As I Was Saying to Postmaster Steve - Part II

…Where were we?

If we’re still more or less on the subject, there was another TV western Grandma and I really liked— the 1971 “hippie” oater, Alias Smith and Jones, network television’s inevitable answer to the wildly successful movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman. (Ben Murphy, who played the show’s “Kid” Curry, even vaguely resembled superstar Newman; something or other about the lips.)

Alias Smith and Jones worked for me for really only the first season, which featured the dimpled, charismatic Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes, my instant preference of the two leads. Duel, apparently a deeply troubled person, committed suicide at age 31, on New Year’s Eve, 1971. Like a lot of fans I was truly shocked; it seemed such a terrible waste of a promising young life.

But I was shocked also by the way the show’s production seemed barely to break stride in the wake of the tragedy; the way actor Roger Davis, who had been the series narrator, was tapped to step right into Duel’s boots to take over the role and everyone carried on just as before. Business was business I supposed, but I couldn’t watch Alias Smith and Jones anymore after that. It just didn’t feel right to me. Plus Davis wasn’t as cute as Duel.

Peter Duel, who in his role as Sally Fields’ busybody brother-in-law on Gidget seemed occasionally to be channeling the pop-eyed outrage of Dick York on Bewitched, made his first real leading man mark opposite bird-like Brit Judy Carne (Laugh-In’s hapless “Sock-It-To-Me” girl) in the mildly amusing 1966-67 sitcom Love On a Rooftop, a Young Couple In Love-type series that may or may not have been television’s replication of the premise, if not the success, of Barefoot in the Park, the Neil Simon stage (and later, film) romp about newlyweds coping with a tiny apartment and each other— but it—Rooftop—didn’t really work.

Nor unfortunately did the 1970-71 series that really was the television version of Barefoot in the Park; though the producers tried to inject some freshness, or relevance, or something, into the proceedings by making the major characters black. The role of the strait-laced Paul, originated in both the Broadway and film versions by Robert Redford, was taken over by comic Scoey Mitchell, and the giddily romantic Corie, played on Broadway by Elizabeth Ashley and on film by Jane Fonda, was portrayed by the reasonably appealing Tracy Reed; Nipsey Russell was either an annoying neighbor or an annoying landlord, by now I forget which— but anyway, it didn’t work.

Too bad too, because I was poised to like Barefoot in the Park The TV Series, I wanted to like it, and so did my mom. Though the two leads didn’t seem to have that chemistry, that indefinable something, that makes a really great TV couple, Mitchell and Reed (and Russell) were able enough performers, and it should have helped that one of the show’s directors was the accomplished Jerry Paris, whose work as an actor included a stint as one of Robert Stack’s Untouchables and, more notably, as Rob and Laura Petrie’s funny dentist-neighbor Jerry Helper, on the evergreen Dick Van Dyke Show— but the writers, presumably none of whom were creator Neil Simon, seemed to be phoning it in. Barefoot in the Park The TV Series was just not very funny, at least to me, and it vanished after a year or so. I think it was a year or so. My interest had so waned that by the time it was off the air I’d forgotten Barefoot before it was gone.

That was my TV connection with my mom, by the way— sitcoms, primarily, but also variety series like The Carol Burnett Show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Sonny and Cher Show(s). It seemed easier, then and now, for us to be around each other when we were sharing something that made us laugh.

And nothing made us laugh like the one and only Clerow “Flip” Wilson, truly a singular sensation. The Flip Wilson Show, like the antic, knockabout Laugh-In, was an immediate hit in our house.

But you know, to this day I can’t quite fathom how Wilson and company got past the network censors of the era— not to mention all the harrumphing societal guardians of Morality and Good Taste— with his iconoclastic, wickedly funny Geraldine Jones incarnation; I just remain eternally grateful he did. Consider the spectacle of a short, chipmunk-cheeked black man, appearing each week on his very own prime time TV show in drag! On American network television, yet! Wild!

There were some who carped that Wilson’s broad comedy played straight to black stereotypes (these were generally the same folks who were convinced that Norman Lear’s groundbreaking All in the Family was a racist plot sanctioned by Bill Paley and CBS). Yet somehow, instead of being run out of town, Flip Wilson and his mischievous femme creation was embraced by seventies audiences and critics alike, and are remembered today with immense fondness. Myself, I loved the sassy, mini-skirted Geraldine— our original “homegirl”— and so I think did every member of my family, even my proper, very Catholic Grandma. Though we cackled gleefully at Wilson’s opening monologues ("The Devil made me buy that dress!") and his devious, manically energetic “Reverend Leroy”, it was feisty Geraldine Jones and her smirky references to unseen boyfriend “Kill-ah” that stole every single show.

