"That is our legacy. We’ve always been the other show."

June 6, 2017 7:00 AM

Night Court was the black sheep of NBC's sitcom dynasty

Bonus Mental Floss: 13 Judicious Facts About Night Court

posted by Etrigan (62 comments total)

A loving tribute. Seasons 2 or 3 through 6 were magical. A happy, fun show.
posted by davidmsc at 7:12 AM on June 6, 2017 [9 favorites]

Agreed - loving great tribute.

But it makes me sad that all of larroquette's quotes seem to pass it off as slapstick. It was so much more. So cynical. So sarcastic. So...right.
posted by double bubble at 7:19 AM on June 6, 2017 [7 favorites]

"A court? At night? I'm laughing already!"

Loved this show so much in the '80s, marvelous cast.
posted by porn in the woods at 7:31 AM on June 6, 2017 [9 favorites]

Man, Markie Post's hair is pure '80's time capsule.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:34 AM on June 6, 2017 [15 favorites]

Bull & Roz were a great odd-couple. And it sparked some life back into Mel Tourme's career even.
posted by k5.user at 7:34 AM on June 6, 2017 [5 favorites]

Also TIL that Night Court was on the air until the year I graduated from high school. I don't remember it past sixth grade or so.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:36 AM on June 6, 2017

I saw the show finale for the very first time just a month or two ago in syndication. I was delighted and amazed to see an episode I had never watched before, and then saddened when I realized about halfway thru that it was the last show ever. Quite the rollercoaster ride in a mere half hour.
posted by davelog at 7:42 AM on June 6, 2017

Surprised that "13 facts" link didn't mention Season 2 public defender Billie Young was played by Ellen Foley, famous for being the non-Meatloaf half of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."

Loved that show so much and was really happy with 30 Rock devoted an episode the fact it went out without a finale.
posted by bondcliff at 7:42 AM on June 6, 2017 [9 favorites]

My direct and extended experience with the star of the show is that he is one of the least professional, most miserable people it has ever been my displeasure to encounter, and I wonder if others in the industry have had the same experience and it has colored the show as a result.

It's amazing how quickly a toxic personality can taint something otherwise excellent.
posted by maxsparber at 7:44 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I love that they used one of Brent Spiner's pre-TNG appearances as an example. Here's another NC clip that features TOS Trekkies vs. TNG Trekkies.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on June 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

You talking Anderson, Max?

Wow. Really?

Also, one thing I could always rely on. I was always guaranteed at least one laugh watching Night Court, no matter what kind of day I had.
posted by Samizdata at 7:47 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

Huh. Which star?
posted by nevercalm at 7:48 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

He's litigious, so I will not name him.

But it was Harry Anderson.
posted by maxsparber at 7:52 AM on June 6, 2017 [9 favorites]

Come at me, Harry.
posted by maxsparber at 7:52 AM on June 6, 2017 [23 favorites]

One of the best parts of having cable again (even just the absolute most basic limited-local package, like I have) is that there's a channel that runs a boatload of old sitcoms including Night Court. (And 227. 227 was the shit.)
posted by palomar at 7:54 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I knew a guy who met Harry Anderson and had nothing but lovely, glowing things to say about what a great guy he was... but he was also a sleight of hand magician, so they had some things to talk about, AND he was the kind of guy who took it as a compliment when people sleazily hit on his wife, which Harry did, so...
posted by palomar at 7:56 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I ran the box office for his night club in New Orleans.
posted by maxsparber at 7:58 AM on June 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

Contrary to the 13 facts, the only episode I actually remember from the time was kind of a heavy bit featuring a somewhat recurring character IIRC. That character was played by John Astin, usually a perfect fit for a throwaway wacky part. Astin portrays a man with a tenuous grasp of reality, in one episode where it's given the heavy treatment, and it's touchingly sensitive, where Astin's character appears to be a poorly coping victim of tragedy.

