Comedy Bang! Bang! Review: “Jack Black"

“Jack Black” might be the most glaring example of Comedy Bang! Bang throwing together ideas that are sort of half-baked or unoriginal, and still turning out a pretty great episode. Anyone who is a fan of this show or of the podcast knew where most of these bits were going, but they somehow still worked, even when you could see the punchline coming from a mile away.

I think “Jack Black” pulls this off because it, at times, feels more like a series of callbacks than it does general laziness. For example, during Scott’s latest reality show “Nice Work, What a Jerk!,” where they see how people react to a person leaving their cell phone behind at a restaurant, I couldn’t help but feel like I had seen this before. That’s because the general conceit was used for “Tsk-Tsk or Attaboy.” Then for “Soap or Dope.” And “Winner or Sinner.” I know this because “Nice Work, What a Jerk!” just so happens to be a “Tsk-Tsk Attaboy/Soap or Dope/Winner or Sinner Production.” It’s still fun to see these reality shows escalate to weird points, even if it has been done over and over again on the show.

I’ve also found that Comedy Bang! Bang! episodes work best when they either have a very rigid structure or an incredibly loose one. “Jack Black” is very much on the latter scale, with Reggie proclaiming they’ll lose their stunt budget if they don’t fill the episode with plenty of stunts. Reggie has hired two stunt performers, Dead Eye Darrell Dean and Quiet Wyatt Tharp to do stunts throughout the show, yet they just want to rob Reggie and Scott for the money. Of course every time this concludes in a stunt, Scott willingly gives them the money they are owed. The stunt idea isn’t all that funny, but at least it gives us a bit of stunt casting, with Adam Scott as Plumber Pierre, who pops up occasionally for little-to-no reason.

I think it’s expected that when Jack Black appears on something, he has to be all high-energy and nuts, but thankfully Black is calmer and more subdued than usual for his first trip to the couch. He’s pretty funny when Scott asks him about King Kong’s bing bong and when a Reggie hologram spews pixellated milk from his third nipple all over the studio—but very little of this segment is funny due to Black himself. In fact, the highlight of the interview is a nice nod to the podcast, when Black tries to sing “Happy Birthday,” to which Scott mentions that they don’t have the rights to play that song. Damn you Patty and Mildred Hill, you old miserly crones!

Of course any episode with Paul F. Tompkins is a delight, especially since he’s appearing as J.W. Stillwater, fan boat mechanic by day, vigilante crime fighter by night. The biggest problem with bringing a known character to the show is trying to catch up the new audience on already-known facts about said character. This often seems to be a problem with Tompkins’ characters, which are filled with backstory. Stillwater’s appearance is mostly comprised of material that we’ve heard on the podcast, but there are some wonderful new moments thrown in, such as a discussion of different types of hammers. And when Scott says that no women probably watch the show, Tompkins replies “Ladies don’t get high?” It’s the perfect example of what always makes the Aukerman and Tompkins dynamic so great. Plus, with these two and Black together, it’s also a fun little Mr. Show reunion.
Even when an episode of Comedy Bang! Bang! doesn’t feel all that original, it can still pull off a fun time with tried-and-true elements that still work wonderfully when thrown together.

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Workers of the Union Pacific Railroad

The Andrew J. Russell Collection, The Oakland Museum of California

In the West

Construction got a slow start in Omaha, Nebraska, eastern terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. By April 1864 the jubilance of groundbreaking had long ago faded into the ether. Chief engineer Peter Dey continued to suffer setbacks in putting together his stalled project. Chief among these was a dearth of labor. Neither Dey nor the firms he wanted to reward with construction contracts could find enough men for the massive job. "It is impossible to do anything in the way of letting this work now without some provision for furnishing men," the engineer wrote to railroad executive Thomas Durant, adding that some provision must be made toward importing an army of men. Durant in turn asked the War Department to ship Dey some portion of those slaves freed by the ongoing Civil War. The government declined. Union General Grenville Dodge offered use of Indian prisoners from his winter campaign. But no practical solutions were forthcoming. By the end of 1865, only 40 miles of track had been laid across the inviting valley.

Veterans for the Railroad's Ranks
 
The end of the Civil War brought a change of fortune for the Union Pacific. Thousands of demobilized soldiers were eager for work. Additionally, by 1866 the railroad had managed to import Irishmen from the teeming cities of the eastern seaboard. Suddenly swarms of men surrounded Dodge, who had replaced the frustrated Dey as chief engineer. Joining him that winter in Omaha was construction boss Jack Casement.

Military Precision
 
Working in tandem with his brother, Dan, former Brigadier General Jack ran his men with a military precision that hinged upon the efficient division of labor. Teamsters piloted small horse-drawn carts along freshly-laid track. Men on either side of those carts unloaded rails and moved forward to place them parallel to one another on embedded ties. Gaugers stepped in to ensure the rails were the correct distance apart. Bolters knelt down to join the contiguous rails on either side of the track. Spike men followed behind, dropping spikes onto the grade. Hammer-wielders picked up the spikes, tapped them gently into the ties, then with three heavy strokes of the sledgehammer drove them home, securing the rail to its bed. Teamsters drove their carts forward along the new track, and the whole process repeated itself again and again, an assembly line moving forward on the product it assembled. Behind the workers followed flat cars loaded with supplies, and behind those the portable bunkhouses in which workers resided. On average Casement's men finished nigh on two miles a day. On occasion General Jack was known to complete mind-boggling stretches of much greater length.

Working on the Railroad
 
Pay varied according to responsibility. Teamsters and graders received the least, while the iron men got the healthiest sum of anybody save their foremen. Like their Irish counterparts on the Central Pacific, the Union Pacific men had a staple diet of beef, bread, and black coffee. Water-borne illness was often a serious concern. Personal hygiene was all but unheard of. The men slept together on bunks in the rolling fortresses Casement had designed for them the previous winter. They were tight quarters in which conditions could be squalid. "To tell the truth, we were troubled by 'cooties,'" remembered one veteran of the crews. Also troubling were fears of the Native Americans across whose land the laborers built their road. There were Native American snipers, raids, livestock rustlings, scalpings, and burnings all along the railroad right of way. Indian sightings sufficed to spook men, and line surveyors did not always return from their routes. News of the slaughter of troops at Fort Philip Kearny on December 21, 1866, "the Fetterman Massacre," was enough to convince many a worker there were better ways to earn a living.

Hell on Wheels
 
In the early days of construction there was little to keep the men entertained but liquor. Many attacked it with a passion. Purveyors of entertainment, including those who were in the business of selling vice, found a captive audience. As the railroad progressed westward, the phenomenon called Hell on Wheels followed in close pursuit -- saloons, gambling houses, and brothels opened their doors at the end-of-track towns that sprouted along the route, and prospered from the hard-earned cash of the Union Pacific laborers.

Game of Thrones