Round and round and round and round…that’s how the theme to Roundhouse began. It was a staple in the early Saturday night line-up of Snick. For you babies, Snick was Nickelodeon’s special Saturday night line-up for kids like me who never went anywhere or did shit. This show really never made any sense to me but it seemed fun (when I was a mindless child).

I wonder if it will hold up with time as I watch the first full episode I’ve seen since childhood? (No)

Well, the show begins and has a live, Broadway feel with a studio audience. That’s the end of the similarities between Broadway and Roundhouse. Both have people.

The cast finishes singing the Roundhouse theme, as the band performs it with full rigor and spirit, the drummer bashing his cymbals like he’s performing with Metallica on stage. They all do such a great job, you can’t tell when the recorded part ends and their actual live singing begins. Because it doesn’t. But the audience is a TNA IMPACT wrestling audience and cheers, regardless of show quality.

A Latino male acts as though he is throwing up on women and all of the ladies sell it. So much is happening, I decide not to describe it all and simply will point out what I can. By the way, this show is garbage. It isn’t funny but its trying to be. The father rolls up in a motorized chair that was a big deal on the show (75% of the show’s $30 budget for the season was spent on this item).

Three guys and three girls perform a skit where they talk like extra-stereotypical stupid jocks. The guys say “Dude” every other word. A few people chuckle in the audience but most of them remain silent. By the end of the skit, the audience is completely silent.

In fact, at times, you forget their is an audience. For a show that is telling jokes at a Family Guy rate, that’s bad. This is in the early 90’s too, when no one was used to that annoying shit.

We get a bad musical then a commercial. We return to more musical action and the audience gives a smattering of applause. Then, this shit continues.

It wasn’t funny the first time so this time, the (bad) actors flex their expertise by doing bad British accents.

The skits in the cardboard TV continue with a faux commercial for Booger cereal. A few people laugh at this but its stupid by the time it’s finished.

More “Dude” centered action continues with all of the low-wage actors saying their lines in sync, shouting, and yes, dude is said too much.

Good TV…

A ribbon appears on the show titled “Nick at Night Good TV” appears. Within seconds of parents being assured that their children are in careful, watchful hands, the “Dad” jumps out of his chair and thrusts his dick at the camera.

This elicits a nervous laughter from the audience. Then, a man pretends to be an infomercial-announcer appears in a t-shirt-and-vest combination that reminded me of another  similarly dressed actor.

Can you imagine listening to The Dark Knight’s commentary and hearing Nolan say “We actually got the t-shirt and vest idea from Roundhouse.”?

Commercial (which gets cheers, because the captive theme park audience probably thought it was over) and we return to a black actor thrusting his pelvic region at the white actress in front of him. She is supposed to hold a black cardboard “censor” in front of this but sucks at her job and doesn’t do it in time.

There have been a lot of dick thrusts in this show, actually.

We return to comedy gold with the cardboard TV set and more skits. A young guy asks Dad for advice and Dad says “Wash your butt.”

Domestic violence is mimicked in a boxing scene between the Latino male and the 1950’s carhop he intends to date. He then (pretty harshly) tells her off and she starts a musical number that is poorly sang with lots ugly mugshots.

My ears are bleeding as the song continues and the lyrics repeat “I only wanna be me!” Dad and his Mexican son converse about the date and the entire crummy cast converges on stage for some ridiculous and ignorant looking dancing.

The credits actually roll for a length you would expect on a Star Wars movie and we are led to believe Roundhouse was filmed in high definition, but the word “Audio” is cleverly placed at the end of that phrase.

A man mutters at the end “Ahh, that’s good enough.” suggesting just the opposite for anyone not lazy and haphazardly into their work, but this episode of Roundhouse goes into the proverbial history books!