One of the Boys aired from January until August 1982 on NBC.
There was no generation gap here. Sixty-six-year-old Oliver Nugent ( Mickey Rooney) was retired, energetic, and full of fun. His grandson, Adam ( Dana Carvey), a student at Sheffield College in New Jersey, decided that Gramps was too young at heart to be cooped up at the nearby Bayview Acres retirement home, so he invited Oliver to move in with him and his roommate Jonathan ( Nathan Lane). He didn't have to ask twice. Coeds thought the old guy was cute, while Mrs. Green ( Francine Beers), the divorcee who owned their apartment buiding , found Oliver both attractive and eligible. Oliver's closest friend was Bernard ( Scatman Crothers), a retired entertainer with whom he performed occasionally at the local soda shop to entertain the kids. Adam's girlfriend Jane ( Meg Ryan) was one of Oliver's biggest fans.
A Review from The New York Times
TV Weekend; SUPER BOWL, DRUG WAR, MICKEY ROONEY SERIES
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: January 22, 1982
THIS is the weekend, in case you hadn't heard, of football's Super Bowl, always one of the most watched television attractions of the year. The 16th annual confrontation will have the San Francisco 49ers facing the Cincinnati Bengals at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan. Sunday's presentation on CBS-TV will begin at 2:30 P.M. with assorted reports and commentaries. The game itself gets under way at about 4.
This seems to be a busy period for news documentaries, perhaps because they nearly always get low ratings and the networks want to get them out of the way before the Nielsen national ''sweeps'' period begins in a couple of weeks, the time when ratings are used to determine the advertising rates of local stations. In any event, the news departments are suddenly on prominent display, beginning tonight at 10 with an NBC News production, ''An American Profile: The Narcs,'' produced by Sy Pearlman.
The network describes the program as ''the first in a series of special American Profile broadcasts in which Tom Brokaw will focus on people from all walks of life who work under extremely diffic ult circumstances but rarely receive the recognit ion and acclaim they deserve.'' Mr. Brokaw recently left his chore s as host on the ''Today'' show and will soon become a co-anch or, with Roger Mudd, of the ''NBC Nightly News.''
Mr. Brokaw and two camera crews spent six weeks in Florida, interviewing and watching six members of the Dade County Narcotics Squad. The squad happens to police the busiest drug-traffic area in the country but, as Mr. Brokaw notes, they are rewarded with little more than long hours, low pay and a continuing strain on their family lives. More to the point, after runinng into innumerable job frustrations, from inadequate manpower and equipment to what they view as laws protecting the criminals, they ask, ''Does anybody care?.''
The NBC team follows the ''narcs'' on some raids and dealing setups, finding assorted drug pushers, mostly Spanish-speaking, and huge amounts of marijuana, cocaine and cash, stuffed like fake Monopoly money into bags. In a rare personal moment, one of the police officers tells how his daughter used to be beaten up in school simply because her father was a despised ''narc.''
In the end, Mr. Brokaw says that the drug trade is enormous because of public attitudes: ''An increasing number of Americans are more concerned about getting a steady supply of narcotics than about good law enforcement, and too many other Americans are just indifferent.''
On the new weekly series front, NBC is offering Mickey Rooney in ''One of the Boys'' tomorrow night at 8. This is the concept that takes up the cause of elderly persons far too perky to be put away in retirement homes. Mr. Rooney plays 66-year-old Oliver Nugent, who has moved into an apartment with two young college students, his nephew Adam (Dana Carvey) and Adam's friend Jonathan (Nathan Lane). Evidently the original first episode has been scratched, leaving certain key plot developments hazy, but I am told that the opening credits will contain footage, both live and animated, showing how Mr. Nugent managed to finagle his way onto a college campus.
That leaves Mr. Rooney lovably expending more energy than an oil country's best customer. He jogs, he dances a jig, he goes into contortions t rying to maneuver through bookstore aisles. He even doesshamelessly h oary comedy routines. Preparing a lamb stew, for instance, he opens a bottle of wine and carefully pours some into a measuring cup . He then pours the rest of the bottle into the stew.
This episode's plot has something to do with Mr. Nugent's efforts to lose weight. But that's merely the peg on which to hang the routines, most of them predictable. His grandson Adam is protective. Jonathan is charmingly sarcastic. Mrs. Green (Francine Beers), the landlady, plies Mr. Nugent with chocolate cakes (''You're chubby now, so you'll be a little chubbier -who'll notice?''). His new friend Bernard (Scatman Crothers) is also proving that aging can be fun. It all passes by breezily enough, and Mr. Rooney's personality adds a special glow that could keep this sitcom around for a while.
Back with the documentaries, Saturday at 9:30 CBS News has a production titled ''The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception.'' With George Crile as reporter-producer and Mike Wallace as correspondent, the 90-minute program provides an explanation to what is described as one of the great mysteries of the Vietnam war: ''Why, for so long, our Government apparently believed, and wanted all of us to believe, that we were winning the war.''
At the outset, Mr. Wallace announces: ''Tonight we are going to present evidence of what we have come to believe was a conscious effort, indeed a conspiracy, at the highest levels of American military intelligence, to suppress and alter critical intelligence on the enemy in the year leading up to the Tet offensive'' in January, 1968. CBS News obtained its material from Sam Adams, a former C.I.A. analyst who served as a paid consultant for the documentary.
The details are too numerous and complicated to enumerate completely in this column but, in essence, the program charges that some of America's highest military and intelligence officials falsified data and lied about the ''nature and size of the enemy we were facing.'' In interviews, several aides of Gen. William C. Westmoreland, then Army Chief of Staff, concede that, under orders, they participated in the suppression of certain facts. The general himself appears on camera, at times bristling under the barrage of Mr. Wallace's questions.
General Westmoreland still insists that the enemy was virtually destroyed at Tet, but Mr. Wallace concludes: ''Be that as it may, the fighting in Vietnam went on for seven more years after the Tet offensive. Twenty-seven thousand more American soldiers were killed. Over 100,000 more were wounded. And on April 30, l975, that same enemy entered Saigon once again. Only this time, it was called Ho Chi Minh City.'' Howard Stringer was the executive producer, Andrew Lack the senior producer, for this report.
On Sunday at 10 P.M., the first of several television presentations marking the 100th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's birth on Jan. 30 will be broadcast by NBC News. ''Nothing to Fear - The Legacy of F.D.R.'' uses archiva l material and recent interviews to compile a ''reflective analysis '' on the charismatic and still controversial President who saw thi s country through the Depression and most of World War II. John Har t is the reporter, Anthony Potter the executive producer. A revi ew will appear in Sunday's Arts and Leisure section.
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