The Douglas Michael Show with Juul Haalmeyer

Here's a Juultide treat from 2009.SECOND CITY TELEVSION or SCTV in all it’s incarnations (in syndication, on NBC and on Cinemax) is remembered as one of the funniest TV series of all time.This outrageous Canadian sketch comedy import launched the careers of such greats as John Candy, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis, Martin Short, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty and a few others – including Juul Haalmeyer. Chances are if you've ever seen a SCTV sketch, you've seen Juul's work.Juul Haalmeyer was SCTV's resident costume designer, who was also featured on the show as the choreographer of Melonville's top dance troupe, the Juul Haalmeyer Dancers, a pathetically incompetent ensemble of variety show dancers made up mostly of writers and crew on SCTV. I consider Juul one of my comedy heroes and a unsung TV legend!!!Over the years, Juul also worked as a costume designer for many movies, TV shows, theatre and concert productions. He's done all the classics from ALL MY SONS to LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, his designs have dressed everyone from Jack Lemmon to Alice Cooper, from Shari Lewis to Jethro Tull, from Dolly Parton to Anne Murray, from Bobby Vinton to Bobby Bittman! It is with great honor that I welcome my guest, Juul Haalmeyer!!!
DOUG: Hi Juul, first of all let me say thank you for all the laughter you and the folks at SCTV have given me over the years. The show is a true classic. I watched it from the very first episode (on WOR TV channel 9 in New York) to the very last Cinemax episode. In fact I subscribed to Cinemax just to watch SCTV! Now exactly when did you join the show?

JUUL: Well, unfortunately I didn’t do the first season because there just wasn’t enough money; and I thought that there was way too much material to get out per week for me to be able to handle. It just looked too scary and daunting and I thought I’m not going to kill myself over a show! That’s my biggest regret with SCTV because it did turn out to be the most rewarding and enjoyable experience of my career.DOUG: Well, thankfully you we able to join the show for season 2. I read somewhere that it took 100 hours a week to make one of the 90-minute NBC shows. Is that true?

JUUL :Yes it did, and sometimes more. It was a real slog, and after each three month cycle, you just had to scrape yourself off the floor and pray the next cycle would be easier. But it never was; it just kept growing bigger!DOUG: Bigger and BETTER-If you ask me! So who was your favorite character or player to design for?

JUUL: ALL OF THEM! The cast of course were all very special people and each one of their characters were very endearing. The challenge came in the situations they wrote for themselves as to how complicated the sketch would become from a wardrobe point of view. Could not have done it without the incredible help of Luigi, the head cutter at Malabar costumes, Eva Richter, who always had an impossible shopping list, and my mother, Trudy Haalmeyer, who cut and sewed everything on set.
DOUG: With all the crazy folks that passed through the doors of SCTV - was there any character that stands out as being the most creatively challenging? I somehow think John Candy as Divine must have been a case where you had to top what the real Divine was already wearing!

JUUL: Again, it was my support staff that saved my ass on everything; whether it was "Shake and Bake" (twenty nine period costumes in primary colours in three days) or Edith Prickley as Queen Elizabeth (the first with two days notice),Divine as Peter Pan, or Divine On Ice; You name it! The challenge was always the time frame within which we had to get it together, and again, my team deserves all of the credit.

DOUG: That Divine On Ice number - Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me is still one of the most hysterical things I've ever seen. And you and the boys are featured prominently in that segment. So, how did the Juul Haalmeyer dancers come about?

JUUL: Well, you can’t hire people to be as bad as we were, so when Lola Heatherton needed dancers she (Catherine O'Hara) remembered that I had done musical theater. But they would let me sing, turn the light off, and yank me offstage, because I just didn’t move well, as you’ve seen. It became a group of writers, sometimes cast, grips, propmen, whoever was available that day. God, it was fun though. Nice to know that anytime you need a bad actor, loud singer, or really lousy dancer, you can depend on someone on your crew to come through! Voila!

DOUG : Did you ever have any formal dance training?

JUUL: What are you smokin' dude?????? Of course not! I did take a Dancercise class one year to get some excess poundage off, which worked, at The Roland and Romaine Academy of Dance,but they always made me move to the back of the class because I always farted with the first bend down in the warmups!
DOUG: That's hysterical. What makes you think I was smoking something while watching SCTV? LOL. It's great that people all over the world are rediscovering the magic of Juul Haalmeyer!JUUL: I'm on Facebook now (I had never heard of it before), and guess what turned up? A Juul Haalmeyer Dancer fan club based in ICELAND! I hope they're not just now getting SCTV! I have gotten more notoriety from the bad dancing than anything I have ever done as a costume designer in the last 40 years.
DOUG: Iceland! How cool is that? Do you keep in touch with any of the cast members?

