I think if you remember this show you were likely a kid in the mid seventies as that had to be it's biggest audience. Premiering on my birthday (classy!) in 1976, the series followed the adventures of Alexander Holmes, a man luckless with partners until he's teamed up with YoYo (John Schuck), who just happens to be a robot.
The show had the same producers as "Get Smart", so it's essentially the "Hymie the Robot" show without the crisp writing. Many of the episodes as I recall had some laughs based on YoYo mechanics, one episode had him stuck in reverse during the climax. John Shuck actually left MacMillan and Wife for this and after it was yanked, he tried another fantasy sitcom with 1979's "Turnabout" more on that later...
Anyone who knows me, knows that I grew up on SCTV and remain somewhat obsessed with it to a fault. So it's no surprise that I was excited to hear that Global TV is airing an animated "Bob and Doug" pilot tomorrow based on the two men that made "eh" famous and noticable to all you hilarious Americans who have pointed it to me over the past two decades. Getting off topic, I also love the discussion where you tell me one American dollar can buy a car in Canada. You guys kill me, you really do...
To be honest, I was really a bit reserved, this is 25 years after Strange Brew killed "Hosermania" ( it should be co-packed with "Brain Candy") and well, I worried it was going to be another failed attempt to recapture past glory like "Blues Brothers 2000" or "Coneheads" (Man, I'm sticking it to Dan Ackroyd today) but I'm more encouraged by this preview I found at Quick Stop.
While the show is cheapie flash animation, it also seems to have a bit of a weird edge to it that I'm happy to see. One of my big complaints about "Chilly Beach" was that it was terribly bland and yet proclaiming itself proudly Canadian, so we need a little Bob and Doug to change set things straight.
Secondly, I saw the show and did enjoy it, it's pretty fast paced and has a large cast of quirky characters surround the boys so the series isn't just relying on 25 year old catch phrases. I don't think last night's episode was a great premier show as it didn't really introduce the characters all that well.
Doug has always been my favourite brother, mostly because Dave Thomas plays as such a weird, borderline abusive guy. The scene where he had to go through "Janitor Hazing" was a real highlight.
If I had to compare it to something, I'd say the Critic, it's got a lot of wit and seems to love movie parodying and I think it will have the same life span. I liked it better than "Shut Up, Sit Down" which also premiered last night. That surprised me considering the amount of talent behind that series.
Charles Dickens masterpiece "A Christmas Carol" is a yule tide tradition and of course, sitcoms ripping it off is also a tradition. It's a cheap way to make a quick buck before going to the Hollywood rap party. So I thought I'd present the greatest rip off adaptation of a Christmas Carol ever made, "Ebenzer Sanford".
The line about "Heart full of Christmas, face for Halloween" still makes me laugh...
Last week, Rob (from the wonderful Aquaman Shrine) suggested to me that John Amos from Good Times would be TVs scariest pop and I thought it would be an interesting topic. James Evans was the first TV dad that I can remember that genuinely yelled at his kids, I remember not liking his character much as a young padawan. He never truly scared me though, maybe it was the fact that he threatened and yelled so damn much. He never belted the kids like he promised too and I always got the feeling Florida kind of ruled that house in a kind of "Lady MacBeth" way. If this wasn't solely a blog about sitcoms, I'd have to give the title to Guy Williams, the Dad on "Lost in Space". Something about Guy's performance on that show scared me, he never seemed to comfortable working with kids.
But for me, TVs scariest dad had to be Dan Lauria from the Wonder Years. It wasn't what he did but what he didn't do that I found, well, realistic. I admired the show and Lauria for this portrayal, he's the most realistic TV father I've ever seen.
Jack Arnold had an air of quiet malevolence, his family tiptoed around him, he hated his job and he had a temper. Also, he looked like a real "Dese, Dose and Dem" type!While it wasn't anything quite like my homestead, I have to say that the Wonder Years hit me at home more than once with this guy.
The 1980's saw CBC with one of it's bigger successes in 1981 with "Hangin' In" which revolved around a Toronto drop in center. It was slice of life comedy that didn't get too whacky or insulting, it's Monday night lead into "Newhart" was prime and the series lasted 6 years.
I had an arial around that time, so I watched the series pretty regularly but for the life of me I can't remember much about it other than I didn't mind it.
Which is not the case with Snow Job, which I had a clever alternative name for (try and guess). Snow Job wasn't funny, at all. Set in a Quebec ski lodge, the show tried hard to be both funny and Canadian, they didn't do either. It limped along two years and had Tony Rosato (fresh from Saturday Night Live and SCTV) as a guest star. Laughless!
