Monday, November 24, 2008

Spin Offs: The Tortellis


Spun from the loins of the mega successful "Cheers", "The Tortellis" is a good lesson for those wishing to make TV gold, sometimes interesting background characters don't make for interesting foreground characters. We've seen this on "Fish" , "The Ropers" and the entire career of Jack Black.

That's the big problem with "The Tortellis", while Carla's ex husband Nick (Dan Hedaya) and his freakish bride Loretta (Jean Kasem) made for funny episodes of Cheers, nobody really wanted to follow them around all day.

The show is set in Vegas, where Nick opens up a TV repair business, one episode centered around Nick having to eat a bug because of TV commerical boast. Not exactly the gang in Boston is it?

Despite a strong lead in with Night Court (which meant I was watching, I'll explain my Markie Post thing some other time) The Tortellis lasted a pitiful half season. Kind of a mercy killing really.

4 comments:

wee67 said...

I will quote myself from the After MASH comment (yes, i am that self-referential)-
"The crazy neighbor is funny, but give Gladys Kravitz her own show... well, I'm bored simply mentioning it."

rob! said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rob! said...

you have/had a thing for Markie Post? you must have loved 30 Rock last week...

Jon K said...

A Markie Post thing never has to be explained.