By David Hiltbrand, The Philadelphia Inquirer –
When Andy Griffith died this week, I went back to look at clips from his old show just for nostalgia’s sake. And what I discovered is that Mayberry’s sheriff wasn’t all that vigilant. Time after time secondary characters like Gomer and Otis and Barney were blatantly stealing scenes right from under Andy’s nose.
Andy Griffith may have been the star and had his name up on the marquee, but he was playing the straight man on his own comedy.
Back in the early days of television, this wasn’t an unusual situation. Think for instance of “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.” The program might carry your name but you could still play a passive role in it. It’s a tradition that carried through “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to TV’s (and perhaps comedy’s) most adept straight man, Bob Newhart, who sprinkled his magic and his name over a number of sitcoms.
There were exceptions, of course — glory hounds like Lucille Ball and Phil Silvers who grabbed the title and all the punchlines. But generally speaking, if a TV comedy carried your name, you rode in the back seat.
That changed over the decades as comics were less willing to accept a humble role. Drew Carey, Bernie Mac and even Bill Cosby were formulaically designed to be the foils of their eponymous sitcoms, but they insisted on getting the choicest punchlines in each episode (which despite their expert delivery, threw the balance off).
Jerry Seinfeld and Louis C.K. accept the submissive tradition in their own shows, but both wedge standup bits into the episodes, just so you don’t forget who’s the really funny one around here.
We seem to be losing sight of the fact that often in sitcoms, it is better to receive than to give.
—Now you don’t. Now we see why NBC was in such a hurry to install Savannah Guthrie: They wanted to get the new “Today” team up and running smoothly.
So we tuned in this week to find …Willie Geist and Natalie Morales hosting? After all that, Matt Lauer and Guthrie took the week off? Cowards. Even Al Roker was missing. Willard Scott was handling the weather along with his usual century-plus birthday mentions.
Just curious: Scott is on so sporadically these days, what happens to all those centennial celebrants during his dormant months?
—Lay off. Russell Brand’s new late night rant show, “Brand X,” began on FX this week and it was surprisingly lively fun. But did you have launch on the same day your ex-wife Katy Perry’s movie hit the theaters, Russell? That just seemed churlish.
—Bested. There’s this crazy hype amplification that goes on in the media. Someone makes a ridiculously exaggerated statement about a marginal performer in print. Someone else reading that thinks, “I never thought the guy was all that talented, but maybe I’m missing something. I better write something really complimentary.”
And this crazy bandwagon starts rolling where no one wants to appear unhip so they all start trying to outdo each other in heaping praise on a performer that, truth be told, they don’t like all that much.
And that’s how you end up with Louis C.K., star of the FX sitcom “Louie,” described on the cover of a national magazine this week as “the world’s greatest comedian.” He’s a guy who is not afraid to lay out the uglier sides of his psyche. Which is brave. And occasionally funny. But just as often squeamish.
World’s greatest comedian? Not. Even. Close.
—One for the road. At the end of this week’s “True Blood,” Sookie started getting it on with Alcide. I’m not sure if the poor girl knew what she was doing. She was already drunk enough to be singing along to Rupert Holmes “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” when she started whipping up Orange Marzipans. That’s one part triple sec, one part Amaretto, one part Bailey’s Irish cream and all kinds of disgusting.
But I’ll tell you what — I could drink a whole vat of Orange Marzipans and still not find Louis C.K. attractive. I mention that only because one reputable website yesterday named him “the sexiest man on TV.”
You people really need to get a grip.
