(Another in the ongoing saga of recounting the television shows of our youth…)
It’s sad that when people think about Must See TV they think about Friends. Actually, the fact that people even think about Friends in the first place is a rather sad statement on our current existence but that’s a rant for another day. No, what I want to talk about is when Thursday nights didn’t mean Friends, or Seinfeld, or even the Seinfeld Chronicles. I’m going back to NBC’s Thursday night lineup in the 80’s where for two straight hours you would watch The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court. Especially Night Court.
Sure, Cheers gets all the glory as the long lasting classic sitcom. And The Cosby Show had societal impact. And Family Ties gave us Michael J. Fox, Justine Bateman, Tina Yothers and that guy who played Skippy. Ok, maybe we should discount Family Ties here. But Night Court, now there was a show with style.
Because has there ever been another sitcom set in a courtroom? I’m serious, think about all of the legal dramas out there today. How many laughs do you get out of them? I mean, the closest thing that I can think of is Ally Mcbeal and that was much more of a drama with laughs than a sitcom. But here was a setting that worked, mainly because you had characters that would work in any setting.
You’ve got Judge Harry Stone, played by Harry Anderson, as the kind hearted prankster but at the end of the day a fair and intelligent judge. With a strange fascination for Mel Torme, which probably sold about a million copies of Mel’s albums when you think about it. You’ve got Richard Moll as Bull, the tall, Homer Simpson dumb, bailiff. Who could carry entire shows by himself, which is incredible given that he was written as a one note character. Seriously, could you imagine playing that role for eight years and still keeping it interesting? That’s a hell of a performance.
Of course, the real heart of the show was Dan Fielding, which could only be played by the dude who narrated The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The incredibly intelligent, lecherous lawyer, who it is pretty amazing that here he is stuck prosecuting in Night Court when you would think that with his credentials he could have gotten one of those cushy Law and Order gigs. But of course that would screw up his social life along with his chance to hook up with the defense attorney, most famously played by Markie Post.
Probably the thing that has solidified the show in my memory is the fact that unlike a lot of sitcoms, this one did seem to exist in a real time and place. The characters aged (and in some instances died). Storylines would appear and reappear. Side characters like Phil the homeless guy would make their regular appearances and become almost regular members of the cast. Heck, even Yakov Smirnoff had a once a year gig on the show. It was really a precursor to the Simpsons in that regard, a sitcom with a set cast with no real focal point and a lot of ancillary characters that you could count on showing up and stealing the show from time to time.
I’ll place this high on my list of shows I want on DVD. There’s nothing high brow about it, just a good comedy that I feel has aged well. I’d be really surprised if you could name a comedy on television right now that surpasses it. Well, except for Arrested Development and that’s going to be canceled soon. Thanks Fox.
(Next time in the 80’s memory bin: we do the much anticipated dive into Japanese animation. Voltron, Battle of the Planets, Speed Racer and G-Force. After being a kid who had to search high and low to find anime it amazes me to see entire sections of it at Best Buy.)
No comments:
Post a Comment