My memory was that, while it was probably one of the better shows on at the time, that really isn't saying much. And in retrospect, seeing a few reruns over the last year or so, I found it didn't really hold up all that well. It's kind of a collection of wacky characters mostly doing fairly predictable one liners along with more wacky characters. The state of the art simply moved on in the years since.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:05 AM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Astin's character appears to be a poorly coping victim of tragedy

But he's feeling much better now!
posted by Servo5678 at 8:08 AM on June 6, 2017 [27 favorites]

I have good memories of Night Court from watching it as a kid. It was always a bit weird how depressing the setting was, with the soiled-looking backdrop of the court set. It was kind of a brave choice! But I have recently come across episodes airing on a digital antenna station and hoo boy, the comedy is soooo broad and it gets very schmaltzy. The jokes are all telegraphed from miles away, as if to cater to the brain-damaged. Don't get me wrong, it's funny sometimes, but man, '80s television is best just remembered fondly than actually revisited.
posted by picea at 8:09 AM on June 6, 2017 [11 favorites]

My memory was that, while it was probably one of the better shows on at the time, that really isn't saying much.

Probably so. I could use a rewatch. Or maybe I should leave my memories alone. But at the time, it was pretty odd and audacious, much more so than anything else out there. And Dan Fielding was one of the best characters ever to be on television to that point.

Of the Cosby-Family Ties-Cheers-Night Court Thursday lineup, it was the one I looked forward to the most. It certainly was more daring than all the other sitcoms on then, and had a good mix of silliness, schmaltz, and seriousness. That said, even when it was on, it couldn't compete with higher-level reruns of M*A*S*H or WKRP.

Going through law school, I'd occasionally drop a reference to the time Gilbert Gottfried filled in for Dan. "Your Honor, this woman is a prostitute. Prostitution is against the law. We rest our case." No-one ever picked up the joke, which made me sad. I can do a great Gottfried voice and everything. :(
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:18 AM on June 6, 2017 [12 favorites]

I loved Night Court as a teen, but we lived out in the country and didn't get the channels, so I had to catch up on them in college and later, whenever I found a local channel that had syndicated it. The year I worked nights shift at a restaurant, I found a local channel that was running it at a time that coincided with my getting home from work and desperately needing to flop into a chair and watch mindless TV for half an hour.

However, they inexplicably only showed the ninth season, repeating it endlessly through the months, producing a sort of weird Syndicated TV Gothic effect in which there was always only the final season of Night Court, forever and ever.
posted by telophase at 8:32 AM on June 6, 2017 [8 favorites]

4. THE SHOW PURPOSEFULLY DIDN’T TACKLE HEAVY ISSUES.

Huh? As a 15-year-old, I remember being sometimes sad or creeped out: the bailiffs dying, the parade of unstable people passing through the court. And there were episodes about marrying for a green card and an offensive comedian (based on Andrew Dice Clay, popular at the time), which are heavy issues, no?
posted by Melismata at 8:35 AM on June 6, 2017 [11 favorites]

While I agree that many of the episodes haven't weathered the test of time well, I'm always happy to see the episodes with John Astin. I can't think of anyone else who could have matched his characterization of Buddy Ryan.

Buddy Ryan's character was unusual at the time because he was not just an insane guy played for laughs, he was an insane man with dignity. Often he was the spokesman that stood up for others with psychological issues and "unique interpretations of reality," and showed the other characters (and maybe some of the viewers) a path to seeing their humanity and having empathy for them.

While at times that show's portrayal of 'crazy people' would not be considered acceptable today for a prime-time TV show, the show should get some credit for how they were frequently able to use the humor of their peculiarities while preserving their dignity as people.
posted by chambers at 9:17 AM on June 6, 2017 [14 favorites]

But he's feeling much better now!

I still throw that line out from time to time. Even though it's rarely true.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:32 AM on June 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

Huh, I was a little bit young and missed Barney Miller in its original run so I never realized Night Court had been created by the same person until just now. Two of the best instrumental sitcom themes ever.

I was entering my tweens just as Night Court came on the air, which probably explains why the bits that stick out in my memory are "heavy issue" ones. I had forgotten about John Astin's character, and there was Selma's death, and the weird Bull Gets a Kid episode where he's participating in a Big Brothers program and his "Little Brother" turns out to be a girl who's been dressing like a boy because... reasons? In hindsight, I can honestly credit that episode with making me re-examine my worldviews of gender identity and sexuality a little bit... I doubt that was the writers' particular intent, but there's no accounting for what causes those little awakenings during our formative years.)

