United Paramount WWE Network: Steve Austin on Dilbert

Previously In Untitled Paramount WWE Network…

We last looked at Star Trek: Voyager which proved to be one of the more popular non-WWF shows during this time. The Rock’s elbow drop on the ratings proved so successful that it opened the flood-gates for the rest of the roster to get shoe-horned into other TV shows, even the animated ones.

Dilbert

Season 2 Episode 17 – The Delivery

June 13th 2000

Guest Star: Steve Austin

I imagine any younglings reading this in 2026 will see Scott Adams’ name and be shocked to hear a very unstable individual had one of the most popular newspaper strips of the 1990s. I imagine more people nowadays will know Adam’s Dave Sim-esque self-inflicted meltdown than the strip itself and if someone mentions an “animated Dilbert” they’ll probably think about those weird Flash animations.

I liked Dilbert because I watched anything animated when I was young. If there were no cartoons, I’d watch claymation. If there were none of them, around I’d stare at a clock so I could see the hands animate. As a critique of management and business, I suspect the animators knew this would be a hard thing to thrill family audiences so they went balls out for the intro sequence which I still remember after decades of not thinking about.

Apparently the theme is a re-do of Oingo Bongo’s Forbidden Zone. Elfman could do worse than homaging himself.

Whereas the first season was based around a multiple episode saga regarding the Gruntmaster 6000, the second season is composed of standalone episodes which enabled UPN to shove more cameos into the show because you can’t ruin the plot if there isn’t one.

Weird to have a cameo appearance network tie-in with your most popular show in this shared demo but wait until the last episode of the season to air it. Then again, the entire second season was stuffed with cameos from Jackie Hoffman, Wayne Knight, Andy Dick, Jerry Seinfeld etc. so Austin probably had to queue just to get into the recording booth.

The show is a mix of cynical office jokes and kinda-forced wild moments involving Dogbert so the producers could have the animated characters doing animated things. Without them the show would look like an episode of Clutch Cargo. I’m maybe being overly critical because there’s a few laugh out moments on the show which is a lot more than I’ve had watching similar animated crap. The show never seems to land the big joke at the end of a segment or episode but the incidental dialogue is as contemptuous as the comics so it’s at least consistently funny while also feeling forced in other aspects.

We’re in the second half of a two-parter and Dilbert is pregnant with alien babies.

OK now we’re up to date with the plot we can watch the episode. Dilbert is getting his CAT scan at an Italian restaurant. He’s not happy when the waiter draws his baby as still life fruit. When he’s asked for a real doctor, he is told his insurance doesn’t cover it. A long way to go for that health insurance joke.

Dilbert heads to work to declare himself a pregnant woman. It’s funny seeing this plot point be presented by a right wing guy who didn’t mean anything by it other than “wouldn’t it be funny if Dilbert got mpreg?” Dilbert’s boss doesn’t care enough about him to hive a shit about his new gender identity which is the funniest 90s response to something like this. However, Dilbert is furious about the lack of maternity leave in his current role.

“Don’t get your over-sized panties in a bunch, you’ve got about a good month before your performance goes to Hell and I fire you. You should have thought about before turning into a freak of nature!”

“They spelled the word wrong but we know what they’re trying to say.”

Dilbert’s colleagues debate on what Dilbert will give birth to before naturally starting to beef with his female colleague because as Booker T has taught us anything it’s that “women inherently hate one another.”

Dilbert goes to Catbert to complain but he’s evil so he declines any maternity leave, preferring to get high on catnip which gives us an extended animated excuse to draw a very happy cat person running around.

Dilbert decides to try appearing on a TV talk show to get money via exploitation. Until being told that a pregnant man with alien babies isn’t enough of a draw for TV anymore. “If your mother steals your boyfriend, call me.” OK that was good, late 90s talk shows were the lowest things on Earth.

Dilbert instead heads to a Literary Agent who takes him to a media centre. “It’s Not The News Until We Make It” blares their slogan. They decide to manufacture news about the situation to get people reacting to things while oversaturating the news feeds. Yeah can’t relate to any of this funny 90s show, be more foreboding.

