Seth Green

For our blog series this month, we are looking at some of our favorite duos from the eighties and nineties in “Duos to Love.” Today we will meet Paul and Jamie Buchman and their daughter Mabel. Yep, it’s Mad About You. It’s not about you, it’s about them, but I am mad about you too—very thankful you are on this journey with me learning about the golden, and sometimes tarnished, age of television.

In 1992, NBC aired Mad About You. The series was about newlyweds Paul (Paul Reiser) and Jamie (Helen Hunt) Buchman, He was a documentary filmmaker and she worked in public relations. They lived in Greenwich Village for seven years until they were canceled. Both Teri Hatcher and Valerie Bertinelli were considered for the role of Jamie. It’s hard to imagine anyone but Helen in the role. I think the critics agreed; Hunt was nominated for six Emmy Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. In 1993, she lost to Roseanne Arnold for Roseanne; in 1994 and 1995, she lost to Candice Bergen for Murphy Brown; in 1996 and 1997 and 1998 she won. Overall, the show won thirty-four nominations, with twelve wins.

For seasons one through six, the two top stars received $250,000 per episode but in season seven they got a nice raise, landing $1,000,000 per episode.

Before Mabel (Alyssa and Justin Baric) came along, their “baby” was Murray their dog. Paul met Jamie while he was on a walk with Murray. They meet at a newsstand when they are both looking for The New York Times. In real life, the two stars met because Hunt was sharing a house with a good friend of Paul’s wife, Paula. After reading Reiser’s pilot, Hunt changed her mind about concentrating on her film career and wanted the role.

When Reiser pitched the idea to NBC he said it was about the life of a couple in their private moments. He compared it to a couple going to a party but this show was more about what happens when they leave the party and it’s just the two of them in the car talking on the way home. Reiser also compared it to the successful thirtysomething but “shorter and funnier.”

The rest of the cast included Lisa Semple (Anne Ramsay), Jamie’s older sister; Fran Devanow (Lelia Kenzle), Jamie’s best friend; Ira Buchman (John Pankow), Paul’s cousin and friend; Sylvia Buchman (Cynthia Harris), Paul’s mother-in-law who is not in the running for Best Mother-in-Law according to Jamie; Burt Buchman (Louis Zorich), Paul’s father; and Dr. Mark Devanow (Richard Kind), Fran’s ex-husband who is a bit eccentric but not too odd because he wins her back as his wife during the show’s run.

There were a lot of recurring characters on this show. Several showed up more often than others: Debbie Buchman (Robin Bartlett), Paul’s sister; Dr. Joan Golfinos (Suzie Plakson), Debbie’s life partner; Nat Ostertag (Hank Azaria), the Buchmans’ dog walker; Mr. Wicker (Jerry Adler), the apartment building superintendent; Dr. Sheila Kleinman (Mo Gaffney), the Buchmans’ therapist; Maggie Conway (Judy Geeson), their neighbor; Jay Selby (Tommy Hinkley), Paul’s college friend; and Sid (George O. Petrie), Paul’s colleague.

However, there were also a few very famous recurring characters. Mel Brooks showed up as Paul’s uncle Phil in four shows. Cyndi Lauper was Ira’s on/off again girlfriend Marianne in five episodes. Jamie’s mom was in 15 shows but played by three different women: Carol Burnett (10), Penny Fuller (4) and Nancy Dussault (1). Another interesting recurring character was Lisa Kudrow. She was Ursula Buffay, the waitress at their favorite restaurant, Riff’s. She appeared 24 times and when Friends was created, her twin sister Phoebe was written into the show. In one episode after not seeing Ursula much, Paul asks her where she has been and she says “I’ve been hanging out with friends.”

You can imagine how huge the guest star list is for this series. Get ready for auctioneer speed and I will list some of them; just know I am leaving out a lot of famous and fun people. Here goes: We have Ed Asner, Kevin Bacon, Christie Brinkley, Garth Brooks, Sid Caesar, Tim Conway, Ellen DeGeneres, Jamie Farr, Barbara Feldon, Al Gore, Seth Green, Billy Joel, Nathan Lane, Jerry Lewis, Yoko Ono, Regis Philbin, Carl Reiner, Jerry Seinfeld, and Bruce Willis.

Paul Reiser also composed the theme song, “Final Frontier,” with Don Was. Both Andrew Gold and Anita Baker versions of the song were used during the eight-year run. Reiser also played the piano for the theme recording.

In 2019, a twelve-episode revival series debuted. Both Reiser and Hunt returned for the sequel. The Buchmans are now empty nesters after dropping Mabel off at college. Other veterans returning included Ramsay, Pankow, Kind, Harris, Adler, Gaffney, and Carol Burnett. Abby Quinn was Mabel.

This was a popular show that was always discussed around the water cooler. It’s first year on NBC it aired Wednesday nights against In the Heat of the Night and Coach; Coach was in the top twenty. The next season it was moved to Thursdays nights and oddly was still up against In the Heat of the Night but was also on against The Simpsons. Season three found it with little competition and it was ranked eleventh place for the year. As networks do, now that it had a dedicated audience, it was moved to Tuesday nights where it dropped out of the top forty. The show remained in the Tuesday slot, still up against Roseanne but its audience returned and it crept into the top twenty again. It remained in the same spot for its final two years, one year competing with JAG and the next year against Home Improvement which was a top-ten show. I know this was a lot of detail, but I think it helps to think about how much the schedule moving can potentially hurt a show. Fans get used to a certain night and sometimes clear their schedule for that evening and when shows continue to move around, it is frustrating for everyone. Now, we can just DVR shows and it’s not such a big deal.

