Remembering the recently departed Eddie Mekka's guest spot

[TMC]

Courtesy of the California Dreams Reviewed blog:
Season 3, Episode 12: “Harley and the Marlboro Man”

We open in the Garrison’s garage for the first time this season. Oh, wait, this is supposed to be Jake’s garage now! My mistake since it’s the exact same set used for the Garrison’s house the first two seasons but with different decorations. One thing you can say about Peter Engel: he will reuse a set whenever possible to get his money’s worth.

The rest of the band come in, disturbing Jake as he’s working on his motorcycle, and it’s exposition time as Lorena tries to encourage him to take a break and go to the beach with them. There’s some sort of bike show coming up and Jake’s uncle, who introduced him to bikes, is coming to town just to help him out! It’s nice of the band to just kind of stop in so Jake has a chance to establish lots of **** in the main plot all at once.

We open in the Garrison’s garage for the first time this season. Oh, wait, this is supposed to be Jake’s garage now! My mistake since it’s the exact same set used for the Garrison’s house the first two seasons but with different decorations. One thing you can say about Peter Engel: he will reuse a set whenever possible to get his money’s worth.

The rest of the band come in, disturbing Jake as he’s working on his motorcycle, and it’s exposition time as Lorena tries to encourage him to take a break and go to the beach with them. There’s some sort of bike show coming up and Jake’s uncle, who introduced him to bikes, is coming to town just to help him out! It’s nice of the band to just kind of stop in so Jake has a chance to establish lots of **** in the main plot all at once.



And who does Jake’s uncle turn out to be but Carmine from Laverne & Shirley. It seems that he ended up a motorcycle mechanic instead of a dancer. Things must not have went so well for Carmine following the end of that show. But it’s good of Tiffani and Jake to even exposit who exactly Carmine is. Also, he was apparently listening at the door so he could enter just as they were talking about him and do a really bad Andrew Dice Clay impersonation. And here I thought the Andrew Dice Clay impersonators died out around 1991.

As the rest of the band leave for the beach, Carmine looks over the bicycle, voicing his approval and lighting up a cigarette. I guess losing the one show people will ever know him for made Carmine decide to take up smoking. Jake asks for a cigarette as Carmine is strangely coughing. No. No, this is not going to be an anti-smoking episode! I’ve already dealt with two of these in the Engel-verse and they were both terrible, among the worst of The New Class, and, given some of the horrible **** that show put out, that’s really saying something! Why did Peter Engel insist on trying to end the scourge of teen smoking?!?!

Well, damn. Schlameal, Schlamazel, Hazzen Pfeffer Incorporated.

In any case, Carmine’s also coughing, insisting he just has a cold, and, gee, I wonder what’s going to happen to him, probably near the conclusion, to serve as a ham-fisted conclusion to this episode?

At Sharkey’s, we get our B-plot this week: Sly randomly found $500 on the beach using his metal detector, so they decide what to do with it. While Sly wants to waste it on hookers and blow, Mark insists on putting up fliers, and whoever can identify the box gets it.

Jake comes in smoking a cigarette, and a waitress very loudly tells him to put it out so the rest of the band hear, and the judgmentalism of the episode begins even as Sly and Sam admit they’ve tried cigarettes and thought they were disgusting.

Back at the garage, Carmine takes a break from the bike to watch some television so Lorena comes in wanting to work with Jake, doing the whole “girls can’t work on motorcycles because it’s a guy thing” shtick that wore out sometime in the 1950s. Jake lights up a cigarette in front of her and she proceeds to judge him some more, insisting he read the Surgeon General warnings in a horribly preachy way. Jake promises he’ll quit as soon as the bike is ready for the show so she’ll shut the hell up and get back to her own subplot.

At Sharkey’s, it’s been a week since the band found the money, and no one’s come forward. Sly comes in dressed in Mama’s Family drag hoping to trick the band into giving him the money, but they tell him to **** off. They decide that, since the money isn’t really theirs, they’re going to pick a charity and donate the money to it, trusting it to Mark in the meantime since his bad acting will scare away potential thieves.

Jake comes in, happy to announce he’s done with the bike, and Lorena kisses him and promptly recoils in judgmental horror at the realization Jake’s still smoking and ****. Jake promises he’ll quit after the bike show and Lorena decides he must be addicted at this point. Jake rushes off after Lorena asks him for the cigarettes, declaring, quite reasonably, he doesn’t have anything to prove to her..