JUUL: Not really. It was great to see all of them at a very generous 'Benefit of Laughter' reunion show they did last year to set up an SCTV alumni fund for ailing participants of the show. I did get to work on the Disney film COOL RUNNINGS (1993) with John–which was a real privilege and an absolute blast. Ten weeks of poker and dominos in the sun!DOUG: Aside from the charity performance, do you think there would ever be a SCTV REUNION SPECIAL? And if so, would the Dancers come out of retirement?

JUUL: I don’t think that’s in the cards, with everyone’s careers as diverse as they are, but it would be nice. As for the dancers, I don’t think we can get enough day passes issued out of retirement homes at the same time to let all of the dancers come together again! Although I hear that Ellen Degeneres wants to challenge us to a Dance Off!

DOUG: LOL - I'd love to see you and Ellen go at it! So, what have you been up to since SCTV left the air? Are you still doing wardrobe these days?

JUUL: In a way. I still have my costume company, Homemade Tarts, and I rent out vintage clothing to the movies, but I don’t do any designing anymore; couldn’t handle the stress of it all. Back in those days they were all wonderful people to work for who appreciated your craft, but now the shows are mostly in the hands of bean counters, who just want to get it done as cheaply as possible, to heck with creativity. I stopped about nine years ago after I won an Emmy for NODDY AND FRIENDS, a childrens show for PBS.DOUG: That's awesome. Belated congratulations on that Emmy! And lastly, is there any truth to the internet rumor that you are going to be on DANCING WITH THE STARS?

JUUL: Ha Ha! That was a very clever and funny piece someone posted and I got over one hundred e-mails from people who actually believed it! Had a lot of fun with that one! Found the guy who wrote it and he’s just a big fan of the show.

DOUG : Well, you never know with internet rumors. Once something is out the in the universe, it could very well happen! Thanks again for being a guest and being so entertaining!
JUUL: Thank you, It’s been great talking with you!

Mickey Rooney is THE MANIPULATOR

Here's a post from 2008 - in honor of the late Mr. Rooney. Ever wonder what it would be like if Sid & Marty Krofft produced Stephen King's MISERY? Well, 1971's THE MANIPULATOR (aka BJ LANG PRESENTS) is a pretty close approximation of what it might look like.It all starts innocently enough on a rainy night, when we see a dark figure in a hat and raincoat walking on a dark city street accompanied by standard 1970s TV-movie theme music followed by the opening titles "Mickey Rooney...Luana Anders...THE MANIPULATOR". A fancy old car then pulls up to a warehouse and Mickey exits sporting his YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS beard. He then gets into a freight elevator as flashes of random Fellini-like horrors begin. This is when we start to know this is no ABC Movie of the Week.

Mickey walks by what looks like a dusty animal carcass and climbs up a ladder into what looks like a Hollywood prop house. He then sits in an old leather chair, takes off his rose-tinted sunglasses and begins talking to himself as if he is various members of a film crew. Okay. He chats with a mannequin named "Wally" in a what could be a scene from ANDY HARDY HAS A COMPLETE MENTAL BREAKDOWN-decides to "put on a show!!!" Too bad Judy wasn't around to help out!

So Mickey begins to describe the upcoming scene to his imaginary "cast & crew". He calls "action!" and turns on a strobe light, imagining a pair of nude elderly actors dancing in the spotlight as he shouts the lyrics to "Chattanooga Choo Choo" at them. Then he showers the naked old folks with flowers. HUH??? The old people soon disappear, then Mickey pulls back a curtain and screams - and a real woman (Luana Anders) screams back at him. She's his "star", Carlotta - and she's hungry. In fact she asks him for food repeatedly. Turns out she's his prisoner and he has her tied to a wheelchair - and it's time for her lunch! Mickey then feeds her water from a silver chalice and baby food from a jar. Classy.

So then we learn that Carlotta has been cast as Roxanne (the Daryl Hannah role) in BJ Lang's film version of CYRANO DE BERGERAC. While Mickey is feeding her, she bites his finger and tells him that she's grateful for his kindness to her. Then he yells at some "crew members" and rolls in a huge spotlight followed by a (believe it or not) a fast-motion dance with a broomstick intercut with insert shots of a growling wild animal. Very Krofft-like. Meanwhile, Carlotta unties herself. Run like the wind, girl, run!!!

I guess she didn't run cause Mickey then shows up in drag make-up...and whispers to Charlotte about when he used to make up Marilyn's eyes. Then her gets all femme as he applies Carlotta's Roxanne make-up. This is a very disturbing scene. What would Judy say???

