wood frame chair with mossy green upholstery. Sara says she would like a corner desk because there isn't much wall space. She says she's really open to any colour, like pink, except..."no black, no grey, no dark brown." She says Andy gets crazy ideas like, "'Wouldn't it be great if I cut off my hair and glued it to their windows?' Don't let him do that."

Key swap. Andy "feigns" star attitude and pretends he didn't know it was two days. He says he needs to ne out by noon. Everyone laughs obsequiously. Fasten your seatbelts, kids, it's going to be a unfunny ride.

Sara and Mischa find Vern looking at a really ugly wooden bowl with a miniature Clay Aiken glued inside. Well, it might just be a troll doll. Sara thinks that gives them license to do anything they want. Vern says that, first, they have to clean the place up. Sara would like to see a lot of colour in the room. She also thinks it needs a lot of cleaning. Close-up of the floor, looking like the bathroom floor in a busy discount department store. Close-up of the Formica countertop, the edge of which is loose and would fall off if you looked at it cross-eyed. Vern says they are putting down a new floor and countertop. They unload the room, during which I see that there is a fridge. There's also a really grimy, rank-looking mess under the stove. I guess the time they saved on clearing out this nearly-empty room can be spent on cleaning it up. I would be pretty embarrassed to have my neighbours come over to decorate my house and present them with a mess like this. Of course, celebrities don't seem to suffer from the normal impulses of shame and consideration, for the most part. Pity.

Lacy and Andy find Gen -- wearing a black long-sleeved t-shirt and red skirt -- at the desk. She complains about the scale of the desk, which is awfully small. Lacy wants to get rid of the blue "curtains." I guess she's too polite to call them tarps. They describe them as being like shower curtains. Okay, maybe they're not tarps, exactly, but they are just as fugly and weird. Gen whips out a red fringed shawl and says she's doing a room with Spanish influence, like the house. They're going to make a big desk in the corner and make a big couch for lounging. She shows them a quilt with large patches of solid red, solid gold, and patterned gold. Andy is astonished to learn that they're making a couch. Of course, he's probably visualizing a piece with a wood frame and serious upholstery; not the MDF-bench-with-a-twin-mattress on it that so often passes for furniture on this show. They unload the room.

Vern and his team are puzzling over the grunge that was beneath the stove. Sara nudges it gingerly with a corn broom. Yeah, that'll do it. Mischa wipes at it with a rag. Vern tells them not to worry about cleaning it too much, but to save the schmutz for an art project later. Yeah, you laugh, but if Kia were here, she'd be all over that schmutz. That's perfectly good schmutz! The money she would save on buying that schmutz could be applied to a lot of dollar-store crap.

Gen attempts to reveal her colour scheme, which is burgundy/red/gold, while Andy -- sensing that he might have trouble remaining the centre of attention with giggly Gen and her rack in the room -- begins futzing with his smock. He starts cutting off the bottom foot or so of his smock in order to make what Gen calls a "belly shirt." Couldn't he just grab one from MPDP's trailer? Gen blah-blahs about doing a "taupe-y neutral colour" on the walls to balance all the other powerful colours. Andy removes his smock, the better to mutilate it. Gen shows them the paint, which is kind of a cool grey and only somewhat taupe-y. It could be taupe-ier. Andy makes fun of how "taupe-y" rhymes with "dopey." Gen pulls out her "I'm the designer" stick and whacks Andy with it. She tells him he's an actor and he should stick to acting. She doesn't add that since he's supposed to be a comedian, he could try being funny, too.

After the commercial, there are more shots of Andy futzing with his shirt and Gen telling Lacy that she and Gen are going to be doing all the work. I'm sure Lacy knew that going in. There's a can of brown paint for the woodwork. Brown paint, stained wood, it's all the same. Right?

Vern reveals his paint, which he selected to complement the Spanish/Mediterranean feel of the house. There are two shades of terra cotta paint -- one dark and one a little lighter. And unlike that nauseating peachy-salmon Laurie used a while back, these colours are actually terra cotta. They love the colours. The darker terra cotta colour will be on the lower half of the wall and the lower cabinets. The lighter colour is for the rest. They're putting new wrought-iron hardware on the cabinets.

