The Comedian

Comedian Sandy Webb is teaching a comedy work shop at the school and even Mr Dyrenforth is attending classes. However conflict occurs and Sandy sees Danny & Chris perform at Lou's Lanes and steals some of their material which he passes off as his own during a TV appearance.

Meanwhile Reggie's natural humour makes it difficult for her serious roles and music seriously. 

This episode is okay but it’s not particularly a favourite of mine. The issue of stealing other peoples material is interesting but I find it difficult to believe  that the comedian would steal jokes from Danny and Chris. Maybe because I personally don’t find many of the jokes funny so struggle to see why anyone would want to steal them. I can't actually tell the difference between the jokes everyone laughs at and the ones that no one laughs at.

Sandy is supposed to be a big well known comedian surely he’s got quite a bit of old material to fall back on if his new stuff isn’t working on the TV show so him stealing from Danny and Chris seems a little far fetched to me. Also as he's supposed to be much older than Danny and Chris would jokes about his parents divorce really get him a laugh? 

Maybe the story would have worked better if Danny and Chris were the ones using other people’s material in their act and need to learn a lesson about ethics.

There are a number of stories happening in this episode and I don't feel any of them get the full attention prehaps they deserve. Danny's mothers traumas about meeting with his Father seem to be there only to highlight where he is getting his material for his jokes from.

I'm also a little confused about the time line here because it is mentioned  a couple of times that Danny's parents have been seperated for 6 months but this is episode 17 of season 5 and Danny’s parents split up in episode  16 of season 4 “Parent’s Week”.  The air dates show these 2 episode where screened over 13 months apart so how come only 6 months has supposed to have passed.

Anway the resolution to this story seems for Danny to just deal with it, because everyone is going to be ripped off, which just seems like an odd lesson to have to learn.

The same problems seems to be true of Reggie's story too as we don't get any real sense of why she makes everything into a joke and so that story doesn't work for me at all. Actually I'm with Sherwood in the sense that I don't find Reggie in the slightest bit funny. The forced attempts at humour while she's singing for Shorofsky and in Sherwood's class just make me cringe!

Lydia suggest that Reggie is hiding behind the comedy but that part of the story is ignored and we never really discover from Reggie why she's acting in that way. There is a quick resolution in that Danny shouts at her and suddenly that changes her whole attitude.

I do like the conversation between Danny and Shorofsky when Danny decides he wants to switch his majors and Shorofsky is convinced Danny will make a great comedian. Personally I don't have Shorofsky's faith in Danny but I like the scene anyway.

I love the music in this show as there are 3 good songs which are probably the best parts of the episode. I’m not sure if it is intentional or even what the reason for it is but both “sparks” and “Bring Back The Fire” have a fire connection. “Bring Back The Fire” is my favourite of the 3 and Carlo gives an excellent performance.

Jesse and Nia work really well together as always on “Sparks” but why couldn’t the song finish properly instead of people talking over the end. They talk over so many of the songs in season 5 and I find it irritating. Also suddenly all the chairs and tables tables at Lou’s have been moved so people can dance. 

I'm a little confused why Mr Dyrenforth introduces Sandy to the other teachers by saying he will be teaching a comedy workshop at the school and shows interest in joining himself because at the start of the episode the work shop is already in session.

Also I’m not sure why Nicole is even in the comedy workshop. She has never shown any interest in comedy before. Obviously Nia doesn’t have that large a part in this episode so they are using her in the back ground.  I personally don’t feel it’s realistic for her to be in these scenes, so to me it spoils the episode's credibility. However by now the logic of why students are actually in the classes we see them in has completely gone out of the window.

Original  air date in U.S.A 22nd March 1986

Original  air date  in U.K. on The Children's Channel  Broadcast early 1993.

Original air date in Italy 26th September 1987

Original  air date in France 01st March 1996