Note: I don’t consider shows that started in the 90s old school.
So, old television shows. Having grown up on Nick at Night and TV Land, I’m a huge fan of older shows, likely far much more so than I am of modern shows. There are probably a dozen shows that I could write about for pages on end, but I’ll try to keep it at about 5 for now. Factor in, this is off the top of my head and not incredibly researched.
To begin with, what’s so great about older television shows? To me, the reason that these shows were better was because we hadn’t seen a lot of these ideas before. The writing was more solid, because there weren’t elaborate special effects or props to carry the show. It was the acting and the writing and the stories that made a show either great or dreadful. In today’s market the best shows are typically the ones with the best writing. Look at shows like Scrubs or 30 Rock. They’re hilarious because the stories are well designed and the characters are well thought out. You rarely see a stereotypical plot on those shows because the writers give a damn about what’s going on the screen and it shows in the finished products.
The other thing that a show needs is a cast with chemistry. How do you define chemistry though? We hear that term used all the time in wrestling, sports, etc. Two people have chemistry together. To me, what that means is they act together as a unit. It’s not performer A doing their thing and performer B doing their thing. Instead you get two different performers coming together and thinking on the same level. It’s as if they have one mind working together and it can easily be seen when watching a performance. Anyway that’s enough of my lecturing. Let’s take a look at subject number one. For the sake of simplicity, these will be listed chronologically.
I Love Lucy
To me, this is the Bret Hart of television and sitcoms in general: the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. This show is DAMN funny today, 58 years after its debut. I’m going to say that again: 58 years. In many cases, that’s before our parents were even born. A show is old to us if it was on in the 70s. This show would be old in those days. It’s like the grandparents of television. I have seen every episode at least a dozen times and know every joke like the back of my hand and I still laugh every time. This show is amazing and this is the case for several reasons.
1. First and foremost, Lucille Ball. This woman is a gift from God himself. Her absolute love for the comedy that she was putting on could be seen in every second she was on screen. The audience adored her and while the other three main characters are all great and some of the best written performers of all time, Lucy was the show, plain and simple. Her physical comedy is second to no one at all and her facial expressions were among the best ever. You often will hear criticisms of performers as the claim is that it’s not them that’s funny but their material. Lucy was certainly a funny person with some of her bits being pure comedy gold to say the least. She was the queen of comedy and certainly the number one reason this show was the success that it was.
2. This show had one major benefit to it that most shows don’t have. The writers, Bob Carroll, Madelyn Pugh and Jess Oppenheimer, were the writers for Ball’s radio show entitled My Favorite Husband in which the premise was very close to that of the TV show. This was a great benefit as the writers could take one of the My Favorite Husband scripts and expand it a bit to make it a TV show. It kept a lot of pressure off of them and since it was their own work, it’s not like they could be called thieves. They were redoing their own work. When Ball was negotiating for the TV show, she insisted that the writing staff stay the same. That’s having big time faith in your writers, and it certainly paid off.
3. The premise. This show worked very well because it was perfectly believable. Everyone has that crackpot of a friend who has an idea that you hear and then just want to ask what the hell is wrong with them. Lucy explores what happens when you listen to those ideas. Nearly every situation that they get into is quite reasonable. Here are a few examples: she puts a cup on her head to make a point about hats and it gets stuck. She and her friend can’t keep up with a candy machine. She is trying to cut her lawn and the riding lawn mower messes up and she can’t turn it off and is stuck on it. While they may not happen often, is there anything on that list that isn’t plausible? Every episode was that way and it made the show something that any average person could relate to.
4. The cast. This is a big one. Lucy and her husband Ricky had great chemistry as a husband and wife because they were husband and wife. When CBS said no one would believe that Desi Arnaz was her husband and Lucy said simply, “But he is my husband.” How can you argue with something like that? They were able to show love on the screen because they weren’t acting. Coupling this with a solid supporting actress like Vivian Vance as best friend Ethel and William Frawley as the old codger Fred and you have two pals that will do anything, making the casting just right. The show was based around the idea of two married couples that were inseparable and the actors played it perfectly.
Now I could go on and on about this show, but I think you get my feelings on it. This show also was very innovative, inventing a camera technique still used today, as well as doing something that had never been done before: reairing an old show, or what we would call, putting on a rerun. In the 90s, it was a proven fact that 24/7 all around the world, every minute, somewhere a station was broadcasting I Love Lucy. That was over 40 years after it premiered. Finally, the most telling reason of all: the fans loved the show. On the night of Little Ricky’s (the son on the show) birth, 71% of the people with a television in the country were watching Lucy. That’s not 71% of people watching TV that night. That’s 71% of the people with TVs, period. To say that’s staggering is an understatement.