Gen paints some brown paint on the window frame, saying it will bring in the mahogany colour of the rest of the house. Sure thing. Andy takes longer to cut his shirt than it takes for glaciers to melt, while Gen rambles on to Lacy about the plan. She claims that the desk will be mahogany. Make a little mental note of that, would you? Thanks, you're a doll. Andy claims that he's almost done when he notices he's accidentally put part of the shirt on a wet paint lid: "Aw, bleep!" Actually, much of the dialogue in this recap could just read as follows: "Me me me me me bleep ha ha ha ha ha me me bleep bleep ha ha ha ha!"

Vern sands the cabinets where they've removed the painted-over door pulls (picture the smoke coming out of my ears), and there's a sharp, thin, crusty outline between the paint job and the stained wood underneath. Mischa watches.

MPDP wraps the cutoff strip of Andy's shirt around her neck like a scarf as Andy leaves to "take a quick five." "Five" what, I'm wondering. MPDP yells at him to drop and give her five push-ups. I think she has him confused with Jack Palance. Or Joshua Gracin.

Vern asks Sara, who's holding a paint roller, what she thinks about the colour; she likes it, but wants to work with power tools. Vern lets her.

Andy rolls some primer onto MPDP's ass. She gives him a pretend-mad look, but she's too nice to carry off "pissed." Gen giggles hysterically. She tells MPDP it's primer, as if primer comes off denim any more easily than paint does. (I can assure you it doesn't.) Gen takes a quick swipe at MPDP's ass, for those of you who just live for such moments on this show. Meanwhile, Lacy's painting Andy's pants. Gen: "No more celebrity episodes!" Is that a promise?

Sara sands the cabinets while Vern and Mischa watch approvingly. Sara: "Maybe I should rethink my career." I would if I were on a weak show with Andy Dick. Vern leaves to talk to Ty.

Andy paints Lacy's pants.

Vern tells Ty that, for once, Vern has no drawings for him. Ty can't believe it. Neither can I. Ty's gotten a little out of control with the flat-iron on his hair. It's almost as tall and goofy-looking as Ryan Seacrest's. (I want Jed Bartlet to get this 'do. Oh, yes, I do.) Ty wonders what the sheaf of paper in Vern's hand is, then. Ty guesses that they're diagrams. Vern's planning to put new countertops in, edged in oak. He's got every blessed little square tile on the countertop drawn on there. Perfectly. Ty notices a lot of "floor action" going on: "Is that what I think it is? Is that ceramic tile?" Indeed. Vern's planning to lay down a tile floor, and he's got the plan drawn with each perfect little tile with its rounded corners perfectly laid out, with the tiny diamond-shaped accent tiles marked exactly where they all go. I don't think NASA has drawings this precise.

Gen and her team are outside with Sara's old two-drawer filing cabinet and a new one Gen bought to go with it. These will form the base of the desk. Andy wants to know if he can take his smock off and get a new shirt. There's an eruption of bleeping. Gen tells him he can go naked or wear that shirt. Let's see: which do you think it will be in the scene? If there's anything approaching full frontal, I quit.

Ty tells Vern: "I give you this: you are not scared to take it on, brother." I would say he's looking at Vern with genuine admiration. Ty offers to help Vern out with the countertops.

Gen and Lacy prime the filing cabinets while Andy thrashes his smock around. Gen says they prime them first, then put the metal surfacer on them, then "rust 'em out." "Rust 'em out"? Oh, boy, Andy's got his t-shirt off now. Lacy mocks him. He tells her to shut up. He sniffs his armpit. He tries to figure out what to do with his tiny microphone thingamadoodle. Gen suggests attaching it to his chest hair. Professor Frink: "Nipple clamp, you fool!" He finally decides to do just that; Lacy vigorously discourages him and Gen steps in and painter-tapes it to his chest. Andy poses. America yawns.

MPDP drops in on Vern's team. They tell her about having to scour the place before beginning to work. MPDP is suitably impressed. Still, I'm sure it wasn't a patch on that vile frat house Doug had to clean. You could smell the beer and puke coming off the TV screen in that room.

Gen tells Ty: "Desk. Need to build." Frink snaps, "Speak. Sentences in. Gen!" Gen wants to make the desktop out of doors. Then she's going to put Plexiglas on top to make the surface even. She also wants a window bench along the back of the room.

Vern paints while Mischa and Sara watch. He asks if they know what he's planning to do in there. Mischa's afraid they're going to be tiling. Sara advocates a nice K-Mart linoleum. Vern tells Sara that Andy's probably installing wood panelling in her office. (Vern must think he's doing both rooms.) Sara says that Andy's sitting on his ass.