This Week In Joe’s Basement, episode 05: Cooking By Committee

Sporting a trim haircut and a new T-shirt, Joe is disillusioned with hosting the show, and threatens to quit. Suddenly, Mark Audrain arrives with a surprise birthday cake. This triggers a retelling of the cake’s creation: Mark cooked it himself, with his assistant, the lovely Penelope. Every few minutes Mark’s evil twin interrupts the memory, laughing and hitting himself with broccoli. Penelope multiplies into eight or ten scruffy guys, who make a total mess of the kitchen. Anticipating David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Mark suddenly becomes Paul Birchall, who’s no tidier. What Penelope pulls out of the oven doesn’t even resemble a cake. Thankfully, Joe dumps it in the trash when Mark isn’t looking.AIR DATES:  January 2, 12, 23, 1990

Description:

Sporting a trim haircut and a new T-shirt, Joe is disillusioned with hosting the show, and threatens to quit.  Suddenly, Mark Audrain arrives with a surprise birthday cake.  This triggers a retelling of the cake’s creation:  Mark cooked it himself, with his assistant, the lovely Penelope.

Every few minutes Mark’s evil twin interrupts the memory, laughing and hitting himself with broccoli.  Penelope multiplies into eight or ten scruffy guys, who make a total mess of the kitchen.  Anticipating David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Mark suddenly becomes Paul Birchall, who’s no tidier.

What Penelope pulls out of the oven doesn’t even resemble a cake.  Thankfully, Joe dumps it in the trash when Mark isn’t looking.

Production Notes:

Joe would wear this red T-shirt advertising Valois Restaurant in every subsequent episode or Joe’s Basement appearance.  In 1992, he would field an agitated phone call from a Mr. Valois from another state who demands to know why his name is on TV without his permission.  In 1994, the original shirt would be destroyed during a live stage musical number called “Sugar, Fat and Caffeine.”