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Aside from having the most unintentionally funny name in the history of television, this show was great. It’s about a comedy writer and his life at the office and at home, where he tries to find a balance between the two of them. Much like Lucy, this show is about normal everyday situations and how normal life can come off as funny. For instance, his son’s middle name is Rosebud. It turns out it’s an acronym: Robert Oscar Samuel Edward Benjamin Ulysses David, which happened because all of he and his wife’s family insisted on certain names, so he picked all of them. Is that so far out of the realm of possibility?
Again, the cast carries this show. You have the father named Rob, played by entertainment legend Dick Van Dyke. He’s a comedy writer so you naturally have a lot of jokes ready to go. It also offers a lot of issues for him as his office and company are a bit messed up. There’s a scene where he’s trying to get his coworkers a raise but can’t because a Japanese coloring book company had a bad year, but the same companies’ motorcycle division went through the roof. Oddly enough, in the show that makes perfect sense and has a certain weird logic to it.
His wife is the stunningly beautiful Laura, played by Mary Tyler Moore. This woman was easily the sexiest woman on TV back then, with long legs in tight pants most of the time. She was the perfect complement to him and showed that the supporting cast can have great stories of their own that get all kinds of laughs as well. The chemistry here was undeniable, with just a touch of sexual tension that was obvious between these two. She was the perfect on screen wife and I can almost guarantee that many boys in the early 60s had many a wet night because of her.
Finally, we have the other writers, played by Morie Amsterdam and Rose Marie, portraying Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers. They’re a bit stereotypical but they work very well, with Buddy being the older guy that is working 9-5 at the only thing he’s really good at and Sally being the one that can never find a guy. They got along great and were perfect veteran comedians to go along with the young star in Van Dyke.
DVD had a great supporting cast with guys like Richard Deacon (who had one of the best lines of all time in the 80s: “I’m standing behind this table because in a moment of insanity I sold my pants!”
, Carl Reiner and the neighbors, Millie and Jerry. Overall, the cast was a perfect balance of main stars and others that added up to one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. They kept it simple and knew that was the way to go. Apparently it worked too. This show ran for 5 years and went out on top of the ratings which most shows just don’t get to do.
The Odd Couple
This show is likely not that well known for the show, but rather the play. Obviously it’s the TV version of that, having just a continuing story rather than a single play. This show’s first episode is called The Laundry Orgy. When that’s how a show starts, how can it not just kick ass? Again, this show is known for its great chemistry between our two mains, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, playing a photographer named Felix and a sports writer named Oscar respectively. These two were just excellent together, often times working for pages of the script with just one line of direction. For example, Oscar teaches Felix football. That would be followed by three pages of blank space in the script as the writers knew they couldn’t beat whatever these two came up with. It was an early example of improvisation on television which is almost always some of the funniest stuff you’ll ever see. Think about it. What’s funnier: something you see on TV, or something you hear from one of your buddies?
This show was canceled pretty early, but Klugman knew he was set for life, as he knew the syndication would be huge. He was right. Odd Couple was one of the highest rated syndicated shows of all time, sending all kinds of royalties to the two stars. This show was great, but sadly most people have little knowledge of it. It was also more off the wall as it’s one of those shows where this stuff just doesn’t happen to normal people, which is fine as well. I don’t have a lot to say about this, but it’s one of my all time favorite shows and I’d love for it to be on regularly.
Taxi
Oh hell YES. This show is without a doubt the funniest show that I’ve ever watched. It’s about the lives of a group of taxi drivers in New York City. While that sounds boring, the key to the show is only one of them, the main character played by Judd Hirsch (the old Jewish guy from Independence Day). Other than that, you have Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Marilu Henner (who even at 50+ I’d still kill for a chance at). All of these with the possible exception of the last one are now at least known names, and this was their breakout show. The cast here is so balanced that it’s just great. Here’s what you have on this show.
Alex Reiger (Hirsch) Your main character and the only cab driver in this whole place (his words from the first episode). He’s just an average guy that drives a cab in New York. He’s always being asked for advice and while he’s the least known of all the main cast, he’s without a doubt the glue that holds this show together.
Louie De Palma (DeVito) This is a character that has been called the greatest of all time. Never before have I seen a more evil person on screen before. He’ll steal parts from his cabs to sell on the black market, not caring if his cabbies die from it, he turns in his workers to the feds for money, he hustles 12 year old kids, and he makes fun of blind people. He also looks up to Seth Green. This man is evil poured into a child’s body, and he is one of the most fun characters of all time.