This was a well-written show, and the producers and writers spent a lot of time on character development. It had some quirky moments and did some fun plot twists that kept it fun and fresh. Of course, both Hunt and Reiser were amazing actors and went on to great success in the movies. I did not see much about how the 2019 reboot was received by viewers. Considering the competition that the show faced as the network moved it around, it did very well for its seven years. The critics loved it and it was certainly recognized by the Emmy committee every year. I am hoping it will come to Antenna or ME TV soon and we can again spend some time with the Buchmans.

We are in the midst of our blog series “I Robot.” If you read last week’s blog, you will remember we were discussing My Living Doll, a science fiction comedy from the mid-sixties created by Howard Leeds.

Today we are moving ahead two decades to look at another Howard Leeds’ show from the mid-eighties called Small Wonder, another science fiction sitcom.

The concept of the show is that Ted Lawson (Dick Christie) and his family–wife Joan (Marla Pennington) and son Jamie (Jerry Supiran)–live in a typical residential area. Lawson has created V.I.C.I., an android that contains Voice Input Child Indenticant whom he calls Vicki (Tiffany Brissette). Lawson created the robot to help handicapped children, and she looks like a ten-year-old girl. Lawson has to take her home to learn about family environments and be “trained” for home service. Similar to Rhoda on My Living Doll, Vicki has an outlet under her right arm, a data port under her left arm, and an access panel in her back. She possesses superhuman strength and speed. Seth Green auditioned for the role of Jamie and, Candace Cameron Bure was up for the role of Vicki, along with 398 other girls.

The Lawsons have to keep her identity a secret and pass her off for a daughter they adopted. Their neighbor, ten-year-old Harriet (Emily Schulman), a la Gladys Kravitz, was very nosy and made the secret hard to maintain. Jamie works hard to scheme and find ways to get Vicki to make his life easier.

Rounding out the cast were Brandon and Bonnie Brindle (William Bogert and Edie McClurg) who were Harriet’s parents; Brandon was also Ted’s boss; Reggie (Paul C. Scott), Jessica (Lihann Jones), and Warren (Daryl Bartley), Jamie’s friends.

The show was on for four seasons and, of course, Brissette continued to grow and age, so in season three Ted gives Vicki an upgrade which allows her to wear current fashions, eat, and drink, making it easier to conceal her identity.

Unfortunately for Leeds, this show has also been dubbed one of the worst sitcoms of all time, despite the fact that it was on for four years. Robert Bianco, TV critic for USA Today, wrote in 2002 that it was a contender for one of the worst TV shows of all time, and the BBC described it as the worst low-budget sitcom of all time (as an aside, the first season provided $300,000 per episode). Lest you think Leeds could not come up with a successful show; know that he also produced The Brady Bunch, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Silver Spoons, and The Facts of Life. He also wrote scripts for forty-two different shows.

Although it was not popular with critics, viewers seemed to enjoy it. The show was later sold to more than twenty countries, including Brazil, France, India, and Italy.

In 2015, Dave Nemetz spoke with Marla Pennington Rowan and Emily Schulman Webster about their time on the show. They both felt sorry for Brissette. She had a lot of skills such as singing, dancing, gymnastics, and piano playing, but all she could do on the show was to be a robot. She had to talk in a monotone while showing no emotions. Webster said it was so challenging for her but she was a pro. She mentioned that “she had to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep from smiling. That was tough. My heart sort of broke for her.”

Both stars mentioned how hard the special effect filming was for Tiffany. It might be her head spinning around and around or lifting the couch with one arm to clean under it. Those scenes were filmed on Thursdays with the use of green screen technology. Webster said it was not easy and that “Tiffany had to endure it, it would take a lot of trial and error.” In addition to these talents, Vicki could shrink down to the size of a doll, extend to ten feet tall, channel electricity through her hands, and she possessed unlimited learning ability to improve products.

Rowan and Webster said the cast got along great, just like one big family. However, the parents of the minor stars surely did not. Three tutors were employed on the set because the parents could not agree on choosing the same one. Rowan mentioned that apparently, the parents thought they were the stars of the show.

The show was very popular with kids especially. However, power struggles were not confined to overbearing parents; the corporate level had plenty of controversy as well. I’m not sure why, but the show was owned by five different companies, and they did not agree on much either. Once they knew there were enough shows to put it into syndication the show was done. No one knew if they were going to be picked up for the next season or not; they weren’t, so there was never any finale produced.

One of the most memorable parts of the show might be the theme song. It’s lyrics are:

She’s a small wonder; pretty and bright with soft curls.

She’s a small wonder; a girl unlike other girls.

She’s a miracle and I grant you, she’ll enchant you at first sight.

She’s a small wonder, and she’ll make your heart take flight.

She’s fantastic, made of plastic; microchips here and there.

She’s a small wonder, brings love and laughter everywhere.

We understand her pain at watching the show. Photo:smallwonderrevisited.blogspot.com

So how did it work out for the trying parent/managers? None of the three children are actors any longer. Brissette is a nurse in Colorado, Supiran was broke and homeless in 2012 but is in a better place today, and Schulman Rowan writes cookbooks and is considering acting again. Her last role was in the show Christy in the mid-nineties.

If you watch Antenna TV you might be very familiar with the show. It’s no longer in the rotation, but I have watched it several times on the network in the past. It definitely is not anything I would clear my schedule for. I’m not sure I would classify it as the worst sitcom of all time; it seems in the past 40 years, we have come up with some pretty bad options. However, I certainly would not spend my time watching this one. I’m just going to chalk it up to fulfilling a need in the eighties on Saturdays that does not age well.

thewritelife61

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