TV: ‘Off Their Rockers’ mixes it up

By Rose Troyer | rt283210@ohiou.edu
Off Their Rockers airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC.

Betty White and her crew of misfit oldies are back again this Wednesday at 8 p.m. on NBC. The humor continues, but not necessarily with much change in the scenarios.  Again we see the lady who sits down among young men who talks about the party last night, but this time she talks about how she ended up in a hot tub with this young man and what he lacked in experience he made up for in stamina. She then had to get up and leave because she was feeling kind of sick. This is the same situation as the stewardess who was hung over from the night before and didn’t want to do her job.

Just when I thought it was going to be a series of repetitive situations from the past weeks, though, they come back with a new one. In a supermarket, an old woman asks a young guy what he has in his basket. She looks at one thing, says, “Oh, I don’t like those,” and puts it back. Then she grabs something else and says, “But these I like.”  Then she walks off with the items of his basket that she liked. I loved this prank; I thought it was hilarious! I imagined myself walking around Wal-Mart and a little old woman walking up and taking my groceries from my cart; there is no way I would say anything to her, I would go back to that aisle and replace what she took.

Next up is Betty White before the commercial break. I wasn’t really impressed with the “joke” they had her start out with this week. She comes on talking about how all of their pranks are tested for safety and then a man walks out and hands her a crossbow.  Would you believe that she shot it, and the man screamed like he got hit?  Because that is what happened; then she says that prank is one they won’t use. Betty White is on again when they return from the commercial break and this time she is chilling by a pool. A young attractive man holding a pool skimmer walks out in a speedo, and Betty White tells him to come back tomorrow so he can actually clean the pool. I guess it really doesn’t matter how old you are — jokes about sex never seem to go out of style.

In case you were worried that the man from earlier in the show was the only one being harassed in the supermarket by the old lady thief, worry no more. She comes back for more in another small skit where she asks a woman where she got the items in her basket, and then walks off with them. This prank might never get old for me; I just find it so humorous, because I cannot picture anyone actually trying to stop the old woman.

The next prank was priceless; I loved it. Two old men are standing behind a pole, not exactly hidden but out of the way, and are looking at twenty dollars lying on the ground. A group of about three people are standing there, looking at the money on the ground. When one daring young girl finally goes for it, the old men pull it away at the last second.  The old men lose it laughing, as does the girl and her friends standing by watching. It was pretty classic, but not something you really see outside of the world of television.

Betty White comes on again for a ten second clip of her doing a crossword and she says that it’s a four-letter word, “something that hangs from a pole.” Then she says it could be a flag, but it’s probably a slut and then writes slut on her crossword in pen. Betty White stands strong to her sexual jokes and the next two times you see her she tells a joke involving something sexual. It’s not something I really expect from “old” people. Betty White is then shown meditating, and the girl beside her is in an interestingly awkward position. The girl asks Betty what she will get in this position and Betty responds with, “A lot of dates.”

Although Betty White isn’t the one doing the pranks, her crew of humorous oldies always pull through. Towards the end of this episode there were a lot of really short pranks. My favorite ones involved an old man who falls asleep in his wheelchair and then goes in circles on the sidewalk; an old woman walking away from a spray painted car that read, “HOPE SHE WAS WORTH IT” while saying, “That’ll teach him”; and two nuns inviting a young couple to a mixer and telling them to get there before midnight because that is when the wet T-shirt contest starts.

The final scene with Betty White and her co-stars does not lack in the sex factor as an old man steps up beside a stripper pole and takes his shirt off as two other ladies start throwing one dollar bills at him. Betty White says goodbye but lets us all know that the party is not over.

And when it comes to Betty White, the party will hopefully be kicking for many more hilarious years to come.