Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E10, or My Father Was a Chimp

Seasonal Code: S16E10
Production Number: 348
CW Seasonal Code: S15E18

We finally get to the second guest star from Chip Esten’s taping, and this one’s a throwback to some of the bookings from the Drew series. Ricki Lake was best known for a long-running talk show in the same vein as Jenny Jones and Jerry Springer, dealing with domestic issues and such. She was also the original Tracy Turnblad in John Waters’ Hairspray, and bopped around Waters’ rep company for a few years. And she was on the first season of Masked Singer, which was airing at the time of the 2019 tapings. Interesting to note that she wore a hat for this taping because the years of, well, hairspray and product have damaged her hair irreparably, and so she had a less-than-appealing hairline when this taped, hence the decision to wear a hat the whole time. Look, with Colin and Wayne on this show, they would have understood.

Dating App: Chip must choose from

• Wayne – Teething baby biting on unusual things
• Colin – Bird looking for the perfect place to lay her egg
• Ryan – Colin’s trashy ex-wife, trying to make him jealous

Colin, reading card: [sighs]
Wayne: “hee-hee-hee-hee…”

I remember being somewhat disappointed that, after years of using a different character voice for every one of his LMAD appearances on the Drew version, Chip uses his own voice for this one. Perhaps it’s fitting for what, ultimately, is his final LMAD playing.

And so,

Almost immediately.

I like this Wayne quirk because this is something that would usually be given to Colin or Ryan, and he’s doing really well with it. I love his reaction when he realizes what else he can bite:

A cousin of the close-up of Mike McShane’s tongue.

I do like Wayne crying and a very game Aisha bringing him in for a hug.
Wayne, however, leaning down: “HUNGRY”
Aisha: “OH NO”
PFFF

Colin’s is the sort of quirk we’ve seen before, however this is still funny:

Ryan: “I like a man with a beard, little hair…little hair ANYWHERE quite frankly…”
I actually really like Ryan’s quirk, because it’s dialogue based where the others aren’t, and it’s more about needling the others. He goes over to Wayne and goes “oh, here’s a man who KNOWS how to wear his head…”

Then Ryan notices someone in the audience, and goes over

“Hi baybeh.”
This is such a good gag. The audience member directly above Ryan is completely losing it. I’ll come back to her in a second, there’s an interesting point I want to make. She also does a little ‘heart hands’ motion, yes-anding this union.
Ryan: “NOW THERE’S A REAL AMERICAN MAN. NOT SOME SISSY CANADIAN BO-AY.”

Ryan, back at the stool, goes right into Colin and yells ‘EW’. Colin, in response, flaps right up against him. At least this is feeling fresh.
Then Wayne gets in on it:

At least this gives us a silly, collaborative ending.

Chip gets Wayne right but stumbles a bit. Ryan even goes “you got me nervous there with the ‘extremely hung baby’.”
THAT WAS LAST SHOW

Chip guesses Ryan was ‘Vivien Leigh in Streetcar Named Desire’. Aisha tells him he’s being too classy. It reminds me how fun Chip was as a guesser in this game.

Solid enough LMAD. I think Wayne and Colin’s were a bit too ‘been there done that’ for this game, though they at least did silly things with them. Ryan at least had a different, fresh quirk but I wish there’d been more interplay.

Now, to the point I made earlier. Remember back in S5 of the Drew version where Ryan did a Weird Newscasters quirk where he borrowed a jacket from someone in the front row? That someone was Elyse, who wrote episode reviews and taping reports, and was a central member of the early 2000s whoser movement, where the emphasis was less about special interests and more about wanting to fuck the castmembers [though I’m not gonna lie and say there’s none of that in the current whoser groups]. Why do I bring this up? Because this episode, Ryan goes into the audience and in almost exactly the same section, a row or so back, is another Whoser. That cracking up girl I referred to earlier. That’s a colleague of mine from the WatchWLIIATonight group who has chosen to remain anonymous but, and let’s make this absolutely clear, isn’t the one from Greece. I just think it’s wild that there’s a parallel between Elyse in 2001 and her in 2019.
What I also find funny is that during the 2001 LA tapings, there was a playing of Sound Effects where Elyse actually got to play Sound Effects, so she got an audience cameo and a audience participation game out of it. Why do I bring that up? Uh…no reason.

Aisha: “VIVIEN LEIGH, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, nah just a slutty lady tryin to get laid, that’s all..”
I love Aisha

Duet: Chip, Wayne and Ricki sing a 60s girl group song about ‘whips and whatnot’

Wayne asks the audience for something that would be awkward dinner conversation
Some guy: “A whip under the bed!”

