Friday, February 6, 2009

Shortlived: The "New" Odd Couple


The original Odd Couple television series ran for five seasons and was still popular in syndication, so ABC planned a "New" (translation: black) version of the series to follow Benson (a favourite of mine) on Friday nights.

On paper this works, especially with the casting of Ron Glass as Felix, that's perfect. The problem was in it's laziness, many of the "New" Odd Couple's scripts were just recycled from the "Old" Odd Couple series!

The general public isn't stupid and can remember plots from a few years ago, so this new version quickly fizzled. Around the same time, the original stage play was being revamped with an all female cast. That's right, Felix and Oscar were now Sally Struthers and Rita Moreno. What an evening of entertainment that must have been.

I'd like to say to Hollywood, Why stop there? I mean surely we can milk this concept right to the ground, it's comedy gold! I mean really, the world needs a Bollywood Odd Couple, a reality series starring both Paris and Perez Hilton and I can't wait to see a Kevin James/Kevin Spacey big budget feature. Only I want Spacey as Oscar....

4 comments:

wee67 said...

I actually am surprised no one has tried to bring this back to TV. I'm sure there's a movie script somewhere in development in some studio's system.

BTW, you made me waste about 20 minutes at work, yesterday, watching an episode of Barney Miller on Youtube,

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see a stage version with Chris Hansen of Dateline MSNBC as Felix and Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs as Oscar.

rob! said...

Why not a Gay Odd Couple? Or a Red State/Blue State Odd Couple? Or Illegal Immigrant/Pro-Border Fence Odd Couple?

Or, best yet, a The Original Star Wars Trilogy/Prequels Were Better Odd Couple??

Plaidstallions said...

I'm gunning for a morbidly obese odd couple. They could play that one on TLC!