Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 1.22 “Mom’s Gift”

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Posted on January 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!



Well, I guess it’s time to get back to reviewing this show….

Episode 1.22 “Mom’s Gift”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 25th, 1999)

After using the money that their Dad gave them to buy themselves a Nintendo, Jason and Scott realize that they’ve forgotten to get a birthday gift for their mom. They panic, though I’m not sure why. Their mother is living in Saudi Arabia, with her new husband and his family. It’s time for Jason and Scott to admit that she no longer cares about them. And even if she is expecting a gift, it takes a while to ship something from California to Saudi Arabia. It’s not like she’s going to somehow know that they waited until the last minute. Stupid Jason! Stupid Scott!

Jason and Scott decide to make their mom a video tape of their lives in Malibu. (Yeah, guys, that’s a lot better than jewelry.) They invite Sam and Stads to share their favorite Scott and Jason memories and then both Murray and Traycee decide to get in on it as well and….

Yep, it’s a clip show.

Oh, clip shows! Every show, good or bad, has them. They’re cheap. They’re easy to produce. And they certainly are boring to watch. That’s especially true when the clips come from a show, like Malibu CA, that still hasn’t figured out what type of story it’s trying to tell. Hey, remember when Dennis Haskins ran for mayor of Malibu? Remember when Stads and Jason were briefly a couple? Remember when Scott and Sam were even more briefly a couple? This show was all over the place and the clips in this episode mostly serve to remind us that Malibu CA never really settled on a consistent tone.

Probably the most interesting thing about the clips was that they revealed that Sam and Stads used to actually have personalities beyond just being killjoys. When this show started, Stads actually had a sense of humor and Sam actually …. well, Sam never really had much of a personality but still, at least she used to do more than just sit in the background and comment on Murray’s weekly shenanigans. The clips also reminded us me that Jason and Scott used to both be sociopathic. Now, at least, Scott is vaguely responsible and level-headed. Jason, meanwhile, remains a *********.

Happy birthday, mom!

Oh well. What can you really say about a clip show? It’s so rare to see a good one. Even the clip show they did for The Office sucked. I guess I should be happy that this was the first episode of Malibu CA that I reviewed for 2025. The clips reminded me of why I was so happy to have an excuse to take a break from reviewing this stupid show but still, a clip show of Malibu CA is still less painful to review than an episode where you actually have to pay attention to the plot.

Happy New Year!