By Ken Levine: Working with Tony Randall

By Ken Levine: Working with Tony Randall:

Glad to see there was such a positive reaction to THE ODD COUPLE. My first staff job was on THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, done for ABC in 1976. In that show he played a judge in Philadelphia. It was produced by MTM and we had quite a writing staff. The creators/showrunners were Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses (who had run the brilliant BOB NEWHART SHOW), Gary David Goldberg (created FAMILY TIES and BROOKLYN BRIDGE), Hugh Wilson (created WKRP and had a long feature directing career), and me and my partner, David Isaacs were the two young schleppers. That was it. No consultants. Just the six of us.

David and I were originally signed to write a freelance episode and from that we got invited to join the staff. Production was well underway when we came aboard. At our first table read Tony stood up with an announcement. He had just been to England during a hiatus and informed us that the British sitcoms were so far superior to ours. There was no contest. American sitcoms were shit. Then he sat back down and we had the reading of the decidedly American script David and I had just written. I thought our staff career was going to last one day.

But happily he liked the script… and us. At the time I was single, bringing dates to filmings (hoping that might help me get lucky) and after the show I would always introduce them to Tony. He would praise me to the heavens, how they couldn’t do the show without me, etc. All total bullshit but the girls were impressed. Say what you will about Tony Randall, he was the best Wing Man I’ve ever had.

Man, I’m actually old enough to remember the Odd Couple fondly. While we don’t watch much network TV these days, one show Laurie and I have really started enjoying is Two and a Half Men on CBS, starring Charlie Sheen as an aging playboy who’s dealing with the reality that his body and his lifestyle aren’t always on the same page, and Jon Cryer as his somewhat nerdy, awkward brother who’s dealing with divorce and trying to rebuild a life.

This show is buttressed by a wonderful supporting cast and absolutely stunning writing, of the “how did the network let them do this?” type. Very sharp dialog and good chemistry. And to me, from the first episode, it was a modern embodiement of the kind of chemistry and interaction that is the essence of the Odd Couple (hence the tie-in to Levine’s piece).

Two and a half men sits up there with me with Odd Couple, MASH, and Cheers, and that’s saying something….

And if you aren’t reading Levine’s blog, you’re missing some wonderful writing….

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