Dilbert becomes an overnight talking point and gets ready for an in-person interview, only to be notified there’s a pregnancy hearing tomorrow and they have the TV rights. “We’re calling it IT’S A WOMB-DERFUL STRIFE.” Dilbert lets his baby know he’s going to be there for it, unless the other parent is better in which case Dilbert will stand aside.

If this all sounds manic so far, don’t worry it’s time for Judge Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Dilbert remarks that he doesn’t want this to turn into a farce, before Stone Cold’s name is called out and we get a really sweet and surprisingly accurate Austin entrance. We get the glass shattering, the signs and a stunner to the reporter.

I recommend you look at the clip above if you haven’t seen this before (or even if you have) to appreciate the effort they put into making that look as authentic as possible. The only shame is the Jimmy Hart version of the theme song blaring out.

Dogbert informs Dilbert they forgo their rights for a real judge but they got one with great demos. “Justice didn’t do well with the focus groups.” Yeah sure mock the idea of having a cameo to help your demos while you’re actually having a cameo to help your demos.

Judge Austin drinks a few Steveweisers before expositioning the plot while not laughing. The aliens and hillbillies that make up Dilbert’s partners argue and I know they explained it earlier but it still doesn’t make for good comedy. More like they were trying to poke fun of so many things at once it became tough to tie together.

“OK let’s begin the character assassination” says Steve Austin as the characters talk which includes a cow crying on the stand. “I’ve heard enough!” thanks Steve Austin.

Dilbert makes a dramatic speech about caring about his baby like it’s the last seven hours of Death Stranding. Austin flips off Dilbert and tells him he lost custody. Dilbert runs away from Austin like he’s one of his exs and escapes the court room.

While being chased, Dilbert starts to give birth in Dogbert’s car. His water breaks and fills up the vehicle. I’m guessing they could only get away with that because it wasn’t a woman. The baby is an amalgam of Dilbert and his many parents so Dilbert does the sensible thing of sending it into space away from the greedy other parents. Dilbert rejects a billionaire’s offer to buy it and off it goes…right into a Superman joke with the alien landing on Krypton. And that’s how the episode ends, on an awkward non-joke reference. Huh.

Well I loved the design of Steve Austin, managing to be the biggest man on the planet while also built like a Lego character. He’s like a giant man-suit you strap yourself in and wander around for a bit.

Austin’s appearance here I guess was making fun of other TV judges at the time, which only barely comes through with the material because the show itself was doing the same thing. I remember the show being a lot better than this episode which felt like it was running away from the writers the entire time. Some nice cynical jokes about health care and the media, then the rest of the episode was an odd blur of things not working but doing so very quickly.

Also wow, remember how fast plots went in the 90s? Look at all the shit that happened in twenty minutes. They even thought they could try and make it emotional at the end too!

Fantasy Booking

Hard to say outside of somehow shoving Dilbert into a wrestling match so he could get ownership of his kid. Vince McMahon laughing along with Catbert in the crowd could work for two seconds. And then something else could happen.

Ratings

1.74 million viewers which isn’t as bad as the lowest that season (1.3) but really bad given the highs of the first season (6.79).

What was happening on Smackdown this week?

The one with Samuel L. Jackson showing up in character as Shaft. Oh and Angle vs. The Rock.

Overall

I watched Dilbert as a kid and again as an adult-who-knows-better because the one-liners and cynical moments made me willing to overlook the oddness of the rest of the show. You could save time by just reading the comics nowadays I guess. How do you read Dilbert now anyway?

Here’s Scott Adams’ thoughts on the show ending:

It was on UPN, a network that few people watch. And because of some management screw-ups between the first and second seasons the time slot kept changing and we lost our viewers. We were also scheduled to follow the worst TV show ever made: Shasta McNasty. On TV, your viewership is 75% determined by how many people watched the show before yours. That killed us.

Here’s Dilbert’s thoughts on Scott Adams ending:

lmao he dead

Next week: Shasta The Showkiller McNasty.

I’ve been Maffew