But there was plenty of stupid sitcom humor too. For some reason one particular cafeteria gag struck me just right at the time and still makes me laugh when I remember it:

"Hey, Bull, what's the special today?"

"I don't know, I already ate the face off it!"
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 9:33 AM on June 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: there's no accounting for what causes those little awakenings during our formative years.

:)
posted by Melismata at 9:35 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I liked it as a kid, now I mainly check in to see if Brent Spiner is in whatever episode they have on.
posted by drezdn at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

It had the second TV bass line you learn, after Barney Miller. (Never realized it was the same producer)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:31 AM on June 6, 2017 [5 favorites]

I find it interesting that every discussion of TV shows of the 80's and 90's, is about pointing out how their humor/style/attitude is not current. With the underlying assumption that they should be. It might be bad memory, but I don't remember talking about 20-30 year old shows in the 80's and 90's and criticizing them for being out of date. It seemed like a given.
posted by bongo_x at 11:03 AM on June 6, 2017 [6 favorites]

I don't remember talking about 20-30 year old shows in the 80's and 90's and criticizing them for being out of date. It seemed like a given.

One person's "given" is another person's "never thought about it". I can remember reading praise for the Honeymooners or Amos & Andy that didn't speak at all about terrible attitudes towards women and race. I think that it's less that the criticism was implied and more that it never occurred to the writer to criticize the "classics".

In fact, I originally wrote "retrograde attitudes towards women and race". But they weren't all that retrograde, even now, were they?
posted by aureliobuendia at 11:16 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I loved that show, though even before I knew the term "uneven" I already knew that you never knew to expect if it would be a good one or not. And it was a fantastic ensemble cast - I didn't think they would recover from losing Selma Diamond, but then Marsha Warfield hit it out of the park. Her Roz is one of my favorite sitcom characters, ever.
posted by Mchelly at 11:16 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

A few years ago I had to make an appearance in court (as a witness -- I had gotten hit by a car and the driver got charged). Before I went I joked on my Facebook page that I was primed by my many hours of viewing Law & Order, The Good Wife, L.A. Law, and Reasonable Doubts. When I got back from my day in court (actually two days, because the first day the guy's lawyer asked for an extension, claiming he hadn't received material he was supposed to in time, and the second day the charge was dropped because apparently the police hadn't brought the correct charge), I remarked that court was actually more like Night Court minus all the shenanigans. The courtroom had that look of being a combined courtroom and classroom, with tile flooring and a suspended ceiling and the bench at the front, and the judge and his staff were processing a lot of cases very quickly.

It was a surprise to find that the wacky courtroom show that no one took seriously was actually the most realistic.
posted by orange swan at 11:25 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

One of my favorite exchanges ever from this show was a throwaway from an episode when they were trying to get through a shit-ton of cases all on the same day, so you just got to see little throwaway snips of each. One exchange saw Harry preparing to sentence a couple who were arrested for burning copies of a book in the park; he is lecuring the couple, and Mac curiously picks up a copy of the book they were burning.

HARRY: [note: this is paraphrased] I can't believe that you had the temerity and the gall to burn a book! Not only is it physically dangerous to yourselves and others, but also because censorship, even vigilante censorship, is an insult to the very fabric of democracy! Information should be freely available to all! Well, you have been found guilty, and it looks ilke I have to charge you a fine - and I am going to make sure that I levy a fine that is befitting a crime of such a heinous nature and which truly reflects the gravity of your actions!

MAC: (reading title of book) "The Wonder and Majesty of The Music of Barry Manilow."

HARRY: (hesitates, face frozen, then bangs gavel) I fine you one dollar!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:28 AM on June 6, 2017 [10 favorites]

I have nothing but fond memories of Night Court. Even when I didn't watch the other Thursday shows I would always tune in at the end of the evening for it. It was always a treat when Buddy Ryan or the Wheelers would turn up (the latter always reminded me of the stories Mom would tell about her cousins). I haven't rewatched in years, and judging from the comments here maybe it would be better if I didn't.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:38 AM on June 6, 2017

I don't remember talking about 20-30 year old shows in the 80's and 90's and criticizing them for being out of date. It seemed like a given.

