Former cultural footnote Howie Mandel has a new show, one that doesn’t involve inflating a latex glove and stretching it over his head in order to impersonate a rooster (ask your parents). This is a shame, as even 42 minutes of bad poultry gags would be better than this televised abortion. The premise: Howie Mandel, disguising himself in various wigs and glasses, pulls pranks on the general public, much like “Candid Camera”, “Punk’d”, or “Mad Money with Jim Cramer”. The theme song, naturally: “This is How We Do It” by the ever-popular Montell Jordan. As a shitty pun, it may be the cleverest thing about the show.
The first gag I got to “enjoy” involved some contestants on a fake game show (therein lies the gag) being interviewed by Paula Abdul, who also happens to be pranking her own career by participating on the show. I believe the gag here was that the contestants were required to answer Paula’s questions in a stupid voice. CUTTING EDGE OF HILARITY HERE, FOLKS. It’s unclear whom the trick is being pulled on: Paula, the contestants, or the viewing audience at large. It couldn’t be Paula Abdul – she hasn’t been lucid enough to be embarrassed since her MC Skat Kat days (ask your older siblings), and the show isn’t meta enough to pull a prank on the audience itself, so it follows that the contestants actually agreed, post-making-them-look-like-assholes, to permit this nonsense to be televised. The pranks ends when Mandel jumps out, removes an unnecessary disguise, his bald head gleaming in the stage lights, and tells them they’re all on television. Hooray, what a fabulous con! Making people look stupid! On television! Oh, and Paula stands around in a pill-induced haze until the cameras cut away. One can only assume that her first question after the cameras went off was, “Why does Patrick Stewart keep showing up and fucking with me?”
The other prank I can remember them pulling involves a girl who locks her keys in her car. Howie, again clad in a wig, tells an associate to break her car window to extricate the key, and he does. She is, understandably, flipping her shit. All of a sudden Howie pulls off his wig and glasses, grinning like an idiot. It takes her a while to stop freaking out and notice that the parking attendant looks different than before. She pauses, wondering angrily who this newly bald asshole thinks he is, when it cuts to her screaming, “Oh my God, it’s Howie Mandel!” One assumes that they cut in order to explain to her who Howie Mandel actually is. “No, he’s that dude from “Bobby’s World.” And the rooster thing. Oh, and that briefcases and whores show – “Deal or No Deal”.” It would be nice to have a little more cultural relevance than Howie fucking Mandel before you go smashing the windows of innocent bystanders.
I think, however, the best part of the prank is the resolution to the dilemma. There is none. They basically cackle, “Ha ha, we pranked the FUCK out of that bitch!” and switch to something new. I couldn’t even tell whether they were planning on fixing the damage they did, or just leaving it at a broken window and a chance to appear foolish on television. What an opportunity. Again, what’s so puzzling is that all of these people signed releases in order to appear on the show. They agreed, after the fact, to look like dumbasses in front of the entire goddamn world in order to further Howie Mandel’s career. I would take that deal! Wait, shit, I’m confusing his shows. He sure fooled me! And I guess that, indeed, is Howie Do It.
VERDICT: Those people that always told me that television was the devil? I think they were right.
~ Jim Martin
