MONDO EXTRAS

Back from commercial, and I'd like to take a second to talk about Howie's stage. He's all alone, aside from a drummer. The guy has a full kit that surrounds him and he is just banging away in his fauxhawk and too-tight shirt. It's an interesting choice. Howie introduces the next sure-to-be-hysterical bit. It's a guy named Fred. He was hired to do singing telegrams and someone thought it would be hi-larious if they sent him to a funeral. Off he goes. He supposedly has no idea what kind of a gig he's working, but he's in a bunny suit and says that someone named Jerry hired him. Jerry's the dead guy in the coffin, and all of the funeral-goers are paid actors. Who suck. He starts singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and people start hyperventilating and crying. After a break where the funeral director assures the "family" it was Jerry's last wish, Fred (a.k.a. the Funny Bunny) tells them that he'd like them to sing along with them. That's not staged AT ALL. And then at some point he toots a clown horn. Really? Really? The widower asks the Funny Bunny to sing directly to her husband; he heads over to the casket and, mid-verse, the guy pops up and thanks Fred for being on Howie Do It. Which makes no earthly sense, because this show hasn't aired yet, so how the hell would he know what that is? But Funny Bunny gets a big kick out of it, and then starts overacting and saying something like, "This is what happened when a Jew enters a church." Um. Again, that's really original and off-the-cuff. I so don't buy it. Was this take 15?

The next gag stars Howie's son Alex. He's playing a "Master Dater." Then Howie pauses for a laugh, and says, "Who knows, he's got his own room." I smirked at this attempt at low humor, despite my better judgment, and then felt really bad about it. Anyway, Alex is on a pretend dating show that he hosts, and he's with another guy, who is wearing a Bluetooth thing in his ear. The other guy is tasked with getting a bunch of phone numbers. All these gals are paid actresses. The guy, BJ, is supposedly the mark in this situation. He's schmoozing a girl. He's got Howie's kid Alex on the Bluetooth telling him how to act around the ladies. Some extremely gay stereotype comes over and says that he saw BJ at a club and they had a wild night. Now BJ has to deliver the "lines" that Alex has for him. He makes him say things like "I'm not a Flintstone, but I can make your bed rock." If I believed this was real, I'd feel bad for this guy, except that he's wearing a blue button-down shirt with a bright green t-shirt under it and a brown jacket over it. Which would be fine, except he has on plaid shorts, and bright red converse-y sneakers. And he's got messy hair. Then he tries to pretend to be psychic to do readings. The manager comes over, and Alex disappears. BJ freaks, but not really enough, and says they are filming a reality show, then Howie (as Jerry) comes over and starts giving him trouble for filming stuff without permission, and then does the big reveal. BJ says he's going to piss in his pants. But I still don't buy it for one minute. There's something about this whole thing that doesn't ring true. Like, even though he's not one of the "actors," I'd bet money on the fact that they found him on some sort of casting call. He seems to know where the cameras are. All these people just seem too phony to be real. Crap. There's not much I hate more than a stupid prank show, but a fake stupid prank show REALLY bothers me. And there's a whole 'nother half-hour in front of me.