"Turn and face the strange ch-ch-ch-changes!"
What, no opening animation of our hapless hero trudging up to his cartoon house, with his cartoon wife, asking himself, how did I get here? No invitation to step into his world and welcome to it? Nope. Instead we get a vintage car racing down the staid streets of Westbury in those wee small hours of the morning, discharging its dashing passenger, who with a tip of the hat bids farewell to a fetching female spy. Wow!
Alas, it is all fantasy, and superspy John Monroe reluctantly returns to the snoring body of put-upon family man and creatively bankrupt cartoonist John Monroe, whose life has grown maddeningly monotonous, underscored by the underwhelming chipped beef on toast breakfast and the scintillating conversation about green lawns and grass seed with a fellow suburban commuter.
"Don't send him off with your hair still in curlers / You may not see him again / For wives should always be lovers too / Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you / (He's almost here!)"
That classic 1963 Bacharach-David song "Wives and Lovers" sprang to mind as the story unfolded and Ellen began to suspect a malaise was settling over their marriage. Perhaps her character heard the Jack Jones standard on AM radio when doing the laundry? It certainly took herculean efforts by the wardrobe and makeup personnel to transform hottie Joan Hotchkis into a haggard hausfrau, but they succeeded with that oversized rumpled robe, curlers, and head scarf. What a stark contrast to the glamour doll who later descends the stairs when fantasy became reality.
On the subject of fantasy, the superspy spoof sequences were spot on, and Svetlana Mischoff as femme fatale Funny Face was perfect casting. I had never seen her before, so peeked at her IMDb page and discovered she made only a glancing blow in mainstream movies and television before taking a left turn into the lurid world of pornographic films. This was in fact her sole television appearance.
And speaking of first, this is the first of eight episodes--amounting to a full third of the series--directed by John Rich. Right out of the gate he broke with tradition by not opening with an animated sequence and by dropping the laugh track. There wasn't much to laugh about in this story, anyway, as it's more of a drama punctuated with fleeting moments of levity (similar to and slightly more successful than the maudlin "Christabel").
"Hey, little girl / Better wear something pretty / Something you'd wear to go to the city / And dim all the lights / Pour the wine, start the music / Time to get ready for love."
So will John go all Gauguin and sail to Tahiti with an all-girl crew? The Dragon Lady lured John into her parlor like the proverbial fly by a spider in a sultry red dress dangling a promise of chilled champagne. Another AM radio song sprang to mind in those closing moments: Bobby Goldsboro's "The Straight Life":
"It's great to be in love, I'm not really thinking of / Leaving the straight life behind / I'm just playing a game in my mind."
What, no opening animation of our hapless hero trudging up to his cartoon house, with his cartoon wife, asking himself, how did I get here? No invitation to step into his world and welcome to it? Nope. Instead we get a vintage car racing down the staid streets of Westbury in those wee small hours of the morning, discharging its dashing passenger, who with a tip of the hat bids farewell to a fetching female spy. Wow!
Alas, it is all fantasy, and superspy John Monroe reluctantly returns to the snoring body of put-upon family man and creatively bankrupt cartoonist John Monroe, whose life has grown maddeningly monotonous, underscored by the underwhelming chipped beef on toast breakfast and the scintillating conversation about green lawns and grass seed with a fellow suburban commuter.
"Don't send him off with your hair still in curlers / You may not see him again / For wives should always be lovers too / Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you / (He's almost here!)"
That classic 1963 Bacharach-David song "Wives and Lovers" sprang to mind as the story unfolded and Ellen began to suspect a malaise was settling over their marriage. Perhaps her character heard the Jack Jones standard on AM radio when doing the laundry? It certainly took herculean efforts by the wardrobe and makeup personnel to transform hottie Joan Hotchkis into a haggard hausfrau, but they succeeded with that oversized rumpled robe, curlers, and head scarf. What a stark contrast to the glamour doll who later descends the stairs when fantasy became reality.
On the subject of fantasy, the superspy spoof sequences were spot on, and Svetlana Mischoff as femme fatale Funny Face was perfect casting. I had never seen her before, so peeked at her IMDb page and discovered she made only a glancing blow in mainstream movies and television before taking a left turn into the lurid world of pornographic films. This was in fact her sole television appearance.
And speaking of first, this is the first of eight episodes--amounting to a full third of the series--directed by John Rich. Right out of the gate he broke with tradition by not opening with an animated sequence and by dropping the laugh track. There wasn't much to laugh about in this story, anyway, as it's more of a drama punctuated with fleeting moments of levity (similar to and slightly more successful than the maudlin "Christabel").
"Hey, little girl / Better wear something pretty / Something you'd wear to go to the city / And dim all the lights / Pour the wine, start the music / Time to get ready for love."
So will John go all Gauguin and sail to Tahiti with an all-girl crew? The Dragon Lady lured John into her parlor like the proverbial fly by a spider in a sultry red dress dangling a promise of chilled champagne. Another AM radio song sprang to mind in those closing moments: Bobby Goldsboro's "The Straight Life":
"It's great to be in love, I'm not really thinking of / Leaving the straight life behind / I'm just playing a game in my mind."