'You Want Me To Bring Six Girls Into My House?'

Those who listened to this week's Program Parole Board special of the Extra Hot Great podcast will have heard something kind of alarming: me, talking myself into purchasing DVDs of the failed musical series Rags To Riches to see how well or poorly it lined up with my vague early-teen memories of it.

Surprise! It's garbage. But the kind of fascinating garbage that's going to make me watch the whole series run and report on it for you, you're welcome. If you know zero about the premise of the show, you can listen to the above-linked podcast, or I can shorthand it for you: it's Six Annies meets Idiot Hairspray.

Let's start at the very beginning with the 96-minute pilot/movie, and run down its component parts, from best to FUCKING WORST.

1. Khandi Alexander

   When Nick starts to warm to the girls, he uses his connections as a nouveau riche vulgarian to arrange for their favourite band, The Supremes Delights, to play a private concert for them. This occurs at the girls' school, I guess because the production had already paid for the location and didn't feel like trying to get one of the hundreds of EVENT THEATRES in the GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA to let them shoot there. Anyway: one of the Delights is the great Khandi Alexander, who gets no dialogue and probably didn't even really sing any of the group's songs but is still the queen.


2. Carlotta

   Though the premise of the show is that Nick Foley needs to mitigate his reputation as a ladies' man by adopting these needy orphans, we never see him with anyone but this bitch Baroness Schraeder Carlotta. She's only hanging around Nick because he's rich; she's dubious about this whole scheme; and she's determined to get the girls out of Nick's house as soon as possible. Obviously, she's the only one in this whole show who's thinking clearly at all. Plus: that hair. It's as tall as her face!


3. Nina

   Nina would be my favourite even if she weren't played by Heather "90210's Surf Betty" McAdam because she's the only one who seems to evince any behaviour that's typical of a kid who grew up in the system (or whatever phrase people used in 1961): she latches on to Tommy, even though part of her knows he's probably not going to be great for her in the long run, because she thinks he's the only avenue she can use to escape her life. (And because he's a sweet-faced bad boy and she's a teenaged girl.) Naturally, then, Nina is the one who gets written out of the story between the movie and the series pickup. Nice knowing you, Nina! See you again next time Brandon Walsh has to save you from drowning because you were surfing drunk!


4. Marva

   Marva's played by Tisha Campbell (later Tisha Campbell-Martin), the only one in the cast apart from Joseph Bologna to retain any amount of name recognition, and it's clear why: she's loaded with star power and is by far the best singer. Her desire to pursue an MBA feels like a pointless Fox Force Five-type character note at this early stage, but maybe it will turn into something later? I GUESS I WILL SEE.


5. Rose

   Rose has the mostly thankless role of den mother, which means we don't really learn anything about her interests or personality, but which also means she doesn't get that many opportunities to be annoying.


6. Diane

   Diane's the one who's pretty sure she's destined to live a life of luxury and unquestioningly enjoys all the perks of living at Nick's, meaning she doesn't EVEN get a Fox Force Five attribute. However, her unbuttoned shirtdress-over-cigarette pants game is tight.


7. The Anonymously Evil Blonde Daughters Of Nick's Business Associate

   "[sigh] You're blocking the sun."

   "You guys are [sneer] orphans, aren't you?"

   Okay, got it. Kids with parents are assholes.


8. Patty

   Patty fell through the cracks, and now she's thirteen but reads at a first-grade level AND tells stories about the orphanage chef's dandruff. Rose describes her as talking like a truck driver. Remember Jo Polniaczek? Patty's Jo Jr.


9. Freddie

   A proto-Jason Alexander in Pretty Woman, Freddie serves the function of being the venal main guy's even more venal buddy. He's the one who comes up with the whole adoption PR move in the first place. And he's played by Bill Maher, so he's automatically a creep -- but at least he doesn't participate in any dance numbers, unlike some butlers I could mention.


10. Clapper

    Shut up, Clapper.


11. Nick

    Given the cockamamie premise, I guess Nick does his best, considering his first two days of parenting require him to commit to help teach Patty to read when her teachers never have, and also to RESCUE NINA FROM A BIKER GANG. He's a rich guy who changed his Italian surname to get ahead in business. He's got his own shit to work out without volunteering to take care of half a dozen dizzy girls, you know? He should have focused less on making his image more family-friendly and more on getting out of opera performances, if you ask me, but if he had, of course we wouldn't be here.


12. Rose's "Period Styling"

    Is Rose a time traveller? Because it's supposed to be 1961, but she looks like she's either wearing purchases from a Slaves Of New York garage sale or else Kimiko Gelman just never bothered to change out of her street clothes when she got to the set.


13. The Songs, In General

    Some have complained about how slapdash the musical numbers on Glee are, but (a) at least all those kids know how to do HARMONY, and (b) however rushed the choreography is, I'm pretty sure they never have to act like they've never seen a lawnmower before. Seriously, though: the singing is not great. I never thought I'd have reason to praise the stylings of the Nickelodeon/Disney-trained vocalists, with their age-inappropriate melisma, but at least they put some effort into sounding like they're doing something more intense than a school Christmas concert.

14. When Nick Finally Sings

    It's bad. And Joseph Bologna won't even mouth along to his own vocal track.

15. Carlotta's Third Act Sabotage

    Girl, I get that you want the girls out of Nick's life -- we all do. But telling them he's planning to ship them off to boarding school in the last moments before they're supposed to be the showcase of a big fancy party is just poor strategy, because of course they go apeshit and ruin the whole thing with their no-class orphanage manners (including Nina riding around on the motorcycle she suddenly has, snatching Nick's would-be business partner's toupee, for what feels like ten minutes). Crush their dreams AFTER they've served their purpose as props! EYE ON THE PRIZE, CARLOTTA, DO YOU WANT TO BE A KEPT BEL-AIR WIFE OR NOT.

16. Mickey

    This shithead. I understand the idea behind casting an adorable moppet to balance out all the hormonal psychosis of the teen girl characters. I just wish the producers had tried harder to find one. Heidi Zeigler's dead-eyed stare just raises concerns for the viewer that instead of foster care she should have been in some kind of in-patient mental health treatment, and she can't even sing. But I feel like all my objections to her character's existence are encapsulated below.