Season 1 • Episode 7
LatestJon Cryer plays "Slippy" Carter, an arrogant investment advisor who is tired of "nickel and dime accounts" and dreams of being on Nelson Rockefeller's payroll. Instead, he has to content himself with the likes of Hebert J. Foster (Nick Blake), a mild-mannered produce clerk living in a modest neighbourhood with his strait-laced wife and a young daughter. Carter and his assistant (Katie Wolfe) are in for a surprise when they discover that, appearances to the contrary, Foster is really a millionaire. The upstanding citizen and model husband and father has been concealing his true circumstances from his wife in order to be able to justify his weekend job - playing jazz piano at the Bluebeat Cellar, a smoke-filled, slightly seedy dive.
Kurt Vonnegut, the author of a collection of short stories called "Welcome to the Monkey House", hosts a series that displays dramatizations of several of his short stories. The anthology series aired on Showtime network from 1991 to 1993. The first three stories were produced as a television pilot in British Columbia, Canada, and broadcast together from 9:00–10:30pm on May 12, 1991. The later four were filmed and produced in New Zealand in 1992, as a co-production with South Pacific Pictures.
Writing
Vonnegut's prose preserved, not adapted into oblivion
Acting
Madeline Kahn's gloriously unhinged committed performances
Production
Jarring Canada-to-New Zealand aesthetic whiplash
Creator
Kurt Vonnegut
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'Monkey House' title story was inspired by Vonnegut's brother's work on population control in India—family dinner must've been fun.
This aired the same year as Twin Peaks' second season, making 1991 peak 'what is premium cable even doing' energy.
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