PFFFFF
Wayne: “okay, so whips and whatnot.”
Chip cracks up at this way of phrasing it
Wayne: ‘that’s awkward conversation-”
Ricki: “Not in my home.”
WAYNE, REMEMBER, SHE’S WORKED WITH JOHN WATERS.

I love that Laura and Linda go into a backing that’s very similar to ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ by the Shirelles, and Wayne matches that with an opening lyric that’s very close to the beginning of that song. It’s also very funny that a song about BDSM is gonna sound like Will You Love Me Tomorrow.

Wayne: “I’ll take you into the bedroom…and press the…secret button…
and then the door will open, and then I’ll really show you something.”
RICKI:

Oh Jesus she’s game. And then Wayne starts miming whipping her.

I think the fundamental problem with this number is that the lyrics are a lot cooler when Wayne sings them vs. with Chip does [“you be the lion, and I’ll be your tamer”]. Mostly because this is 2019, God Bless America era Chip rather than the fun, fresh kid from ABC.

That said, their harmony in the chorus is pretty great as a Motown hook.
I also like how Wayne cheekily rhymes ‘whip this love’ with “I slap you with this glove.” Very silly move.

Wayne: “Tonight…I’ll touch your bod,”
Ricki: “You promise?”
Wayne: “yes..”
PFF

I also like Wayne demonstrating the device, adding “and no batteries needed.”
I did laugh hard at Chip and Wayne using the sound of the vibrating device as the refrain. Ricki seems to enjoy it as well. Also, you can see Colin facepalming in the back.
Chip: ‘1,2,3, whip, now you both strip.”
How can something be both silly and vulgar at the same time?

Wayne: “tonight, myself, Chip, and you, are gonna do things that have only been dreamt about on other networks.”
Perfect line.

And Wayne brings us out by singing with a gag in his mouth. Second show in a row.
And so we bring this song home with a refrain, by Chip, of “time to bring out the gimp”, as Wayne tries to sing melodically while tied up. Ricki’s been losing it pretty much this whole time.
What also gets Ricki is Wayne unzipping for a split second and zipping back up, and having the ability to control his voice to make this work.

An extremely silly Duet that was perfectly fine with going blue, as was Ricki. I don’t think this was a very substantial Duet, as a lot of the laughs came from the act of ‘going there’ vs. in which ways they were going there, but I was amused, as I think we all were.

The thing that I really like about this Duet is that it’s the perfect use of Ricki Lake. If you know anything about John Waters films, it’s that he uses the aesthetic of 60s or 50s cleanliness as pastiche, and to contrast from the at-times shocking subversive material he’s really aiming for. Not just stuff like Hairspray and Cry Baby, but even something like Polyester, which sends up the ideal 50s romance with pure queerness and camp, or Serial Mom, which sends up the traditional 50s picket fence nuclear family dream by adding knives. So it’s absolutely perfect that not only did they choose to do a Motown number, which directly references some of the music Hairspray was paying tribute to, but making it the dirtiest goddamned thing ever. It is the greatest compliment I can think of when I say that John Waters would have been very happy with this Duet. Perhaps it wasn’t campy enough, but the juxtaposition of BDSM atop the traditional 60s Motown love song would have done it for him. It certainly did for Ricki.

This is the first time since Rachel Bloom that the show has actually used the guest to make a subversion of the genre and befit the guest’s own sensibilities.

Ryan: ‘there has been a ball-gag in EVERY SINGLE SHOW.”
I have to do the math, but I think he means that there was one at the Greg taping, which I *think* was before this one. Possibly others during this taping stretch. If that’s the case, I think it’s incredible to put these two back to back, so we get it too.

I like Aisha’s PSA: “just make sure that you have a safety word, and that you can SAY it..”
Chip, chuckling, demonstrates the muffled cries of a safe word.
Aisha, even funnier: “HUUURHHH!! HURRRHHHH!!”
PFFFF

Whose Line: Colin is Batman and Wayne is Robin; they are having an argument

A rare round of Whose Line without Ryan. This raised eyebrows around the fandom when it came out.

Colin, with a very good opening line: “when you’re done with the toilet paper in the bat-room, REPLACE IT.”
Lol…the bat-room…

I do like the extra perspective Wayne adds to this scene. Colin expresses he needs someone who has his back.
Wayne: “You put me in FRONT! I’m a TARGET! I’ve got on yellow and leggings and a mask, I look like a sexy-ass parakeet.”
Colin: “There’s nothing wrong with that! Sexy-ass parakeet used to keep the streets clean in 1941.”
Good move by Colin. Of course there’s a superhero for that.
Colin: “AND REMEMBER HIS MOTTO: ‘MY FATHER WAS A CHIMP.”
PFFFF. That’s amazing because it makes the previous information even funnier. A superhero named Sexy-Ass Parakeet whose father was a chimp. I love this game.