At the loft, the band sit around and judge Jake for smoking in his absence. They decide they need to give him some tough love, deciding they won’t hang out with him anymore until he quits smoking because judging your friends and ostracizing them from your social group is the best way to get a person to quit smoking! As usual, the Engel-verse has no idea why kids start and stop smoking.

At school, Sly tricks Mark into giving hi the money to create t-shirts for a band called The Counting Toes so they can double the money. Mark, being not so bright, instantly falls for Sly and gives him the money because they had to do something with this subplot.

Jake comes in and the band continue to judge him as he admits he can’t stop after a week of smoking because that’s how addiction works. I guess it’s possible, but it’s not very likely. So they decide they’re going to help Jake quit.

And they’re going to do this by sitting around and lecturing Jake on the health effects of smoking. Sly rightfully points out that, if Jake is actually addicted to cigarettes, lecturing him on health **** for the sole purpose of shoehorning it into the episode isn’t going to make him quit. I can’t believe I’m on Sly’s side yet again this season. There must be something wrong with me that I’m finding myself agreeing with him so often!

So what do they do but show him n American Cancer Society video about the effects of smoking on lungs, complete with a cancerous lung. Seriously, after Sly just told them this **** won’t make him quit. Jake says **** this **** and rushes off to have a cigarette to relax.

Back at the loft, it’s the boys’ turn to cure Jake of smoking, so they decide he needs to go cold turkey and Tony makes him give up all his cigarettes.

Within minutes, Jake is pacing and yelling and **** because those cigarettes were apparently laced with heroin. He tries chewing gum and talking funny, but nothing will work so he rushes off, defeated by the power of the most addictive tobacco ever.

At the garage, Jake comes in and tells Uncle Carmine he got first place in the bike show. Carmine has news of his own: he was coughing up blood and went to the doctor, where he discovered he has terminal lung cancer from doing too many bad Andrew Dice Clay impersonations. Seriously, this was his first sign he had terminal lung cancer? This feels very forced. Very.

Jake reacts in the way only Jake can react: by kicking **** and throwing away cigarettes, because the pending death of a former Laverne & Shirley supporting cast member is enough to finally make him kick the habit.

At the loft, Sly revels he lost the $500 because he was stupid enough to print $500 worth of shirts inflating his own ego, thinking people would actually want to plaster his face on their chests. The rest of the band blame Mark for being a moron, but Jake comes in before they can burn him at the stake and beg Matt to move back, saving his death for another day.

Jake tells the band about Carmine’s impending death, and we get some gushy gushy comforting for Jake. Sly suggests a way to make the $500 back for charity. I think that might make this the lamest excuse for a subplot in any Engel-verse episode I’ve reviewed so far. Well, maybe not the worst since I did once have to review a subplot about air conditioner repair on The New Class.

Yes, the band is hosting a benefit concert to encourage teenagers to stop smoking through judgmentalism and ****!

Lorena says they’re going to make more money than they found on the beach and Jake says they’re donating the money for cancer research. They decide that, since they’re there, they might as well play a tonally inappropriate for the episode song.

And you think the episode is going to end with this pensive shot of Jake thinking about Carmine’s impending death…

…but it actually ends with this screen from the American Cancer Society telling you that, if you didn’t die from lung cancer while watching this episode, you’re just damned lucky and could drop over dead at any moment!

I guess this episode was marginally better than the two from The New Class, but that’s not saying much. They at least only had one horribly judgmental scene and actually acknowledge their preachiness isn’t going to keep kids from smoking or cause them to stop. Yes, the only thing that will ever keep you from smoking is an uncle who happens to be a dancer-turned-motorcycle mechanic getting terminal cancer just as you start smoking.

Song
“Tough Love”
Jake singing

I don’t understand this song. It starts off sounding like a love song, and then randomly goes into a tangent about people not being perfect because I guess it’s trying to cram the message of the episode even more down our throats. Out of all the songs on the show to date, this is probably the one that makes the least sense lyrically. Musically, it’s okay, but the words make absolutely no sense in trying to understand the point of the whole thing.

I’m a little disappointed: I was hoping this whole preachy episode would be topped off with an anti-smoking song that would make me laugh hysterically like I haven’t since “Jessie’s Song.” I guess this show had different plans, though. It’s almost as if Steve Tyrell had some random, unfinished song lying around and added some lyrics to try to make it about smoking. A bad song for a bad episode.