Comedy

The first season release of Dave’s World is going to upset the show’s fans a bit. Paramount has decided to change the opening theme from Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” to some jazzy piece that doesn’t come close to saying the same thing. This wasn’t even Joel’s performance of the song we’re talking about on the original. I know that the musical rights issues can be a problem. Shows like WKRP suffered from being loaded with songs and racking up a fortune in royalties for home video release. Most of these shows were aired in the days before anyone even knew there was going to be a home market for these programs. But I still don’t understand this one. It’s the show’s theme song and an important part of the show’s look and feel. We’re not simply replacing incidental music or songs that take up significant portions of the show. I think it was a bad move, and I’d be very curious as to just how much money Paramount saved by replacing the song. Average that number out over the set’s sales figures, then find out if the fans would have been willing to pay the difference.

I was first introduced into the somewhat twisted world of Dave Barry in 1986 when I moved to Florida. The Tampa paper carried his Sunday column, and all I can remember is that it had something to do with dinosaurs on the beach and that I couldn’t stop laughing. For years afterward both my wife and I made the column regular Sunday reading. As years went on other things fill one’s life, and I only occasionally read the material until he disappeared almost completely from the Central Florida scene, keeping more to himself some 250 miles to our south. He’s since spent a lot of time playing in a writer’s band with the likes of Stephen King. So, I was pretty eager when Dave’s World first came to television in 1993. To say I was disappointed wouldn’t exactly be fair. The show was pretty funny, but Harry Anderson was so ingrained in my mind from his Night Court role that I never did accept him as Dave Barry. Once I was able to separate the character from the writer, the show was a little better going for me.

While nowhere does anyone actually say it, Caroline In The City is obviously inspired by/ripped off from the popular newspaper comic strip Cathy. Each episode, for a time anyway, would begin with an animated scene from one of the “Caroline” strips. The topic mostly deals with the pitfalls of being a single New York City girl. From these roots there was an often awkward attempt to create a warm and fuzzy romantic comedy that never seemed to find its own focus, let alone footing. It didn’t help matters that the title character was played by Lea Thompson, best known for her role as Michael J. Fox’s mom in the Back To The Future films. Here as she was there, Thompson is relatively unemoting, a tragic flaw in a romantic character. She’s a good enough actress, but she does appear to be missing charisma in the role. Caroline was joined by her comic strip colorist, Richard, played by Malcolm Gets. Here again we have a pretty reserved actor. Now we’ve got a couple of very low key actors playing a couple where sparks should be flying, and it never works. Most of the laughs, in fact, don’t even come from our leads. Instead Amy Pietz has most of the funny lines as intrusive next door neighbor Annie. Annie’s a cast member in the then huge Broadway production of Cats. She would often barge into the apartment where Caroline and Richard are working/sniping at each other and offer the comic relief in this situation comedy.

Family Ties is likely remembered most as the series that launched the career of Michael J. Fox. There’s no question that he owes a great debt to Alex Keaton. It’s almost a bit awkward now to watch him as this young, extremely conservative teenager after Fox has spent so much of his life as a liberal poster boy in the last couple of elections. Politics aside, it’s hard not to credit his performances in Family Ties and the Back To The Future films for launching him into a well deserved lucrative career. The Michael J. Fox issue, however, might hide some of the other assets the show had going for it in its time. For one of the first times parents were portrayed as humanly flawed, and families were not the perfectly functional institutions most of these shows described. Up until Family Ties, these households were either perfect little examples of American ideal or they were so dysfunctional that they could hardly be considered families at all. This show obviously went for a bit of realism.

“Can you take the dump of death”, or What’s the fastest way to get drunk”. These are the types of questions and answers that make up the Spike TV series Manswers. The idea is that the show answers those pressing questions that you guys out there might have been to afraid to ask. On first look you might get the mistaken idea that this is a copy of A&E’s far superior Mythbusters. On the surface the premise appears the same. Both shows appear to tackle the oddball question and attempt to find the truth behind the BS. Both shows also appear to be targeted to the male members of the audience. Mythbusters uses cool tools and gadetry to prove or debunk the common myths. The guy appeal is obvious, and there’s always a good chance something’s getting blown up. Guys are naturally curious, and we love to see things blow up. Manswers takes the far more pedestrian view of a guy’s interests. Instead of blowing things apart Manswers tries to draw you in with body parts; female body parts, that is. Just about every other segment has something to do with the female breast: “What does shape tell you about how easy she is”, “Can a breast crush a beer can”,  “Which float better real or fake”. You get the idea. Now most guys don’t have a lot of trouble with all of this close examination of female anatomy, but the Manswer I want answered is: “Can you go too far?” Turns out the answer is, who could have known, yes.