Word: lear
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Sitcoms For the first time since 1971, there will be no new fall comedy show on the networks from Norman Lear. Still, with TV violence out of fashion, the sitcom mills have been the busiest of all, with eight new shows. If Soap, a Lear-ish entry from ABC, is any indication, sex may replace the Shootout as a video pastime. The half-hour weekly serial is a family farce complete with philandering husband, a mother and daughter who pursue the same tennis pro, a transvestite son, and many, many others...
...something is terribly awry-the piano player is in an iron lung; Fernwood 2 Night, the talk show to end all talk shows, is on and running muck. Something like a televised cross between radio's Bob and Ray and print's Mad Magazine, it is Norman Lear's newest and, so far, funniest invention...
Earth Gimble, the host, is a preternatural populist. Under a blond tuft of mustache, he sports the same smug smile for everyone, turning it off only when his sidekick, Jerry Hubbard, ventures beyond the bounds of propriety, Fern-wood-style. Gimble, played by Martin Mull, 33, is the best Lear character since Archie Bunker, and Hubbard (Fred Willard, 33), the dumber-than-dumb Edith Bunker of this most odd couple, is not far behind. Any comparison to Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon is, of course, purely intentional...
...anyone who has watched Mary Hartman or followed what seems to be the terminal lust of the Globatron girls in All That Glitters. Seven years ago ABC rejected All in the Family, a fact that officials of network affiliates still discuss with steel in their voices. For Norman Lear, who produced all three shows, Soap is the sincerest form of flattery, a sweaty attempt to play catch-up with his old comedies...
...rant about to my children when they, having cleverly attained puberty along with their first molars, now threaten having similar experiences during their all-important high school years. "How can you waste your all-important high school years lathering around about relationships!" I storm, Polonius dressed as King Lear, brandishing an unbalanced checkbook. "I'm not paying the bloody bills to have you bloody find yourself!" And so forth...