Tony Banta (Danza) A dim witted prize fighter, he makes his other living driving a cab. This guy was one of the worst boxers of all time, yet he kept getting back in the ring. He’s the muscle I guess you’d say, but he’s dumber than a box of hammers. He became the second biggest star of the show I guess, but he was always my favorite.
Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conway) He was pretty worthless and only was around for a little over half the series. He was an out of work actor that leaves when he finds work.
Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman) This was the famous foreigner gimmick that Kaufman had. He was from some foreign land that was never named and always had the odd mishaps that came from it. He was the mechanic and always had to get people’s help with stuff, as he would get into situations like making cocaine brownies, joining a revolution, or needing to get married to stay in the country. Just a hilarious character, despite Kaufman being damn near certifiable.
Elaine Nardo (Henner) The sex appeal of the show, she was an art gallery worker who shows up in the first episode. She’s one of the better cab drivers and is always getting harassed by Louie, which often leads to showdowns, even having the garage closed down once. She was hot as hell, and she knew it. Allegedly had the show continued on HBO, the first shot would have been of her topless. FUCK why couldn’t they have gone to HBO???
Jim Ignatowski (Lloyd) And here we have the true breakout star. He was a minister at first but couldn’t remember where his church was. He was the epitome of a stoner and was either the best anti-drug ad ever, or the best reason to start taking them depending on your perspective. Rather than subtle humor, he was based on just flat out funny stuff, with the most famous being his test to become a cab driver. I would describe it, but there’s no way I can do this justice, so here it is.
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You can see Elaine stabbing herself in the hand to keep from laughing.
Anyway, this show was always funny, and I mean that literally. There’s not one episode that isn’t funny to me as the writing was off the charts. The show was canceled by ABC but one night DeVito was hosting SNL and the Taxi cast got to take their last bows. The reaction was so great that NBC picked the show up for an extra two years. They touched on some fairly out there issues such as PMS, bisexuality and sexual harassment, which was a big jump for this time period. Overall, this show rocked and the 4th season comes out in the fall, so I have been fired up beyond all belief as there was a three year gap between releases.
Cheers
This show is actually connected to Taxi as many of the main stars other than John Ratzenberger guest starred on Taxi. I’m sure you all know the premise here: it’s a bar and odd people come and go. However, this show was powered by the main cast. The chemistry here was absolutely off the charts. Cliff and Norm are perhaps the best comedy duo of all time and you can see it in every episode. Every genre of character is covered here, and the writing is just flat out great. My all time two favorite scenes:
First episode of the whole series:
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Probably the most famous of the series:
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This show was great on so many levels, but in my eyes it works for one main reason. It’s in a place where things are different every single day, but at the same time you get to see the lives of the same people and how they evolve over time. The great thing about a place like a bar is you get a lot of people that come in for one time only and you never know what you’re going to get from them. This is where Cheers comes in. What is going on with that person that just came into the bar, and how are your friends going to react to it? The results of that are almost always going to kick ass, and this always does.
When you add this to the characters, it’s guaranteed to work. The writing here is downright inspired. The story arcs span years at a time but there are smaller ones that carry the series to the glory that it’s gotten over the years. The show just works, plain and simple, because the characters work. The casting is perfect and the characters are all filled with the perfect balance of quirks and normal tendencies to make a show perfect. You need to have that to have a great cast, and this is no exception.
Finally, this show spawned a character you may have heard of: Frasier. He started at Cheers and Frasier became probably the biggest spinoff show of all time. In total, Frasier has been on screen over twenty years, which is longer than any other character in television history.
This show is pure greatness and every episode stands alone as great, but you need to see every show to get the whole story, which is a good one.
Anyway, those are likely my five favorites of all time, but I have to give honorable mention to the following, in no order.
F Troop
I Dream of Jeanie
Newhart
Bewitched
Flintstones
Gilligan’s Island
Welcome Back Kotter
All In The Family
Barney Miller
Night Court
Munsters
Addams Family
Looney Tunes
Dragnet
Get Smart
Superman
Happy Days
Twilight Zone
Brady Bunch
Zorro
These shows are my favorites, as I’ve watched a good many of them many times over. They’re a simpler style of entertainment that doesn’t rely on endless cursing, massive bloodshed and tons of sex to make a show good. It’s the actors, the writing and the story that drives them to greatness, which is why they’ll always remain classics. This formula still works today, with the best shows being those which rely on the strengths of the actors and writers to carry them, such as 30 Rock and Scrubs as I mentioned earlier. Long live (the original) TV Land and Nick At Nite!
