41. The Odd Couple (1970-5)

by John Greco

The Odd Couple was one of those shows that was never a huge hit during its original TV run. For five-seasons it ran on ABC and not once did it crack the Top 20 in the Neilson ratings. However, once the show was cancelled and put in syndication, it became a favorite, still running today on various cable stations and streaming services. The shows two stars made more money once the show went into syndication than they did during the original run.

The show was based on Neil Simon’s hit Broadway play [1] that opened in March of 1965 and ran for more than two years. Walter Matthau played Oscar Madison, the sloppy, gambling sports-writer for The New York Herald with Art Carney as the finicky television news writer, Felix Unger. [2]  The play won numerous Tony Awards including Best Play, Best Actor for Matthau, and Best Director (Mike Nichols). In 1968, the play was turned into a film with Matthau recreating his role as Oscar and Jack Lemmon brought in to play persnickety Felix.  The film opened at Radio City Music Hall, and like the play was a financial and audience hit.

In 1970, ABC with Garry Marshall behind the scenes brought the show to television. Jack Klugman who earlier replaced Walter Matthau on Broadway was brought in to play Oscar. A perfect Tony Randall was brought in to play Felix.  Randall, like Klugman, was familiar with the original material having played Felix, opposite Mickey Rooney as Oscar, in various productions. Rooney apparently was considered for the role of Oscar before the producers settled on Klugman. The Odd Couple was Marshall’s first of many development deals that would result in future hit shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy. The transfer from Broadway to film to television did result in a few changes to the characters. One of the most notable is Felix who in the play and film is contemplating suicide. Randall’s TV Felix though depressed never goes that far. 

I doubt there is anyone out there who doesn’t know the premise of The Odd Couple, but just in case, here we go. Felix Unger, an overly obsessed neat freak is thrown out by his wife. Nowhere to go, he is taken in by his chaotic and sloppy friend, Oscar Madison. Can two opposites live together without one murdering the other? Well, it comes close a couple of times, in fact, there is one episode when Felix leaves town unexpectedly on a photo assignment, and Oscar is suspected of killing the missing Felix. Felix is Missing from the first season is one of my favorites. Albert Brooks guest stars as an obnoxious advertising guy (“I’m a happening guy”) hiring Felix to do a photo shoot at a wintry resort lodge with two beautiful models. Felix leaves a note for Oscar which gets misplaced before Oscar can read it. An unexpected snowstorm leaves Felix and his group snowbound at the lodge with no means of communication. Meanwhile, Oscar and his poker buddies are concerned, and it soon begins to take a dark twist when gambling buddies Speed (Garry Walberg)), Vinnie (Larry Gelman), Roy (Ryan MacDonald) and especially, Murray the Cop (Al Molinaro) begin to suspect Oscar of murdering Felix as they discuss how many times Felix aggravated Oscar and he uses the phrase “I could have murdered him!”  While it’s kept light, there is a dark undercurrent to the episode and a lesson on how words can sometimes get you into trouble.

In the season one episode entitled, The Jury Story, we find out how Felix and Oscar first met. The story is told in flashback. After a night out with the Pidgeon Sisters, the foursome head back to the boys’ apartment where Oscar is hoping to cap the evening with a little romance. Felix instead turns on the 11 o’clock news where the top story involved the release of Leo Garvey after seven years in prison. A few years earlier Felix and Oscar were on jury duty for another crime Garvey allegedly committed. It appeared to be an open and shut case all the jurors agreed, that is except for Felix who sees extenuating circumstances. Forced to be sequestered after a long deliberation, Oscar and Felix share a hotel room for the night and get a first look at each other annoying habits. The episode is a fun one, however there is another level, unintentional or not by the folks behind the scenes, that film lovers will notice, and that is the thin line of similarity to Sidney Lumet’s 1757 film, 12 Angry Men which co-starred Klugman as Juror 5. This alternate universe version has Felix as a demented version of Henry Fonda’s lone juror, the only dissenter who brings home the importance of jurors’ duty to examine evidence and not rush to judgement.

Season one was filled with many delightful episodes Oscar the Model, What Does a Naked Lady Say to You, and The Blackout. The latter is another episode, similar to Felix is Missing, with a surprisingly dark bit of humor. Once again, it’s Oscar who is the accused. In this case, it’s during a poker game with the boys when $50 dollars disappears from the kitty after a blackout and money strapped Oscar becomes the prime suspect.

All five seasons continued with a high quality. Episodes like Password, Scrooge Gets an Oscar, A Grave for Felix, The Subway Show, Murray the Fink, Gloria, Hallelujah (in this one Oscar is matched up with Felix’s ex-wife via a computer dating service), The Ides of April, My Strife in Court (acting as Oscar’s lawyer in court, this episode contains the famous “assume” quote where you make an “ass” out of “you” and “me.”), The New Car and so many others.

 

Klugman’s Oscar is the perfect antagonist to Randall’s obsessive-compulsion Felix. They are the perfect yin and yang of sit-coms, a template that has been repeatedly used with variations since in shows like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. In some ways both Klugman and Randall were much like their TV characters; Klugman was a gambler, mainly horse racing, and Randall, like Felix, was a big fan of Opera.

The show had a great supporting cast. In addition to those already mention, other episodes included Penny Marshall as Myrna Turner, Oscar’s loopy secretary at the newspaper, Elinor Donahue as Miriam Welby,[3]  Felix’s girlfriend, Janis Hansen as Gloria, Felix’s ex-wife, Brett Somers as Blanche, [4] Oscar’s ex-wife (and Klugman’s real life wife), Joan Hotchkis as Dr. Nancy Cunningham and Carol Shelley and Monica Evans as the hot to trot Pidgeon sisters. Shelley and Evans played the same characters in both the original Broadway production and the 1968 film. Also worth mentioning is the great character actor John Fieldler who played Vinnie in the Broadway play and movie. He made two appearances on the TV version as two different characters.

Since the show ended in 1975, there have been a many reiterations including a reimaging of the play by Neil Simon. In 1985, a female version came to Broadway with Rita Moreno as Olive Madison and Sally Struthers as Florence Unger. A couple of years earlier, Garry Marshall tried to revive the series (The New Odd Couple) with two black actors, Ron Glass as Felix and Desmond Wilson as Oscar. Sadly, the show was uninspired and disappeared after 18 episodes. In 1993, a made for TV film, The Odd Couple: Together Again reunited Klugman and Randall. The film was a mixed bag, disappointing in some ways, but it was definitely good to see the two actors again fitting so smoothly into roles perfect for them. The two actors over the years also appeared together in Simon’s original play including a stint in London. In the fall of 2005, a Broadway revival starring Nathan Lane as Oscar, and Matthew Broderick as Felix ran for seven months. Most recently, in 2015 CBS brought the show back with Matthew Perry as Oscar and Thomas Lennon as Felix. Sad to say, the new, new Odd Couple show lacks both chemistry and enough satisfying laughs. However, I think it’s more than that. Klugman and Randall are so deeply ingrained into our TV psyche as Oscar and Felix, more so than the original Matthau and Carney, or Matthau and Lemmon in the film that no one can match up.

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[1] Neil Simon based the role of Oscar on his brother, comedy writer Danny Simon (The Phil Silvers Show, Your Show of Shows)

[1] For the television series Felix’s occupation was changed to a photographer (“portraits a specialty”).

[1] Ironically, Elinor Donahue’s character in The Odd Couple had the same last name as her television dad, Robert Young in Father Know Best, used in the medical series Marcus Welby, M.D.

[1] Real life imitated art when Brett Somers would divorce Jack Klugman because she could not take his gambling habits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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