COMEDY REVIEW : Crazies Take ‘Bad & Ugly’ Literally

Every Orange County Crazies production revolves around a running series of spoofs of a well-known entertainment property but always including local references.

This time around, it’s “The Orange, the Bad & the Ugly.” The show, unfortunately, lives up to the title.

Gun-toting Western types, in the titular sketch, are all after the mother lode (the key to TRW’s credit code), so they can straighten out their bad records. It’s a clever premise that gets some chuckles but rarely goes beyond hinting at the humor it promises.

This is a restriction that faces most of the material. The Crazies’ very localized comic Orange juice is made from concentrate, without the tasty bits of pulp and rich flavor of freshly squeezed.

Some of the sketches make little point at all, such as “Pitch Bitch,” concerning a writer’s attempts to sell several off-the-cuff ideas to producers. They are the beginning of jokes without punch lines.

The funniest of this evening’s bits does find a punch line, though, with several healthy yuks along the way.

“Recessional Confessional” has Carmen Garduno at confession in a Catholic church, first surprised, then frantic, finally in an apoplexy of anger on finding not a priest, but a touch-tone panel that forces her to navigate her way through its interminable menus, beginning with: “To confess a venial sin, press 1. For a mortal sin, press 2.” Garduno’s timing and gradual build of energy make it work.

Another entry that pays off has a father advising his teen son on playing it safe. They both have different ideas on the subject, and the confusion is well-played by Guy Nelson and Rick Robison.

The “ugly” in the title can only refer to a tasteless routine in a DMV office run by a shady Asian shopkeeper type and his shrewish wife, visited by stereotypical ethnic applicants, including one actor in blackface, shades of Ted Danson. The humor is mindless, demeaning to its subjects and without any comically redeeming payoffs.

* “The Orange, the Bad & the Ugly,” Orange County Crazies, 115 E. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana. Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 18. $12-$15. (714) 550-9900. Running time, 2 hours, 30 minutes. Cherie Kerr, Toni Ala, Nick Coletto, Tom Collins, Drake Doremus, Rich Flin, Carmen Garduno, Eric Halasz, Jay Hewlett, Tami Lesser, Guy Nelson, Rick Robison, Don Wood.

An Orange County Crazies production. Written by the company. Producer/director: Cherie Kerr. Musical director: Jan Jordan. Costumes: Carol Thompson.