CTV followed up with Check It Out, which was from the same UK TV Producer that made the original versions of "Three's Company" and "Too Close for Comfort", both gigantic hits. Instead of using homegrown talent, they landed veteran comic Don Adams for the part (Apparently Adams was paid a fortune).
Set in a grocery store in "Anytown USA", Check it Out followed the misadventures of grocery store manager Howard Bannister (Adams) and his crew of misfits, all the stereotypes were there, the gay cashier, the slutty cashier, the weasely assistant and of course, the idiot stockboy.
Check it Out was too whacky for it's own good but there were far worse things on US television at the time, so it's probably one of CTV's best (mind you, it's standing next to "The Trouble with Tracey") I had friends who would attend tapings of this back in the day as it was filmed about 15 minutes from our houses.
It ran for three years and later I went to college with the sister of Simon Reynolds, who played Murray the stockboy. he's actually gone on to have a terrific acting career.
The decade closed with Misquito Lake, CBC's kick at the can. I'm not sure what went wrong with this series, it wasn't a lack of talent. Mike McDonald is one of Canada's premiere comedians and Dan Redican was hot off his long stint with the Frantics.
The show was set in Cottage Country and revolved around McDonald and his family, Redican played his neighbour whose wife "Arlene" (whom we never saw) would use a whistle when she wanted Redican's attention. Misquito Lake obviously didn't let McDonald and Redican into the writing room because it was poor at best.
One thing I love about a fledgling network is it's willingness to take risks, Fox was the first in my memory (sorry I'm not of the Dumont generation) finding success for every ten failures, it made it's mark with off the wall shows like "Married with Children" and of course, "The Simpsons". It made sense that when the WB and UPN launched they also would take a few chances with some off the wall ideas.
"Homeboys" premiered in 1996 and pretty much has one of the worst titles a show could have, I mean you could see that on your channel information guide and think "that's probably not for me".
The critics panned the living crap out of it, so it was a must see for me, I love a train wreck. The trouble was, it was funny, I mean stupid as hell but still, everybody needed to lighten up on it. How you could not like a show whose main star was named "Flex"? The charge was made that it enforced racial stereotypes but I don't know how serious you could really take this show.
James Doohan was along for the ride as Pippen, basically he was a more drunkerer version of Scotty (Get the joke, Scotty Pippen?). Anyway, like it was destinied to, the crew of the "Space Hoopty" were sent packing after 21 shows, which makes "Homeboys" America's longest running Sci-Fi sitcom by my count.
I still sometimes use the word "shabdibs" to describe money, nobody ever gets it.
It's no fun when your favorite character leaves a hit show, it's even less fun when a network tries to replace him with a new face. It's always got that substitute teacher thing going on, even if the person is funnier and more interesting, the whole chemistry of the show seems out of place. Sometimes it works, other times it's just TV diarrhea, here is some of that diarrhea:
Roger Phillips (Happy Days) After Ron Howard left Happy Days to pursue some"pie in the sky" fantasy of being a director (whatever), the network shipped him off to Alaska via some shitty phone call gag and beamed in cousin Roger to live with the Cunninghams. Roger was a teacher or something, I can't remember but he was too cheap to rent an apartment.
It's not really actor Ted McGinley's fault his character sucked so much, the show was getting old, the Fonz was no longer cool and they had given up pretending it was set in the 60's. He jumped on board a sinking ship, then he did the exact same when he leapt onto the last season of Love Boat a year after Happy Days died.
Charlie Richardson/Randy Peterson (That 70's Show) :When Topher Grace left "That 70's Show" to go to Africa, it was like pulling the plug on a bathtub, the series started getting sucked down the drain. Fox tried to plug the leak first with the uber lame Charlie at the tail end of season 7, introducing him three episodes before the finale.
Coming to their senses, they killed Charlie off in the first episode of season 8 and added the slick Randy to the cast. Randy immediately went for Donna, which the audience didn't want to see and the show went out with a whimper. Eric returned and claimed Donna in the finale. Season 8 of that 70's show was 12 hours of your life you wanted back.
Raul Garcia (Chico and the Man) - Freddy Prinze's suicide after the third season of his popular hit sitcom "Chico and the Man" should have left the network with one option, a dignified cancellation. "Chico" was hardly an ensemble piece, it was a two man act and all they had left was a straight man in Jack Albertson.
However, networks are greedy and they decided to give it another shot, their solution to the loss of Chico? An adorable little orphan in the form of child actor Gabriel Melgar. Talk about a lot of pressure to put on a kid, fill the void of the series star. Just to make sure the bandaid stuck on the deflating show, Charo joined the cast, woo-ho, that'll fix everything."Boy" and the Man was given it's walking papers.