Wayne: “That’s why I’ve started reading this self-help book. It’s entitled…’Screw This, I’m Going to Albuquerque.”
Ah yes, Bryan Cranston wrote the foreword.

I also really like Wayne owning this plan, saying “I am taking the Bugs Bunny route and I am going to Albuquerque.” You don’t get to see Wayne do dialogue-based improv like this, and I do like the sensibilities I’m seeing here. Honestly, it makes you wish he did it more, but I think he knows his strengths are physical stuff and musical stuff. I do like that he chose to play this one, to show even more range.

Colin has a great move to get the upper hand back after Wayne starts packing away all his stuff. Colin starts taking it back, saying “first of all, I PAID for all of this.” After all, he’s still Bruce Wayne.

Wayne: “You’d better get used to the idea, or as we used to say in my parents’ home country of…Los Angeles..”

Now COLIN’s barely hanging on.
Wayne: “…kiss me like you mean it.”
PFFF
Wayne just…removes his glasses and offers up the possibility.
Colin takes like 10 seconds to let this marinate. Before going “…there’s so many things wrong with that, Robin…

Colin, ending the scene warmly: ‘you pick up that phone, I’ll answer it and say ‘if you’re nice I’ll let you touch it.”
And then Colin winks and…if he’s gonna end with a line like that,

Yeah, he might as well. Even Colin admits when he gets back, “just had to.”

Wayne: “we’ve worked together for so long that it’s…UNFLINCHING when we kiss. It’s like ‘oh, it’s Tuesday…’

A very strong Whose Line. I really liked the Wayne-Colin combo here, and they had moments of throwing each other. Unlike last show, this had a very natural scene arc that stuck the landing. I wish we could see this combo a bit more.

Themed Restaurant: Chip and Ricki are a couple enjoying a romantic meal at an Olympic themed restaurant- Wayne, Ryan and Colin are waiters

Extremely silly opening gag, Ryan, Colin and Wayne entering as synchronized swimmers as Chip and Ricki converse. I will say that right off the bat, Ricki’s more amused by the goings-on behind her than focused on keeping the game going, but her improv skills aren’t exactly being tested anyhow.

Wayne skates in and begins to greet Chip and Ricki. Suddenly, Ryan, playing someone hired by Jeff Gillooly, stabs Wayne in the leg, and Wayne, a la Nancy Kerrigan, wails ‘WHYYY? WHYYYY?’ Remember this exclamation, as we’re going to need to come back to it in about 7 or so shows.
Wayne: “WHYYYYY don’t you enjoy yourselves?”
What a great gag, btw.

Colin: “I just noticed that you were eating your bread very quickly…can you just pee into these cups?”
Ricki loves this one. “You go first.”
Chip: “..do I START??”

Wayne doing a gymnastics routine over Ricki’s chair is more an impressive feat than a funny one, but Ricki loves it, as she has most of this scene.

I love this final image:

Wayne paying tribute to the 1968 ceremony there.

Some good gags. Not much of a scene, though. Ricki didn’t seem to be much of an active participant in the improvisation, and Chip could only do so much with that.

Wayne mentions that Colin joined Wayne in the black power salute at the end. Colin, of course, nods. “Every group needs an old white man to lead the way.”
Wayne, who’s seen Straight Outta Compton: ‘that’s how NWA got started..”
I do like that line as a summation of Colin’s politics and activism. Colin’s a straight white man and he’s done so much for marginalized communities.

Helping Hands: Farmer Ryan, hands by Colin, has prepared a welcome meal for his fiancee Ricki and is explaining what her new life on the farm will be like

Ricki, even in costume, still wears the hat. I get why, I’m not disputing why, it just comes off a bit as the sign of a performer who doesn’t wanna get more than her ankles wet. I’ll reassess that after this scene though.

Ricki first of all has a great move in explaining “I’m so glad we met on FarmersOnly dot com”, which does all the expository work, and explains why Ryan has an accent and Ricki doesn’t. So maybe she does know a thing or two about improv.
Ryan, however: “who would think there’d be a site like that? I’d just been looking in the woods!”
PFFF. That is a great line

Ryan is able to get both laughs and ‘awws’ in toasting “to the lady of the farm…who will never do me any harm.” I think Ryan’s better off making his character a wholesome sweetie of a southerner rather than somebody mean and dumb.
Ryan: “we gather the crops, we sow the seeds, now that it’s legal, we’ll grow some weed.”
Did Greg ghostwrite that?