Mickey hears some cackling laughter in his head and is now sporting a really fake Witchie-Poo type Cyrano nose. I guess he's the director AND star of this production! Then he pushes Carlotta's wheelchair head-on into a mirror and demands that she recite her lines from the balcony scene. Then he yells at the thunder outside to be "quiet". Huh?After playing with some color gels, Mickey gives a pep talk to his imaginary background players (actually a collection of broken mannequins). Then he forces Carlotta to act out a scene - he calls "cut!!!" and breaks into another "Chattanooga Choo Choo" performance. Jesus - please make it stop!!! Then he tells her all about "fear" as he pretends to choke her. That's when I decide that ANDY HARDY MUST DIE!!!

So, Mickey calls "action!!!" again and they act out their big scene and unseen crowds roar with applause and "bravos!" Carlotta then tells him that the audience LOVES him. What follows next is the most bizarre scene in the film - We see a naked baby walking around a cocktail party where we also see the usual assortment of late 60s/early 70s "freaks" - you know - nudists, drag queens, Ruth Gordon-type old ladies, more nudists, pot-smokers, hippies, sex maniacs and others eating Saltine crackers with spinach dip and tripping out on acid. This all culminates with a giant orgy where Mickey is caressed by both women and men...and the naked baby is in the middle of it all!!! Really...I ask again...WHAT would Judy say???

While preparing for his big "duel" scene, Mickey suddenly collapses and Carlotta begs him NOT to die. Huh? She gets herself free and begins kicking the shit out of him. Why doesn't she just RUN??? Of course he manages to pin her down and kiss her! What a MANIPULATOR! Carlotta then begins running in very slow motion down a looooonnnnnggggg hallway while crazy electronic special effects music plays. Soon Mickey leaps out at her with his Cyrano sword. She decides to hide behind some sheer curtains. Smart girl, that Carlotta.

Then Mickey chases her through the mannequin display - and she attacks him with the spotlight. Carlotta then continues to run through the prop house through what looks like a combo wardrobe department and meat locker. She then crawls around the catwalk as Mickey hollers out orders to his "film crew"...and he once again breaks into song - yes, that's right - "Chattanooga Choo Choo" for the third fucking time!!! I beg of you....Please make it stop...please!!!! I will never listen to that song the same way again. Actually, I will never listen to that song again, PERIOD.

As Carlotta continues to navigate her way through the wardrobe, she suddenly stumbles upon "guest star" character actor Keenan Wynn - who Mickey stabs with his sword and kills. I guess it was just a cameo. Suddenly we're in a slaughterhouse, where a string quartet entertains both women in furs and butchers wearing bloody aprons as Carlotta dances for them all. I just can't say "huh?" anymore - I'm totally exhausted.

Mickey tells Carlotta he'll let her go if she tells him that she loves him. She doesn't - but he lets her go anyway. Okay, HUH? She then runs through the damn wardrobe again!!! She climbs down the ladder into the freight elevator...but she can't figure out how to open the door - so she just slams herself against the walls till it opens. Oh my god...I can't take much more of this.

Finally - Carlotta runs out into the rain - and locks herself in his car!!! She starts blowing the horn as Mickey pounds on the car windows - finally smashing the window with a trash can. He unlocks the door. Fade to: she's back inside with him. They kiss - and she laughs. This drives him CRAZY. I mean REALLY CRAZY. Then everyTHING around him begins to laugh. Mannequins, dead animals, boxes, jars of Vicks VapoRub, Chia Pets, etc. Then she starts yelling "No!!! No!!! No!!!" at him and he recites the final lines from CYRANO - and she actually looks at him... LOVINGLY!!!

Then he stabs himself with the sword and dies. She hears applause and takes a bow. The End. After the end credits we see Mickey's sped-up dance with the broom again. I almost expected Pufnstuf to show up and join in. The End for real.

Holy Shit! I really think Mickey thought he was gonna get an Oscar for this "brave" film role. I'm just surprised he ever worked again after it!!! This movie needs to be seen just to show how an actor's ego can lead to bad film choices. I do have to say that Luana Anders was truly compelling as Carlotta - and I look forward to seeing some of her other films. Sadly, she passed away in 1996.

The film really rates a 10 outta 10 - but only deserves 2 outta 10 because by the end you just feel so beat up, mentally drained and MANIPULATED from watching it. Wonder who that poor nude baby at the orgy grew up to be? Jimmy Osmond?

MOLLY

I rewatched MOLLY over the weekend...and decided to repost my "review" from 2009 in appreciation.

I've been hearing about MOLLY (1999, directed by John Duigan) from my friends for a few years now, and with Sarah Palin in the news again, I decided maybe it was high time I sat down for a lighthearted romp about a mentally challenged woman. Why not?

