AS HAS BEEN our custom, we've usually been turned off by television series which were developed from successful movies' story lines and premises. We can well recall such questionable Big Screen to Small Screen adaptations such as: MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (with Fess Parker as Jeff Smith), NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS (Sammy Jackson as Will Stockdale), STARMAN (Robert Hayes), BREAKING AWAY, DELTA HOUSE (spun from ANIMAL HOUSE) and MY BIG FAT Greek LIFE (being the ill-fated offspring of the highly successful MY BIG FAT Greek WEDDING).*
THIS IS ONE series developed from a successful film, adapted from a highly successful Broadway play of Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE, that land somewhere in between the good and the not so good. It is stuck out there in the "no man's land" in the struggle to classify and grade all productions as to their fitness to live from one season to the next. On the one hand, it had a 5 year run on Friday nights; which held its own in the ratings wars for most of the run.
YET, WE NEVER really thought that it was all that funny or worthy of the type of fandom that it maintained. Being the creature of its descent and family lineage of stage to movies to "the tube", it certainly couldn't be referred to as being "original!"
THIS TELEVISION VERSION of the story brought with it many of the characters from the previous incarnations, including Felix Unger, Oscar Madison, Murray the Cop and some others whose names do escape us at this moment. (one character was portrayed by the same actor in both film and TV productions.)
ONE SIGNIFICANT MODIFICATION that we must mention concerns the unceremoniously engineered career swapping for Felix Unger. In the ODD COUPLE movie, Felix (Jack Lemon) is employed as a TV news writer. With the coming of this TV series, Felix (Tony Randall) is employed as a photographer.
COULD THIS CHANGE have been a concession to the network as well as to the entire television industry? Would there have been difficulty in lining up a deal and selling the series to ABC or anyone else? (Schultz believes that to be true and so do I!)
WE DO Understand that a series, of necessity, must stray from the original storyline; yet, at the same time, the background information and circumstances must remain basically unspoiled. What we have in the final analysis is the two divorced guys' trials and tribulations of every other sitcom duos ever since time immemorial.
IN THE FINAL analysis, what we seem to have here is Felix and Oscar going through what Ralph Kramden & Ed Norton did in THE HONEYMOONERS; although these latter day escapades were sans the wives.
NOTE * There are, of course, some successes in this adaptation game. The best example that comes to our mind is THAT'S MY BOY (1954-59, CBS Television Network. It was spun-off of he 1951 Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis vehicle; in which Eddie Mayehoff reprised his role as "Jarring" Jack Jackson and Gil Stratton took the Jerry Lewis part as "Junior." (Do see our review of this TV series, please!)
THIS IS ONE series developed from a successful film, adapted from a highly successful Broadway play of Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE, that land somewhere in between the good and the not so good. It is stuck out there in the "no man's land" in the struggle to classify and grade all productions as to their fitness to live from one season to the next. On the one hand, it had a 5 year run on Friday nights; which held its own in the ratings wars for most of the run.
YET, WE NEVER really thought that it was all that funny or worthy of the type of fandom that it maintained. Being the creature of its descent and family lineage of stage to movies to "the tube", it certainly couldn't be referred to as being "original!"
THIS TELEVISION VERSION of the story brought with it many of the characters from the previous incarnations, including Felix Unger, Oscar Madison, Murray the Cop and some others whose names do escape us at this moment. (one character was portrayed by the same actor in both film and TV productions.)
ONE SIGNIFICANT MODIFICATION that we must mention concerns the unceremoniously engineered career swapping for Felix Unger. In the ODD COUPLE movie, Felix (Jack Lemon) is employed as a TV news writer. With the coming of this TV series, Felix (Tony Randall) is employed as a photographer.
COULD THIS CHANGE have been a concession to the network as well as to the entire television industry? Would there have been difficulty in lining up a deal and selling the series to ABC or anyone else? (Schultz believes that to be true and so do I!)
WE DO Understand that a series, of necessity, must stray from the original storyline; yet, at the same time, the background information and circumstances must remain basically unspoiled. What we have in the final analysis is the two divorced guys' trials and tribulations of every other sitcom duos ever since time immemorial.
IN THE FINAL analysis, what we seem to have here is Felix and Oscar going through what Ralph Kramden & Ed Norton did in THE HONEYMOONERS; although these latter day escapades were sans the wives.
NOTE * There are, of course, some successes in this adaptation game. The best example that comes to our mind is THAT'S MY BOY (1954-59, CBS Television Network. It was spun-off of he 1951 Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis vehicle; in which Eddie Mayehoff reprised his role as "Jarring" Jack Jackson and Gil Stratton took the Jerry Lewis part as "Junior." (Do see our review of this TV series, please!)