Somnopolis

You all know him of course. He usually plays lawyers, or doctors, a figure of middling authority. Perhaps he is so easy to cast in these roles because his bald head and spectacles suggest he is one of life’s middle managers.

Despite his vague appearance, Tobolowsky is something of an earworm, instantly familiar having appeared in over a hundred films and television shows since the early 80’s. Have a gander – Thelma and Louise; Basic Instinct; Seinfeld; CSI – Miami; Boston Legal; Freddy Got Fingered; Malcolm in the Middle; Garfield; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Deadwood; Heroes; Perry Mason; LA Law…

The list continues to grow, with a starring role in 1976’s Keep My Grave Open setting his career in motion.

Yet it was for his memorable scenes with Bill Murray in Groundhog Day that he is most remembered. Ned Ryerson, the insufferably annoying insurance salesman.

Ned… Ryerson. “Needlenose Ned”? “Ned the Head”? C’mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn’t graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?

What strikes me most about Tobolowsky is the genuine pride he feels for his career of walk-on bit-parts. He takes the time to fashion something memorable out of a cameo, without having the advantage of celebrity or a striking face. His scenes in Memento as Sammy – a key figure in helping us understand the dilemma of the protagonist, despite his story occuring in flashback – are heartbreaking and touching all at once. Then there’s Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party a documentary that focuses on the actor himself. He obviously enjoys a reputation as being a safe pair of hands, one who won’t steal the spotlight from the glitzy celebs, but at the same time will make a scene work and add that something extra.

Bringing us bang up to date is his performance as the music teacher cum registered sex offender Sandy Ryerson in Glee. Is Sandy a cousin of Ned’s? Or perhaps a long-lost brother who fled a dreary life in Punxsutawney for a glamorous existence treading the boards….as a music teacher in William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. His delivery of the line ‘Kill yourself!’ has had me chuckling for days.

Oh dear, oh dear. Harold Ramis, Michael Cera, Jack Black, Bill Hader, David Cross, Hank Azaria….they’re all capable of much more than this. (Vinnie Jones, not so much). Which makes it all the more baffling at how poor this film is. With an abundance of fecal jokes, Biblical parodies that are, even being kind, half-arsed and a plot that doesn’t so much wander as stall in the driveway.

Yet throughout I could not escape the impression that this was a 1980’s comedy that somehow only now made it out of the gate. In common with Spies Like Us it attempts to recapture the rambling humour of the Crosby and Hope ‘Road…’ movies. Also like Caddyshack it shares a childish toilet humour, Raimis being the common factor here. Yet this is the man who made Groundhog Day!

I believe this was a script slapped together in a stoned haze sometime after the National Lampoon days. Remaining on the back-burner all these years, maybe Raimis returned to it imagining it to contain some nugget of humour he could recapture. Maybe he just needed to fulfill a contractural obligation and flung this out. I don’t really know. There are frustrating hints of a clever idea here. Zed and Oh seem to live among a tribe of early Hunter/Gatherers, each poorly performing one of the functions respectively. As Oh points out, there are only two jobs. It turns out within the tribe’s territory lies the mythical Tree of Knowledge, from which Zed eats. This combining of evolutionary theory and Biblical myth is an interesting notion and following their expulsion, the pair encounter a host of figures from the Bible that coexist in a kind of condensed timeline – with Cain, Abel, Abraham, Isaac and the citizens of Sodom all lying in neighbouring territories.

Yet Raimis never does anything with this idea, merely churning out old Jewish jokes (’we’re not good at sports’). Cera and Black are stranded, with occasional improvs providing paltry relief from the tedium.

Comedy that goes bad can sometimes be the most disappointing, as its failure leaves little to enjoy. You can’t even spoof a dull spoof! (which is why I hate the Scary Movie franchise)

Bing!