I disagree, because I think there has been a much larger shift in how TV is done between now and the '80s/'90s than there was between that time and the beginnings of TV (which weren't that much farther away). What's the difference between Night Court and I Love Lucy? Color. a little "bluer" language, and casts that weren't quite as heavily white cis straight people. But the framework of the sitcom of the 1980s was still essentially the framework of the sitcom of the 1950s -- a static "situation" that occasionally has a (heavily hyped) fundamental change (Selma dies / the Ricardos have a baby) that doesn't really change things (Roz is a different salty bailiff who rolls her eyes at Bull, but she's a salty bailiff who rolls her eyes at Bull / the baby comes and goes as necessary to plots).

Then you had Seinfeld, probably the last big sitcom ever where you won't be able to tell where an episode was in the run of the whole series in the context of the show itself, leading in to Friends, which had season-to-season movement.

And now, even the most "sitcommy" shows, such as The Big Bang Theory, have constant plot arcs, because that's what people expect from TV shows now. Oh, and let's not forget that sitcoms aren't Must See TV anymore. The next highest rated sitcom last season after TBBT was Life in Pieces at number 30, pulling 10.5M people a week. Night Court's lowest yearly rating was 11.4.

We didn't talk I Love Lucy in the '80s and point out that it was out of date, because comparatively, it wasn't.
posted by Etrigan at 11:44 AM on June 6, 2017 [10 favorites]

One of my favorite exchanges ever from this show was a throwaway from an episode when they were trying to get through a shit-ton of cases all on the same day, so you just got to see little throwaway snips of each.

They did something like three or four these episodes over the years and they were always my favorites. A few choice moments:

"Admit it! The old Enterprise was a piece of junk!"

"I've almost got it right!"

"My god, man; gavel!"

"They confessed their guilt. They told no lies, but oh how they can harmonize."
posted by Servo5678 at 11:51 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

We didn't talk I Love Lucy in the '80s and point out that it was out of date, because comparatively, it wasn't.

People don't say that about I Love Lucy now. They expect the humor to be different.
posted by bongo_x at 11:53 AM on June 6, 2017

The videos in the article weren't working for me, so sorry if this was already covered, but there is this Night Court TV Tales E! Documentary on YT. (Starts out blurry, gets better.)
posted by xedrik at 12:16 PM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't remember talking about 20-30 year old shows in the 80's and 90's and criticizing them for being out of date. It seemed like a given.

I don't criticize the show for being out of date. I fully expect an 80s show to look and sound like the 80s. My criticism in re-watching is that it just doesn't make me laugh. Sure, it was a bit more fresh and edgy at the time. And, well, there was much less choice then.

Similarly, Cheers is very much its kin, though with more character development and longer arcs. But that one, too just isn't as funny as it seemed at the time. Frasier, in comparison, shows some of the development in how sitcom humor changed in the following decade with some of the same characters. And it's not because of familiarity, since I kind of bailed on Cheers before it was even canceled and didn't watch reruns for 20 years. It's just in recent years I've re watched and it just doesn't have the staying power it had at the time.

Then again, I'm a terrible TV snob.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:26 PM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I had cable in the 80's. Watchable things after midnight were few though. I worked as a rock jock, 7pm-Midnight through the week. When I got home after 1am, there wasn't much to see and i was still wound from my on air shift. What I did was get a vcr. In the early 80's...this was still sorta cutting edge. It was a top loading VHS with a wired remote. It was programmable so I had it set to record 7pm to 1am every night. Thurs was a fav because it started w Cosby and was solid thru Night Court until he wee hrs. Ending with Letterman. I timeshifted TV all through the 80's w a VCR.
posted by shockingbluamp at 12:40 PM on June 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

I don't criticize the show for being out of date. I fully expect an 80s show to look and sound like the 80s. My criticism in re-watching is that it just doesn't make me laugh.

Yeah, I'm not rising to the defense of Night Court, nor criticizing anyone's taste, I mean I honestly just find it interesting that people bring this up so much.
posted by bongo_x at 12:52 PM on June 6, 2017

I think a lot of people just don't quite know what to do with content that is offensive and un-PC now, but was considered fine at the time. Should we show it? Censor it? Show it with a warning? Pretend it doesn't exist? I don't think it was as much of an issue in the 70s because the grown ups at the time (e.g. not me) had grown up before TV existed and thought it was a great invention, or something.

