Odd Couple Look Back - Our Most and Least Favorite Episodes

Scott Marshall returns for part two of our interview with him to celebrate his father’s legacy.  In this second installment we discuss Laverne and Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Angie, Joanie Love Chachi, The New Odd Couple, the 2010s Odd Couple reboot, failed pilots and hit on Garry’s movie career too especially Nothing in Common / Jackie Gleason.  We also cover Scott’s acting work on the sitcoms and his career.

In this episode we are joined by Scott Marshall, Garry Marshall’s son, who provides us an inside, charming and humorous look at his father’s legendary career and his exposure to all of it growing up.  This is only part one of our interview as there is so much to cover.  We discuss: Garry’s upbringing in the Bronx and his family His college days at Northwestern University Writing for Jack Paar and Joey Bishop Moving to LA and meeting his wife / Scott’s mother Barbara Writing on Dick Van Dyke, The Lucy Show, and I Spy Garry’s first series Hey Landlord How Garry got to work on The Odd Couple; Scott’s memories being on set; Jack and Tony; the writers; casting Penny & nepotism; Albert Brooks Other shows he worked on during The Odd Couple including the terrible Me & The Chimp. The origins of Happy Days; Scott acting on the show; studio and network interference; his friendship with the cast.

This week we welcome Lowell Ganz back for part two of our interview.  In these two hours we cover: The trouble with The Odyssey Couple The furniture in Take My Furniture Please The stories behind the appearances of Hugh Hefner, Bobby Riggs and Rob Reiner Why there was a series finale when most 5-season shows don’t get that chance What the plans were if there was a S6 Lowell’s move to Happy Days How he and Mark Rothman accidentally created Laverne and Shirley Some of his shorter-lived such as Busting Loose, Making It, and Joanie Loves Chachi Casting of two of his earliest movies – Night Shift and Splash How three of his movies were turned into TV shows: Gung Ho, A League Of Their Own and Parenthood. The latter two were turned into TV series – twice! Feedback or questions?  Please email [email protected]

In this episode we are honored to be joined by Lowell Ganz who, with his partner at the time Mark Rothman, wrote more episodes of The Odd Couple than anyone else - 12.  They were also on the writing staff for S3-S5 so they have a hand in all episodes for those seasons. In this first of a two-part interview we discuss Mr. Ganz's background and the incredible story of how he got his first job in showbiz which was on The Odd Couple; a week in the life of The OC writing staff and how an episode went from script to film; and go into detail on each of his 12 episodes which are: - The Ides Of April - The Hustler - My Strife In Court - Gloria Moves In - The New Car - Barnacle Adventure - Cleanliness Is Next To Impossible - The Flying Felix - Shuffling Off To Buffalo - The Odd Candidate - The Subway Story - Two On The Aisle   Please note that at one point there was a Wifi outage which forced the interview to move from Zoom Video to phone and you may hear the quality of Mr. Ganz's audio change a bit.    

In this episode we review an original "pre-production" script for S5E13  The Bigger They Are.  Among the topics covered are 1) how John Byner's casting, which was clearly not known at the time of this draft, changed several key elements of the script, 2) the difference in motivations for Felix and Oscar in the script vs. the finished episode, 3) what distinguishes catsup vs. ketchup [will make sense if you listen to the episode], and 4) some key scenes in the script not in the episode and vice verse.  If you want to see a pdf of the actual script please email us at [email protected] and ask for the dropbox link  

This week we are joined by one of television's best comedy writers Dave Mandel (SNL, Seinfeld, Veep) to discuss an unproduced episode of The Odd Couple for which we have obtained an official script from 1973.  It is a Thanksgiving episode and would have been for the 4th season to air in November 1973.    We start by discussing Dave's history with The Odd Couple and how it influenced his TV writing. We then get into the script itself and -- spoiler - it  is not very good so we discuss in depth why it doesn't work and how it maybe could have become a workable episode. We also start going into it line by line but that is too painful ultimately so we summarize the last few acts.  We also discuss why The Odd Couple had no traditional holiday episodes after S1 like so many of its fellow sitcoms did during the 1970s. If you want to get a dropbox link to the script to read it for yourself please email us at [email protected]

In this episode we welcome Adam Klugman to talk about his father’s legendary career in depth – for more than two hours.  Among the many topics we cover are:  Jack’s childhood in Philadelphia and a shocking story about his mother; how he discovered acting; his early working days in theater and live television; The Twilight Zone; performing in The Odd Couple the play; of course playing Oscar on the series; Adam’s two appearances on the show; Quincy; Jack’s marriage to Brett Somers; her role on The Match Game; Jack’s throat cancer and his final days.  Adam was a delightful guest and storyteller with great vocal impressions of many of the people involved in Jack’s life.  We hope the fans find this a great celebration of Jack Klugman’s life and career.

In this episode we analyze the differences in “final” scripts vs the filmed episode for Win One For Felix and Oscar In Love.  The script for Win One For Felix is called Little League Football and is lacking four pages so we spend less time on this one.  Also, it is not dramatically different than the filmed episode but it is missing the emotional motivations behind Felix’s actions as we discuss. The script for Oscar In Love, here called Oscar Remarries, is quite different from the filmed episode in many ways – narrative flow, story devices, motivations for actions and the lack of Speed’s reappearance.  We get a little lost as we try to break down the differences but ultimately get back on track. If you want access to all the PDFs for the scripts we have acquired please email us at [email protected] and ask for the dropbox link.

We welcome back Marty Nadler to discuss his TV writing career after The Odd Couple including his work on Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Chico & The Man, The Last Resort (not a well-known show), and Perfect Strangers.  Marty shares some get great inside stories about such topics as 1) ABC wanting to rename Happy Days "Fonzie's Happy Days", 2) the toxic environment of Laverne & Shirley, 3) his theory on Freddie Prinze's tragic, early death, 4) a very funny story about the late, great Richard Lewis, 5) and the original casting of Perfect Strangers.   Marty also worked on nine Garry Marshall movies including Pretty Woman which we only briefly touched on as there was just not enough time.  

In this episode we interview TV writer Marty Nadler who worked for Garry Marshall for 40 years. As one of his first jobs Marty punched up scripts and wrote jokes for S5 of The Odd Couple.  Marty discusses the process of how Odd Couple scripts were written; a few specific classic bits he remembers witnessing; interacting with some of the show’s famous guest stars and other insider knowledge from someone who was there!