The film starts off on a good note with the wonderful Holly Cole song "Onion Girl" - unfortunately things go down hill pretty fast from there.We soon are introduced to Molly McKay (Elisabeth Shue) a profoundly autistic woman of 28 (played by a 36 year old actress) who has the mind of a spoiled brat.Molly has been raised in a nursing facility after her parents were killed in a car accident and her only relative is her older brother.Buck (Aaron Eckhart) wasn't around Molly much since he was selfishly off at school and building a successful career in advertising. Now Buck finds out that the home is closing and he needs a new place for Molly to live.
Oh at this point we are told that Molly, like many autistic people has super hearing!!! Who knew???Through a series of circumstances Molly winds up living with Buck in his spacious Venice, California loft. Let the chaos ensue. Molly is quite skittish and screams in horror at the drop of a hat. Molly and Buck also don't seem to have much in common - he likes modern art and she like to pee in her pants. He likes pizza, she likes peas. Molly is also stubborn as a mule and generally answers every question asked with a resounding "NO!!!"

Also, she's obsessed with organizing her collection of shoes. Okay, so am I.

After Buck tries to drop Molly off at daycare–and is rejected–it becomes "bring your autistic sister to work day". First she presses all the buttons in the elevator with evil glee, pissing off Buck's coworkers.

Then she gets bored waiting for Buck in the reception area.

So after picking off the receptionist's dandruff,

Molly decides to strip down hollering "Molly hot!!!"

and proceeds to walk naked into a meeting with a swimwear client!

Now if Buck was an adman worth his salt, he would have pulled a Darren Stephens and figured out a way to tie Molly's nude romp into the new ad campaign. But sadly he doesn't.

As this isn't enough, as a finale, Molly decides to splash around in a fountain. Molly hot again?
Buck tries desperately to juggle his job with his new burden, but he soon ends up unemployed. This causes resentment to grown between the two siblings. Enter the hunkiest mentally challenged person ever, Sam (Thomas Jane) a former worker at the nursing home and friend to Molly - who is both her guardian angel and interpreter - because he too has a learning disability. Hot.

Sam encourages Buck to be patient with his sister. Molly's neurologist, Dr. Brookes (TV's Jill Hennessy) recommends a controversial new surgical technique that could possibly reverse Molly's mental condition. At first Buck rejects the suggestion, but then agrees to it.
Amazingly, after the procedure, Molly slowly begins to become more "normal". Buck creates a "learning checklist" for her and gradually she learns things for the first time, changing her speaking style and appearing more and more like the Elisabeth Shue we know from other hit films.
Before you know it, Molly gains full use of her cognitive reasoning, is able to have intelligent conversations and begins dancing spontaneously in restaurants.

Buck and Molly start attending baseball games, where she uses her super hearing to listen to the players and then gets into an argument with an obnoxious guy, calling him "retarded."

Molly seems to come alive as she spends more time with her brother. In fact, Molly is falling in love with Buck - and doesn't understand why brothers and sister can't be lovers. We're not sure he understands either.
Becoming more of a free spirit, Molly soon learns how to kiss from TV and decides to try it out on shy Sam. He freaks out a bit and turns to Dr. Brookes for comfort.

Molly misunderstands flies into a jealous rage over this. But things get better when Molly has a real fancy date with Sam. Even though she has transitioned to the mind of an adult, she retains her childlike innocence - like when she thinks that a stage production of Romeo and Juliet is real...and, without resistance from her posse, crawls through the audience and onto the stage during the performance,

slapping Juliet across the face and telling Romeo not to drink the poison!

Later at a fancy dinner, Molly freaks out over live lobsters, questioning why anyone would want to eat them. I'm totally with her on that. Then she decides to revisit her restaurant dance routine and Buck joins her.

Later the siblings look at old family photos and watch home movies. Before you know it, Molly begins working with autistic children and even becomes a lecturer!!! Talk about coming full circle!
Well the circle goes unbroken when things take a turn for the worse for our plucky heroine when, after she falls off a bicycle, we discover that Molly's brain is rejecting the treatment and begins to digress into her former self. Before you know it, she's back to old, autistic Molly. What do do? What do do?I'm not sure what really happened next, but Buck and Molly say goodbye, and then they are on a boat out sailing with Sam and Dr. Brookes. So, Molly goes back to being autistic, but somehow it's a happy ending.

Okay, with all apologies to readers and friends who have mentally challenged relatives, this movie is retarded. First of all, Molly is really annoying and embarrassing and then she's a genius and she's still annoying and embarrassing! No one ever calls her on any of her behavior. Buck just lets her push the elevator buttons, dance in restaurants, crawl through audiences, etc.. Never once does tell tell her "Molly, NO! Stop it - people don't do things like that." He just lets her do whatever she wants, therefore she does the craziest things because she knows she can - and it's a hoot.

I think this movie was supposed to tug at your heartstrings, but it just made me laugh. A lot. So much that I cannot wait to see it again and again. A feel-good movie so laughably awful, you actually end up feeling good. 10 out of 10. Well done, Ms. Shue you have unknowingly created the comic performance of a lifetime. I love the multilayered MOLLY...she's just like an "Onion Girl".