But it's a good point: how come we're wringing our hands over outdated material? We didn't growing up in the 70s, we were just expected to accept that it was a show from a different time. More coddling of the youngsters?
posted by Melismata at 1:04 PM on June 6, 2017

We didn't talk I Love Lucy in the '80s and point out that it was out of date, because comparatively, it wasn't.

People don't say that about I Love Lucy now. They expect the humor to be different.

Right, but that's because there are many fewer people now with memories of watching I Love Lucy in first run with their whole family around the TV, but there are still people with those memories for Night Court (plus ILL is visibly different), so those people have to reconcile why it seems so different. But back in the '80s, when people who had those first-run family-room memories of ILL were watching NC, it didn't seem as different, so they didn't have to reconcile it.
posted by Etrigan at 1:16 PM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Was I the only 1980s tween aghast at the horrid attempt at video compositing of a still of a clearly day-shot courthouse with a night sky at the title intro? I mean, it was like it was intentionally done that bad with jagged purple interference bands and all?
posted by Captain Chesapeake at 1:34 PM on June 6, 2017 [6 favorites]

I thought they were being "artsy".
posted by double bubble at 2:50 PM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I don't remember talking about 20-30 year old shows in the 80's and 90's and criticizing them for being out of date. It seemed like a given.

It was pretty rare to see 20-30-year-old shows in the 80s and 90s. Where would you see them? They were rarely on air (maybe late night on some UHF station), there was no streaming, and availability on VHS/DVD (depending on era) was spotty and expensive.

In some ways, it's not terribly fair to scrutinize material clearly intended to be ephemeral to see if it's held up over time. It wasn't intended to. At least aesthetically.
posted by praemunire at 3:08 PM on June 6, 2017

20-30-year-old shows in the 80s and 90s. Where would you see them?
I saw them on WTBS and Nick at Nite, which were on our basic cable lineup in 1988, I think.
posted by soelo at 3:18 PM on June 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

It was a surprise to find that the wacky courtroom show that no one took seriously was actually the most realistic.

I have heard before that Night Court was one of the best representations of how courts actually operate, and have heard similarly about Scrubs and hospitals. Of course now all reality is a farce so makes sense.
posted by ckape at 3:21 PM on June 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

It was pretty rare to see 20-30-year-old shows in the 80s and 90s.

A great example of how experiences differ. I was going to post exactly the opposite, wondering if it wasn't that people used to watch older shows so much more back then.

You can get almost anything now, but there is so much much out there and so much new that no one can keep up. Back then there were less choices, and the places I lived old reruns were on TV all the time. Andy Griffith was on several times a week, Night Court was on once. My friends and I were fans of shows that were made before we were born, and it was a glimpse into a different past.

Maybe it was different where you lived.
posted by bongo_x at 3:21 PM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

It was pretty rare to see 20-30-year-old shows in the 80s and 90s.

I was introduced to Hogans Heroes through afternoon re-runs in the late 90s. Now there's a TV show that requires caveats.
posted by ckape at 3:22 PM on June 6, 2017 [7 favorites]

We watched stuff like Gilligan's Island on daytime TV when I was young. When I got a little older it was stuff like The Jeffersons and Good Times and what not. I think it was pretty standard to have 20 year old reruns on during the day on broadcast TV.
posted by RustyBrooks at 3:24 PM on June 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also, when I was little, we watched a fair amount of I Dream of Genie, and, uh, the other one about a witch, who's name escapes me [ETA: Bewitched]. The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy and what not were on later at night, so I never saw them until I went to college.
posted by RustyBrooks at 3:32 PM on June 6, 2017

have heard similarly about Scrubs and hospitals

I had a doctor who once wrote an essay exactly about this. She told her family and friends to watch Scrubs if they wanted a truthful insight to what she went through as a resident, what her reality was like.
posted by Chitownfats at 3:58 PM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I grew up in the sticks in the late 1970's-80s with only the major networks and a handful of UHF stations, and I would say that the bulk of the UHF channels' programming was TV shows from the 1950s-70s on weekdays; older stuff during the day (I watched a lot of Rat Patrol - in color!, Leave it to Beaver, The Monkees, The Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith Show, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, and The Rifleman during summer vacations) and evenings were more recent syndicated stuff (WKRP in Cincinnati, Welcome Back Kotter, Barney Miller, pretty much all of Norman Lear's shows, and some repackaged version of the Benny Hill Show that was just sketches with most of the scantily-clad women edited out. Imagine my surprise when I rented some full episodes a few years later.)

