1049 Park Avenue: An Odd Couple Podcast

The second half of our discussion about Jack and Tony's series after The Odd Couple contains in-depth looks at The Tony Randall Show (1976-78), Love Sydney (1981-1983) and You Again? (1986-87).

In this episode we start looking at the four series Jack and Tony did after The Odd Couple - Quincy, The Tony Randall Show, Love, Sydney and You Again?.  This is part one where we cover only Quincy.  The next episode will cover the three sitcoms.  

This episode covers Jack Klugman and Tony Randall's TV appearances as themselves - on talk shows, in ads, on Dean Martin roast, and in song. 

In this episode our subjects are: 1) The 1993 reunion movie featuring Jack and Tony.  We cover the behind-the-scenes talent that was and was not involved with the project; who was and was not in front of the camera; the quality of the writing (or lack of it); and how it performed in the ratings. 2) The 2015-2017 CBS reboot starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon.  Topics include how this fits into the other CBS sitcoms of the era; the differences in characters vs. the original series; how Matthew Perry was the driving force behind its existence; and two episodes that made headlines - both for negative reasons. 3) The 1975 short-lived cartoon The Oddball Couple.  We discuss the few similarities to the Odd Couple concept and the acclaimed voices and animators involved with the production.  We also play the variations of the theme from each production.

We start the episode intending to discuss both the 1982/83 New Odd Couple (“NOC”) AND the 1993 Odd Couple reunion TV-movie but end up speaking so long about New Odd Couple we decide on the fly to hold the movie for another episode.  Before we start I surprise Garrett with an item I bought on eBay – the full PDF can be seen here  Odd Couple Program Regarding NOC we 1) provide our overall opinion on the series 2) discuss the cast 3) analyze the TV ratings situation for the time 4) review why the show is made up of recycled scripts from the original series and the impact that decision had 5) discuss individual episodes 6) focus on the most annoying part of the series involving their names 7) play clips comparing and contrasting scenes from the original series that are duplicated in NOC 8) play clips of Garry Marshall, Mark Rothman and story editor Winifred Hervey who discuss various difficulties behind the scenes.   

This week we delve into the world of The Odd Couple centering around the plays and the movies, some of which were made before the TV show and some of which came after.  We discuss the origins of the play and how that turned into the movie; our thoughts on the film; the updated versions of the play that Neil Simon wrote later in his career and the unnecessary film sequel. We play dialogue from the movie that was re-used in the series and the Neal Hefti theme WITH lyrics.

This week Ted and Garrett stop talking so much and let two other Odd Couple fans discuss the show with them.  First up: James Bradley discusses his love of S1 and explains why there is a group of fans who enjoy it passionately.  Second is Lee Spilberg who has helped the podcast with lots of information especially regarding all of the music cuts.  These are two separate interviews.  

This week, Ted and Garrett  hand out The Murray Awards for various "best of" categories regarding The Odd Couple.  Examples include - Best Use Of Honking, Best Scene Where Felix Gets Mad at Oscar (and vice verse), Best Performance by a Male Celebrity Playing Themself, and many others. Yes, we could have just called it "The Oscars", but we have been using Murray as a metric since early on the podcast so we stuck with it.  

With the episode by episode recap now over we look back and discuss our most and least favorite episodes by season and of the series overall.  We focus on S2-S5 but do have some discussion of S1.   

Felix and Gloria get back together in the series finale “Felix Remarries”.  In our discussion we cover 1) some new info our listeners provided to fill in the gaps on our prior episode about Laugh Clown Laugh, 2) the return of Janis Hansen / Doney Oatman / Leif Garrett 3) the multiple classic lines in the episode – some of which came from the play/movie 4) goop mélange 5) who is and who is not at the wedding, 6) the behind the scenes planning for the finale 7) and our plans for future episodes of the podcast now that the episode-by-episode analysis is over.