Though it can’t be said of every variety series of the time— or every television series of any kind of the time— The Flip Wilson Show holds up pretty well, nearly 40 years on. It’s still funny, and it turns out that’s saying something.

I’ve recently purchased the 26-episode DVD (the series’ entire run) of 1967’s Good Morning World, one of those sorta-kinda remembered sixties sitcoms I’d really wanted a chance to see again— and talk about disappointing.

Good Morning World was created by none other than comedy genius Carl Reiner, who is probably best known these days from the Steven Soderbergh Ocean's movies as well as Steve Martin collaborations, The Jerk and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, but his resume also includes televison classics Your Show of Shows and--of course--The Dick Van Dyke Show, and some of the most memorable movies of the sixties such as the satiric Doris Day-James Garner romp The Thrill of It All, the comedy cavalcade It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the sly, Norman Jewison-directed The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (a beleaguered Reiner matched every single step of the way by an exasperatedly deadpan Alan Arkin), the autobiographical and hilarious Enter Laughing and, um, Gidget Goes Hawaiian.

(Yeah, I know what you're saying. You're saying: "But Lorraine--Gidget Goes Hawaiian wasn't truly a Carl Reiner movie, per se. It was one of those typical, throwaway, sixties pop flicks aimed at teenagers, and he played the "feature" role of the harried, worried dad. The real stars were pert actress Deborah Walley, who played Gidget, that dreamy James Darren, who played her boyfriend Moondoggie, and swaggering Michael Callan--who was ostensibly Moondoggie's rival for Gidget's affections though the 11 year-old you secretly sensed he and Jimmy were wasting their time chasing Deborah/Gidget and would have had a lot more fun chasing each other. Plus, you yourself were secretly crushing like crazy on not boring, wholesome, All-American Gidget but her rival, the haughty, raven-haired mean girl and probable future Bitch Goddess, Abby--you even memorized some of her snarky put-downs." Okay, but even so. Reiner was in it.)

So anyway, given Reiner's involvement, I had high hopes and considerable expectations for Good Morning World and there were some things to like about it: the opening theme is kicky, the look of the show is show is sharp, clean and pretty, and it’s great fun to see again, in their talented young prime, the likes of Joby Baker, Ronnie Schell and a cute newcomer named Goldie Hawn, who is actually described as Baker’s “bombshell neighbor” on the back cover DVD synopsis— what, are they kidding? Lithe, waif-y Goldie Hawn a “bombshell”? Have these people never heard of— oh, I don’t know— Marilyn Monroe??

It’s also a treat to watch the prickly, prissy character actor Billy De Wolfe in one of his (many) sixties sitcom appearances. “Busy, busy, bizzz-zeee!” was his famously snide catchphrase; check TCM's online schedule from time to time to catch classic movies like Dear Ruth, Blue Skies and Call Me Madam to enjoy De Wolfe in his sniffy, superior, eyebrow-elevated prime.

Baker and Schell played radio DJ pals Lewis and Clark (spinning actual vinyl platters, kids!) and DeWolfe was of course their boss, who usually had occasion to regard the wacky two (especially the wisecracking Schell) with withering, narrow-eyed disapproval even when he needed their help with something; actress Julie Parrish, a poor man's Laura Petrie (Sorry-- she really deserves better than that reductive description but I can't at present figure out what more to give her. "Winsome." Does that help at all?), was Baker's loving wife and the effervescent Hawn was a neighbor and Parrish's best friend. I think Schell's character had an unrequited "thing" for her or something.

Despite all that, somehow Good Morning World is not the laugh-fest of my imaginings. I’d eagerly popped that first disc into my DVD player prepped for an evening of blissed-out memory lane excitement, yet the best I could summon, episode after episode after episode, was clinical interest and an occasional chuckle.

Soooo disappointing, people.

Then again, when World was a weekly TV show American culture and the television writing it spawned was, in the main, not the edgy, take-no-prisoners stuff of today. There were 7 channels back then, not 500-plus, and television shows had to have that magic ingredient called “broad appeal” (read: pleasant and inoffensive) if they were to live well and prosper on one of them.