Nobody (Laverne and Shirley)- In the final season of Laverne and Shirley, star Cindy Williams was ousted and while the show remained titled "Laverne and Shirely", it simply was Laverne waltzing around on the starting. The resulting episodes are sad as we all began to realize that LaVerne was likely to die alone living with hundreds of smelly cats.
Another one from 1981, Open All Night centered around Gordon Feester (George Dzundza) a schlub who managed an all night convenience store along with Robin (Bubba Smith), Gord was married to Gretchen (Cult Movie Queen Susan Tyrell) and lived in an apartment with his very weird stepson, Terry. It may have been based on the classic Ronnie Barker britcom "Open All Hours", I'm not sure.
Open all Night was one of the funniest TV shows I had ever seen, a mid season replacement, I was kind of bummed to find out it was doomed. It had a weird flavour to it that is way, way more prevelant now. It also had this sort of depressing nature which just worked, the Feesters were far from perfect or successful and episodes often ended on downers like the entire contents of the store being stolen (save for the Slurpee machine, which Bubba Smith manned, despite having no cups).
Terry, the stepson was played by Sam Whipple, a character actor who people might remember as grown up Jughead from the Lamentable "Archie return to Riverdale" TV movie or the repairman Elaine plots to kill on "Seinfeld". Whipple was genius on this show, playing Terry like a complete freak, I was saddened to find out while looking up info on the series that he's been dead for six years.
David Letterman would also pop up on the show as a customer who constantly needed directions. It's a shame that Tripe (IMO) like "World According to Jim" is readily available on DVD but I'll have to search high and low for a wonderfully bleak show such as this. Can I get a l'il help video pirates?
It's about time that I share my likely unhealthy obsession for the late Vic Tayback, who is memorable to a generation as Mel, the gruff cook on Alice.
Mel is a beloved figure but his Hollywood career prior to Alice was playing heavies and jerks in shows like Star Trek and Man From U.N.C.L.E, I mean, look at the guy! I bet a career in comedy was the last thing on his five year plan but somehow he pulled it off.
Oh, Vic you are sincerely missed, I even will suspend my disbelief and pretend Martha Raye could possibly be your mother.
I'm always worried that when I like something, it will get cancelled, it happens more than I care to mention, so I'm happy to see my favorite show getting along with critical praise if not outrageous ratings. Above is a clip from last Thursday that had me do a spit take, even though I knew it was coming. Liz gets out of jury duty.
Last Night on Fox: A weird thing occured, American Dad trumped the shit out of Family Guy with a double fisted Kill Bill/Warriors parody. Dammit, that was so full of win.
Here's a show I haven't thought about in many years, Best of the West. An old west based sitcom, it didn't last very long on ABC. Some of the names associated with it went on to other things, Joel Higgins went on to Silver Spoons and Meeno Pulice went on to Voyagers! (his half sister is Punky Brewster).
The most famous cast member to most however might be "Frog" played by Tracey Walter, better known to most as "Bob the Goon" from the first Batman movie.
Seeing as I'm Canadian, I would like to exploit the one weakness we seem to have when compared to Americans, we can't seem to make a decent sitcom to save our lives. Despite the fact that Canada exports a ton of comedians to the US and we're obviously adept at sketch comedy, sitcoms have never been our forte.
The earliest attempt I remember was the Trouble with Tracy, mostly because CTV wouldn't let you forget and played the show for years on the Saturday morning ghetto. To call it banal is an understatement, in the age of Norman Lear, the producers of "Trouble with Tracy" were simply updating scripts from a 1930's radio series called "Good Aces"
Many believe that the series was simply produced to appease Canadian Content laws and therefor, quality control was at a minimum. Whatever the case, we were force-fed this dung for the entirety of the 1970's and then YTV picked it up in the late 80s. Judge for yourself, if you dare......
Perhaps Canada's greatest success in the 70's at achieving the sitcom was King of Kensington, set in the multicultural neighborhood of Toronto, it had a "we're trying our best to feel like All in the Family" thing going on and well, it wasn't terrible.
I like watching King of Kensington now because of all the Toronto based guest stars, from Mike Meyers to John Candy to Guy Big from Hilarious House of Frightenstein. You'll occasionally see faces from Canadian commercials and such, kind of fun.
I'm not really sure why I would add another blog in addition to my work on Plaidstallions and Mego Museum. I guess because while some people are passionate about Politics, I'm passionate about Sitcoms, since I was a kid I have loved them.
The name for this blog came to me while doing the dishes, so it's got to be good.
My interest has waned over time, sorry I can't get into "2 and a half men", but I still have plenty of opinions about the situation comedy that nobody in their right mind would pay me for or likely read. Stay Tuned.....
Retro Pop Culture Junkie/Local Jerk. Main obsessions include 70s toys, terrible movies and even worse TV.
Also, a freelance writer/published author who is always for hire. I work cheap!