In some ways, it's not terribly fair to scrutinize material clearly intended to be ephemeral to see if it's held up over time. It wasn't intended to. At least aesthetically.

I think it's appropriate look at old ephemera with a critical eye in terms of how it reflects societal norms and attitudes... and there's certainly plenty of sexism/homophobia/segregation/racism to go around in a lot old media. But I also think it's possible to appreciate the genuinely funny, non-hurtful writing and acting in old shows^* in its context, and without forgiving its problematic aspects. But it can definitely be hard to find a common jumping off point in group discussions.

^*So much of The Dick Van Dyke Show comes to mind - and shows were sometimes able to be subversive/progressive in their own incremental ways that we might not even notice in 2017. (Mary Tyler Moore's capri pants were controversial at the time.)
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 4:02 PM on June 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

Thing I remember about 80s and 90s sitcoms is that they weren't especially funny -- even at the time. We just watched them because they were on. I'd get home from school, grab some kind of snack, plop down in front of the TV and put off doing homework. And then after dinner, more TV, because it was there. It was on.

I don't think it ever even occurred to me that I was supposed to laugh. The people in the audience did that for me. The jokes were predictable, expected; after a while, you made them yourself. Thing is -- and I've had this debate many a time, late at night, after many beers, with members of my generational cohort -- I'm not entirely sure those shows were supposed to be funny. I mean, as different as things were back then, they did have humor. People did actually laugh. If they had wanted to make the shows funny, couldn't they have? It's not like humor is some kind of new invention.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I remember Night Court as actually being occasionally funny. I think there were a few times I laughed out loud. There was something about Night Court that made it different from the rest of the pack. It was slightly more real. Slightly more absurd. Slightly more willing to make you laugh.
posted by panama joe at 7:16 PM on June 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

Harry Anderson's magic-comedy sets on SNL were AMAZING, and comics from that era had a reputation now for being shitty human beings so I believe ya, maxsparber.
posted by jbenben at 11:05 PM on June 6, 2017

Love your sweater vest.
posted by benzenedream at 11:06 PM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

*So much of The Dick Van Dyke Show comes to mind - and shows were sometimes able to be subversive/progressive in their own incremental ways that we might not even notice in 2017. (Mary Tyler Moore's capri pants were controversial at the time.)

MTM and capri pants are inextricably linked in my mind in perpetuity. Which is why I have been known to riff every so often on the fact the dress code at work specifically enumerated as acceptable attire "man capris".

Yup, two years and I still have outbreaks...
posted by Samizdata at 12:35 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I remember watching it back in the day, at the bottom of that block of Thursday night comedies. We always skipped Cosby because it seemed just way too kid oriented. Family Ties had a little more bite. But it was Cheers and Night Court that made my night. The former because that cast and the writing were just incredible, especially for the time. The hour-long Woody's wedding episode will always be in my top ten.

Night Court was absurd, often approaching the surreal, almost vaudevillian sometimes, and yet for seasons 2-6 it could almost go toe-to-toe with anything else on TV. That cast had a bizarre chemistry that even now holds up when I come across it in reruns.

Like all great TV comedies, it over-stayed its welcome and lost its spark. But damn, for those golden seasons it stood with the best and gave me and Missus Ber a lot of laughs.
posted by Ber at 10:14 AM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

I was surprised the first time I read that Mary's capri pants had bothered the network, since Lucy had worn close-fitting trousers years before. Maybe it was because they had wanted Mary to be daintier and more suburban.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:45 PM on June 7, 2017

I was just remembering another of my favorite episodes today: the one where Dan’s hayseed Cajun parents come to visit (John Larroquette is Cajun IRL). He finds out that his beloved childhood pet turtle was really a potato. “I loved that turtle almost as much as my toy drum... with the picture of a Quaker on it.”
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:10 PM on June 8, 2017