Take Queen For A Day, that vintage radio and TV game show where someone with a hard-luck story got the royal treatment, and sprinkle in Candid Camera so that the person being feted doesn't know he's on TV. That's the premise of TV Land's latest foray into original programming, Make My Day. Judging by the charming first episode, if they can find personable-enough unsuspecting do-gooders, this little show has the potential to deliver a lot of delight week after week.
They may have led with their ace. John Castellano is a Staten Islander, avid guitarist, and league bowler who owns a music shop and loves the New York Giants and The Sopranos. The show opens with a montage of John's civic activities and details the set-up: With the help of John's family and co-workers, they've set up fifty hidden cameras all over his daily routine — in his bedroom, breakfast nook, bathroom (only for scenes of brushing teeth … so far), front yard, music store, and in the cars and locations to which he will be whisked away on his adventures. It's the half-hour format and the multiple cameras in each setting that make Make My Day work. The editing between shots is zippy, and the fly-on-the-wall perspective is enhanced with a kind of Mission: Impossible-esque ubiquity.
In this premiere episode, John starts his day by encountering a blond ("statuesque," he emphasizes to his co-workers later) who's having car trouble in front of his house. After pushing her car off the street (and dinging the secret camera van in the process), she gives him Eric Clapton tickets and asks him for a quick ride to her job as a concert promoter. While John's telling this story to the music store staff, wide receiver Amani Toomer (still a New York Giant as of filming, but a Kansas City Chief as of this Tuesday) comes into the store and asks for a quick guitar lesson from a delighted John Castellano, who insists on giving the football star the guitar of his choice with "the full Castellano package." Toomer leaves him with an autographed football. "Did you feel his hands? His hands were soft!" John exclaims to his employees.
Then the cell phone that Toomer "accidentally" left in the store goes off. Would John please bring it to him? John hops in Toomer's Town Car and gets chauffeured to a bowling alley where Toomer happens to be rolling some frames with Vincent Pastore, "known on The Sopranos as Big Pussy," the narrator informs us with a distinct lack of inhibition. They invite John to join them, naturally ("People were so upset when you got killed, 'cause, you know what, you're a very likeable character," John earnestly informs Pastore), and the action escalates when Pastore insists on gambling with the two sharps in the next lane (actually professional bowlers). "How about one frame for a thousand dollars?" he suggests, alarming John: "Oh no, don't do that!" he warns, adorably frightened. But naturally he beats the pro's 9 pins with a strike.
Back at the music store, John seems to be onto the setup. "They had somebody behind there knocking down my pins," he muses. But he concludes that Toomer is the culprit, doing something nice for him to pay him back for the free guitar. Then he's off to the city to watch Toomer and Pastore film some public service TV spots for New York tourism. He calls his wife while riding there with his daughter and tries to explain the day he's having: "Long and short of it, I wind up in the bowling alley bowling with Big Pussy for a thousand dollars!"
At the commercial shoot, the actor who's supposed to be selling hot dogs and announcing Vincent Pastore's presence can't get his lines right. So who should Pastore call upon but his good friend John Castellano, who reads the cue cards with wonderful panache, and clearly relishes being dressed up as an apple and clowning around with Toomer and Pastore. Watching the playback, though, John sees not the commercial he thinks he's just filmed, but the hidden camera footage from his whole day. The big reveal culminates with all the actors and everyone else who was in on the joke gathering on the set and giving John a big round of applause.
I must admit that I've got a goofy smile on my face just thinking about this show. It's small-scale — no huge Extreme Makeover: Home Edition dramatics, more like Cash Cab. And like the latter, you just have fun rooting for this nice person and watching them trying to figure out their sudden good fortune. The narration might be just a bit on the intrusive side, but for the most part, the show has figured out how to make this premise into half an hour of guaranteed good times.
Grade: A-
Stray observations:
– John tries to explain to his daughter that he won't be able to explain this to anyone else: "I don't think I have any friend that I can tell this story in its entirety, sans embellishment."
– The free guitar clearly wasn't part of the plan, but Toomer plays along and accepts it graciously. It's telling that the narrator never mentions it, though. Still, it's proof once again: When you're rich and famous, you get free stuff. (Pastore? Free beer at the bowling alley, I'm betting.)