Plus I was, you know, 9 in 1967. For a 9 year-old, I guess Good Morning World’s pleasantly inoffensive jokes and broad set-ups were funny enough back then.

Same with The Bill Cosby Show (Season 1), Cosby’s low-key ‘69 sitcom follow-up to his popular and racially groundbreaking adventure romp, I Spy. Not having seen The Bill Cosby Show in nearly 40 years, my memories of it were kinda vague, to say the least. I knew he'd played a friendly, rather unassuming high school coach named Chet Kincaid, and that actor Lou Gossett, Jr. (Roots; An Officer and a Gentleman) made some occasional guest appearances, and… that’s about it. Only the goofing, off-the-wall Quincy Jones theme song ("HOO-LAWD!!")remained vividly familiar. (Of course, that familiarity has been helped along by various classic TV themes websites.)

For years I’d been longing to see The Bill Cosby Show again; when I discovered its release on DVD I rushed right out (I mean ordered in. You know what I mean.) and bought the complete first season.

And it came. And I fairly leaped for joy. I popped Disc 1 into my DVD player and settled into my big comfy chair, arranging my Puffed Cheet-os and iced Classic Coke just so on my Ikea tray. I grabbed my needlessly complicated Sony remote and pressed “play”, scintillating with anticipation, preparing to be 11 again.

There was that hilariously hooligan theme--here we go, back in the time machine! Episode 1, Season 1, commenced.

Hmm.

And I sat there, beginning to shift uneasily. Any minute now, the funny was gonna start. A-a-any minute…

But, no. I was crestfallen. The Bill Cosby Show wasn’t funny.

But see the thing is, it was— just not in the snarky, snappy, boundary-busting way I to which I had apparently become accustomed. Cosby's 1969 humor was gentle, understated, the show's pace leisurely, and Chet Kincaid’s demeanor and delivery were dry, bemused, and rather detached—not caustic, cutting and acidly quip-y. Lord knows there were laugh tracks back then--for American sitcoms they seemed to be required by law--but here there was no laugh track, that, or it was so unobtrusive as to feel non-existent. Really it was me that was out of sync here. The Bill Cosby Show, like Good Morning World, had been created in another America, and the culture had changed. I had changed.

I was 12 when The Flip Wilson Show debuted in 1970, and whenever I watch old episodes of it now I notice something I was probably too young to have picked up on back then, or maybe I did see it but, sensing the observation might have been frowned on coming from a 12 year old, kept my thoughts strictly to myself: whenever that bawdy, make-way-for-the-uber-babe theme music comes up and Flip’s Geraldine Jones comes sashaying out, my focus snaps not to Miss Thing but to the Big Male Guest Star, the one roped into playing her foil.

This is true no matter who the guest is—and Geraldine has saucily tossed her bouffant flip at the likes of Tony Randall, David Frost, Bing Crosby and Johnny Cash to name a few—but for me the real fascination is when the outspoken, flirtatious Miss Jones tries to groove with handsome alpha males like Muhammad Ali, “Broadway” Joe Namath and a young and hunky Cosby.

It’s the twitchy discomfort of the macho younger guys (though Namath, lying on a massage table and wrapped only in a towel seemed truly to be enjoying himself in spite of his nerves) that is so intriguing and frankly so much fun to watch.

Every time I see the skit featuring Ali, for example, I can’t resist guessing at what is going on in his mind. He stands there, saying his lines, making a game go of it, but whenever Flip-as-Geraldine so much as brushes his sleeve he flinches and you can see the anxiety leap into his eyes; even Cos, himself a comic (but also a former college athlete, which may be key), seemed slightly ill at ease under his obvious amusement in his bits of comedy business opposite “Nurse” Jones.

It’s as though, the rehearsals notwithstanding, the younger men— the African-American men especially— simply could not deal with this, could not come fully to terms with this weird, potentially unseemly, scenario of a stocky black dude in a wig, full make-up, designer mini and go-go boots hitting on them. On national television. And they were supposed to, you know, act like they were okay with this. You yourself got squirmy watching; you not only saw it, you could actually feel them trying to distance themselves; you knew they didn’t want anybody out there getting any “funny” ideas about them.

All of which only made it all the more excruciatingly funny. (Kiss her, Cassius!)