Once upon a time in the New York area, there was a man who called himself Crazy Eddie. He ran a chain of electronics stores and became locally famous for screaming TV ads building to the final declaration that “His prices are in-sane!”
Unfortunately, Crazy Eddie did not live happily ever after. The real Eddie turned out to be a crook and a fraud whose life and business collapsed.
Victoria “Sando” Sandringham (Sacha Horler), the central character in the new Australian sitcom Sando, is a little like Crazy Eddie without the crimes.
She runs a chain of discount furniture stores named Sando’s that have spread across Australia, and she stars in a series of carnival barker-style TV ads that are low-budget and in their own way rather memorable. Meanwhile, her personal life hangs by tattered threads.
Sando, a six-episode series, becomes available Monday on the streaming service Acorn.
We learn very quickly that while Sando may not be cooking the books, she has fouled up almost everything else in her life, notably her family.
Since the furniture chain is a family business – started by Sando’s mother, significantly, as an upscale boutique – there’s a downside to making yourself the family pariah.
Credit Sando with this, however: She didn’t do it in a subtle manner.
In the opening scene of the first episode, Sando is seated at the wedding of her daughter Susie (Krew Boylan) when she gets a message on her phone confirming that she’s pregnant. Her baby daddy is Kevin (Firass Dirani), who at the moment is standing at the altar about to marry Susie.
Awkward.
A few months later Sando and Kevin are the parents of Susie’s new half-brother Eric (Dylan Hesp), a well-meaning dolt who is quite attached to Sando.
The main story begins ten years after the wedding. Susie has married the chiseled statue Gary (Uli Latukefu), who also doesn’t qualify for Mensa, and she's left the family business to start her own online company, except after several years she’s still trying to get it actually started.
Meanwhile, Susie’s best friend Nicky (Adele Vuko) is having a secret affair with Susie’s father and Sando’s ex, Don (Phil Lloyd).
So yes, folks, we got us a wacky sitcom, rotating around a loud, self-centered woman who we know from a thousand previous sitcoms, usually as the intrusive mother who never shuts up.
There’s some Arrested Development here. Some AbFab as well, and a little Roseanne, too.
For a plot, there’s this: Tony (Rob Carlton), the CFO of Sando’s company, is scheming behind her back to have the board kick her out.
That forces her to try mending family fences. It also makes her a tiny bit sympathetic, a feeling she constantly undercuts through her behavior. She lies all the time, and her default position in every situation is to place herself first and let everyone else fight for anything left over.
Horler plays the role perfectly, letting other characters get a piece of, and thus enhance, the comic action. She’s the reason Sando rises a modest cut above your average wacky sitcom.
It’s not in-sane. At its best, it’s cheerfully nuts.