Instead of talking about how great Adams was - not enough room on the net to talk about that - I will use this moment to rail against current sitcom leading men.
If you watch TV these days, you'll realize that pretty much everyone on any sitcom is not acting, they are just playing themselves.
Think about it: Ray Romano, Kevin James, Chaz Sheen, John Cryer, George Lopez, Jim Belushi. These clowns are not acting, they are just playing themselves. There's no characters, it's the same character on every friggin show - a dad with kids trying to deal with his wife and job. It's really sad. There are no different sitcoms anymore. There are no guys trapped on an Island - except for Lost (real original idea there), there are no bumbling secret agents, there are no humble backwoods cops. Shit, there's not even goofy teenagers running scared of 5-3 Henry Winkler.
At least "Scrubs" has doctors running around, but that dude's movie Garden State was a bore, so I won't count that.
When you look back, friggin Mork and Mindy at least had a different idea. And, if you think about it, Welcome Back Kotter was groundbreaking.
I'm not sure if Get Smart is out on DVD yet, so in it's place, I'll try to get my hands on a copy of "The Nude Bomb" or season 1 of the Don Adams Screen Test
Goodspeed Maxwell, say hello to Thaddeus for us all.
6 comments:
Cat,
There is indeed a lack of suitable male stars in sitcomes these days.
Where have you gone, Richard Kline?
Cat, Richard Kline at least acted. How many emmys did he win?
At least a dozen, if there is any justice in this world.
Interestingly, I saw a recent magazine interview with the legendary Larry Dallas a few weeks ago. He is apparently heavily involved in theater in the Los Angeles area.
I hate to say it, but you can trace a lot of this back to the tremendous success of Seinfeld. The dude was playing Jerry Seinfeld, stand-up comedian.
Great point on Seinfeld. I think Seinfeld spawned Raymond, which spawened all of this crap that is out there now.
The Chaz Sheen show is pretty good, I have to say, but other than that, STENCH.
Raymond is the only successful knockoff of Seinfeld, in the sense a previously established comedian carried the show.
Everyone tried the formula. Remember, Mikey said he moved to L.A. because "everyone made it seem like they were handing out sitcoms on street corners."
Seinfeld also spawned the great atrocity known as "Friends." Someone decided that since the whole throw-some-wacky-people-into-an-apartment thing worked for Seinfeld, then it must work for Friends.
It didn't.
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