Is Jane White Sick & Twisted? Reviewed by Sue Limsukonth Ever feel like life should be more like a half-hour situation comedy complete with the laugh track but without the commercials? Want to take a pop culture roller coaster ride? See "Jane White is Sick & Twisted." Director David Michael Latt enlists some fairly well-known folks from sitcom and pop culture history like The Brady Bunch's Maureen McCormick and The Wonder Years' Alley Mills, not to mention a cameo by The Mamas & The Papas songbird Michelle Phillips, to partake in this odder-than-oddball project. "Jane White" is a skin-deep farce that compels you to suspend your disbelief much in the same way you suspend disbelief when watching, say, "Jerry Springer." But "Jerry Springer" is absurd because it keeps you guessing where the real people end and the acting begins. "Jane White" is written to be absurd. Kim Little (who also happens to be Latt's wife) plays Jane, a television junkie who cannot distinguish between reality and the artifice of the small screen. Jane believes that over-the-top, tabloid talk show host Gerry (modeled after none other than Springer) is actually her real father. She plots to "reunite" with her imagined father by appearing as a guest on his show. She impersonates a drag queen prostitute and even makes herself available for a potential alien abduction to get a spot on the show. In the end, however, things just don't seem to pan out like they do on television. At its heart, "Jane White" is an homage of sorts to classic and not-so-classic television shows. Latt offers up almost two hours of references to this two-dimensional world that is such a comfortable place to visit when not working, sleeping or driving somewhere. The cast is heavily populated with television actors playing stereotypical television characters. Little who shows her versatility as Jane, appeared on "Diagnosis: Murder." There is Jane's wholesome, yet agoraphobic American mother superbly played by "The Wonder Years'" Alley Mill. Another "Wonder Years" alum, Danica McKellar, appears as a white trashy talk show guest. The enjoyable supporting cast is filled with oddball caricatures that seemed to have stumbled in off of some John Waters soundstage: a buck-tooth delivery boy and a flaming drag queen motel receptionist among the most memorable. "Jane White" relies heavily on the television conventions it lampoons to build a framework for Jane's misadventures. There is the tabloid television talk show, the cardboard domesticity of Jane's family life and a flirtation with alien abduction reminiscent of X-Files and that old proto-tabloid gem "In Search Of." (Remember that one? Hosted by Leonard Nimoy?) Watching "Jane White" is like watching an old episode of "I Love Lucy." Lucy makes some bone-headed mistake that proves disastrous, yet unindelible. In the end, there is a happy ending and a sense of closure and no harm is done. "Jane White" is as light-hearted and daffy as any "I Love Lucy" episode, and parodies while celebrating television as a medium filled with happy endings. What's wrong with happy endings anyway? Copyright © 2001 De/Center Communications Inc.