Scenes from my childhood
Monday, 8 February 2016 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59I'd Read Somewhere That People Were Afraid To Invite Him To Dinner. I Wasn't; I Just Didn't Know The Man.
-:- -:- -:- -:-
I've been watching He & She on youtube lately and laughing my head off.
If you've never heard of it, He & She was a one-season comedy on CBS during the 1967-68 season. It starred Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, real-life married people as a married couple. They had no children, which since they weren't newlyweds, was pretty radical. And Paula had a job! (Their names on the show were Richard and Paula Hollister.) They lived in a New York apartment next to a fire station; the buildings were so close together, they had a plank between two windows, and their friend Harry the fireman (Kenneth Mars) would walk over to visit. The apartment had a number of problems, usually doors that wouldn't open or stay closed; this situation was usually made worse by Andrew (Hamilton Camp), the maintenance man. The comedy was smart, sophisticated, and so well-played. This show should have been the heir to the audience that loved The Dick Van Dyke Show. I can't believe everybody got dumb in just one year, but it's the only explanation I can come up with. I was nine when it went off the air and I knew it was a great show. I don't know what the adults were watching.
All of this was wonderful; all of this is enough to recommend the show. What makes it an eleven for me is Jack Cassidy, who played Oscar North. Dick Hollister was a cartoonist who wrote a strip called Jet Man. The strip had been made into a live action TV series, for which Dick was creative consultant. (This is all clearly connected to Batman, which was insanely popular at the time.) Oscar North played Jet Man.
Oscar North is an egoist. He carries autographed pictures of himself to pass out to his millions and millions of fans . . . at the grocery store openings he goes to. He invents a bizarre little walk—it's more like a dance—to do when he's out in his Jet Man costume, to simulate flying. He brings a life-size cardboard cutout of himself to a dinner party, as a hostess gift. He gets teary when he discovers holes in the picture of himself in Dick's office (Dick was throwing darts at it). "I've been damaged!"
I don't blame Dick. Working in an office with Oscar would be like having the Pirate King in the next cubicle. He's amazingly charming and hilarious, and when I was eight, I had a massive crush on him. Watching the shows now, I feel like I'm eight again; he just delights me.
I'm not the only one who loved Jack Cassidy as Oscar North. The part of Ted Baxter was originally written based on Oscar North, and Jack Cassidy was offered the part. I'm sorry he turned it down, because he would have been wonderful.
One of the ways in which He & She was an obvious successor to The Dick Van Dyke Show is that it's a kind show. People are nice to each other. The biggest problems Paula and Dick have are how to do things without hurting someone's feelings. The humor is clever and witty, not unkind. In one episode, Paula asks Dick if he's already bought her wedding anniversary present, and when he says he hasn't, she throws herself onto his lap and starts kissing him. His response is, "What do I get if I take back what I gave you last year?" In an episode where Paula finds out Dick's new background man is actually a pretty girl, she kids him, pretending to be jealous, but gets very upset when he's told to fire her.
Later: why I love Oscar North but loathe Ted Baxter.
*Nora Ephron
-:- -:- -:- -:-
I've been watching He & She on youtube lately and laughing my head off.
If you've never heard of it, He & She was a one-season comedy on CBS during the 1967-68 season. It starred Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, real-life married people as a married couple. They had no children, which since they weren't newlyweds, was pretty radical. And Paula had a job! (Their names on the show were Richard and Paula Hollister.) They lived in a New York apartment next to a fire station; the buildings were so close together, they had a plank between two windows, and their friend Harry the fireman (Kenneth Mars) would walk over to visit. The apartment had a number of problems, usually doors that wouldn't open or stay closed; this situation was usually made worse by Andrew (Hamilton Camp), the maintenance man. The comedy was smart, sophisticated, and so well-played. This show should have been the heir to the audience that loved The Dick Van Dyke Show. I can't believe everybody got dumb in just one year, but it's the only explanation I can come up with. I was nine when it went off the air and I knew it was a great show. I don't know what the adults were watching.
All of this was wonderful; all of this is enough to recommend the show. What makes it an eleven for me is Jack Cassidy, who played Oscar North. Dick Hollister was a cartoonist who wrote a strip called Jet Man. The strip had been made into a live action TV series, for which Dick was creative consultant. (This is all clearly connected to Batman, which was insanely popular at the time.) Oscar North played Jet Man.
Oscar North is an egoist. He carries autographed pictures of himself to pass out to his millions and millions of fans . . . at the grocery store openings he goes to. He invents a bizarre little walk—it's more like a dance—to do when he's out in his Jet Man costume, to simulate flying. He brings a life-size cardboard cutout of himself to a dinner party, as a hostess gift. He gets teary when he discovers holes in the picture of himself in Dick's office (Dick was throwing darts at it). "I've been damaged!"
I don't blame Dick. Working in an office with Oscar would be like having the Pirate King in the next cubicle. He's amazingly charming and hilarious, and when I was eight, I had a massive crush on him. Watching the shows now, I feel like I'm eight again; he just delights me.
I'm not the only one who loved Jack Cassidy as Oscar North. The part of Ted Baxter was originally written based on Oscar North, and Jack Cassidy was offered the part. I'm sorry he turned it down, because he would have been wonderful.
One of the ways in which He & She was an obvious successor to The Dick Van Dyke Show is that it's a kind show. People are nice to each other. The biggest problems Paula and Dick have are how to do things without hurting someone's feelings. The humor is clever and witty, not unkind. In one episode, Paula asks Dick if he's already bought her wedding anniversary present, and when he says he hasn't, she throws herself onto his lap and starts kissing him. His response is, "What do I get if I take back what I gave you last year?" In an episode where Paula finds out Dick's new background man is actually a pretty girl, she kids him, pretending to be jealous, but gets very upset when he's told to fire her.
Later: why I love Oscar North but loathe Ted Baxter.
*Nora Ephron
(no subject)
Date: Wednesday, 10 February 2016 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Friday, 12 February 2016 11:54 am (UTC)I loved Quark! I must look for it.
You're right about the fuzziness of youtube. I've been watching movies, and it's just Sunday afternoons like when I was a kid: three stations showing football, one station showing a movie, so you watched a lot of movies you'd never choose on your own. I was telling Christy about it, and she pointed out the bad quality--and then we both realized that that just adds to the experience, because that's just how they were!
(I wrote this--or something like it--two days ago, but dreamwidth ate it.)