Ryan, downing some lemonade: “…that’s TART!”
What, did you want more water with your citrus?

There’s a good bit of this where Ryan’s just charming Ricki with corn puns, and it’s extremely sweet, even if it’s more conceptually funny than line-by-line funny.

Ultimately,

Perfect
Ryan, of course: “wow, that tastes like it’s been sitting around a studio for HOURS…AT ONE TIME, THAT WAS HOT.”

Ryan, with most of a chicken: “I like the butt part.”

And then he goofs around and acts like he’s trying out ventriloquism. I think he knows he’s got Ricki in the palm of his hand and is just having fun. Ricki doubles over, sure enough.

There’s a preprepared glove that’s supposed to demonstrate how to milk a cow. Unfortunately, Colin knows how to squirt this upward and hit Ryan in the face with the milk. And this still catches him off guard. “Well, silly me, that’d be a cow laying on its BACK, now wouldn’t it.”

I do notice that in the middle of Ryan insisting that Ricki have a giant slice of pie, a little non-character “I’m soarry” pops out.

Ryan, getting Colin’s plan midway through: “And I’m gonna have a big piece-no, apparently I’m just gonna eat it out of the dish…”

This is a pretty standard climax, Ryan yelling at Ricki to get messy with the pie as he has [“YOU’RE EATIN’ THAT LIKE A CITY GIRL”], but I think just how hard Ricki’s laughing, and how much Ryan’s trying to use this as a hook, adds to it.

Ricki keeps trying to get out of it. “How ’bout I feed it to you?”
Ryan: “HOW BOUT I FEED IT TO YOOOU?”
I love this. You signed up to do an improv show, you’re gonna yes-and if you like it or not.

This ends up with Ryan mixing the pie with the chicken as the audience, and Wayne and Aisha, squirms. What did make me laugh is Colin raising the concoction towards Ryan, and Ryan pleading “OH, THAT AIN’T FER ME!!!”

Ryan, slamming the pie down: “I’m sorry, I just flicked a little cherry on ya there.”
Ricki: “It’s okay…you popped MY cherry.”
RYAN:

AFTER AN ENTIRE GAME OF RYAN THROWING RICKI, RYAN FINDS HIMSELF THROWN. What an incredible ending to this.

Even before Aisha buzzes, Ryan just goes “Oh, I’m so sorry, Ricki.” And obviously she’s game and fine with it, but Ryan knew she was reaching the limits of her comfort zone, and felt bad, but…dammit she got there in the end.

I really liked this Helping Hands. It had some basic beats but the Ricki-Ryan dynamic, where Ryan spent the whole game cracking her up and trying to pull her out of her comfort zone, only for Ricki to floor Ryan at the very end, was so good. This had some really fun moments, and Ricki did alright for herself in between trying to get out of the carnage. Not perfect, but a very fun HH round.

Overall: I didn’t think much of this one when it was initially on iView, but I’ve given it enough time to sink into my heart and I like it a lot better. I’m ignoring a lot of obvious flaws, like Ricki’s improv limitations, Chip’s diminishing returns, the lulls of sameness in LMAD and HH, and most of Themed Restaurant, but something about Ricki Lake’s effect on this show really turned a middle of the pack effort into a surprisingly fun show. Duet and Helping Hands are very fun guest games with great, subversive hooks. HH doesn’t always work because of good improv, but Ryan yanking Ricki away from her trepidations throughout the game is still funny enough. I also really like Whose Line, as it’s a really interesting change-up from the usual dynamic with the addition of Wayne, and I think the second half of LMAD is a nice sneaker-upper for Ryan. It’s a show that I like even if I know there are problems with it, and I may not think of it this highly on another watch. It’s a lot like Ryan in Helping Hands: undeniably sweet, even if there’s something clearly amiss.

Show Winner: Wayne
Best Performer: Wayne Brady. His strong work stood out throughout the middle of the show, and especially in games like Duet and Whose Line.
Worst Performer: Chip had the least amount to do, and rose to the occasion less consistently.
Best Game: Helping Hands I enjoyed the most, though I should be clear that between that, Duet and Whose Line, there was some competition.
Worst Game: Themed Restaurant didn’t work as a scene
Guest Star Rating: 8/10. Ricki was game, and her genrefucking history led to some nice subversions of clean-cut setups in Duet and Helping Hands. She wasn’t much of an improviser, and shied away from big in-scene risks, but she did add a lot to this show.

COMING UP NEXT: Back to season 12 for a guestless Gary show.