TMC
09-01-2024, 02:23 AM
https://jacksonupperco.com/2024/08/28/short-lived-sitcom-potpourri-xxii-martin-mull-edition/
Thoughts: Since Roseanne Barr fancied her own sitcom the second coming of I Love Lucy (as they were both domestic-set multi-cams where the matriarch carried the laughs), it’s no surprise that her empire turned to The Dick Van Dyke Show for inspiration in crafting this vehicle (https://web.archive.org/web/20061031133326/http://www.jumptheshark.com/j/jackiethomas.htm) for her then-husband Tom Arnold, and specifically, its workplace premise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackie_Thomas_Show) about TV comedy writers. Only this time, the lead wouldn’t be playing the anchoring role – the Robert Petrie, if you will — but rather, the larger-than-life conflict-maker, the Alan Brady, the terrible boss who also happens to be an egomaniacal star, here called “Jackie Thomas” after both Jackie Gleason and Danny Thomas, yet with a lot of Arnold himself in the character’s biography, plus obvious traces of the notoriously menacing Roseanne. To enable this amalgam of toxic celebrity, the workplace-set TV-about-TV series utilized the same Dick Van Dyke office construct, as the pilot introduces Jerry, the pragmatic Robert Petrie-type, who becomes the new head writer of Jackie Thomas’ banal family sitcom, leading a staff that includes a Sally-like broad, a Buddy-like jokester, and a Mel-like wimp.
Thoughts: Since Roseanne Barr fancied her own sitcom the second coming of I Love Lucy (as they were both domestic-set multi-cams where the matriarch carried the laughs), it’s no surprise that her empire turned to The Dick Van Dyke Show for inspiration in crafting this vehicle (https://web.archive.org/web/20061031133326/http://www.jumptheshark.com/j/jackiethomas.htm) for her then-husband Tom Arnold, and specifically, its workplace premise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackie_Thomas_Show) about TV comedy writers. Only this time, the lead wouldn’t be playing the anchoring role – the Robert Petrie, if you will — but rather, the larger-than-life conflict-maker, the Alan Brady, the terrible boss who also happens to be an egomaniacal star, here called “Jackie Thomas” after both Jackie Gleason and Danny Thomas, yet with a lot of Arnold himself in the character’s biography, plus obvious traces of the notoriously menacing Roseanne. To enable this amalgam of toxic celebrity, the workplace-set TV-about-TV series utilized the same Dick Van Dyke office construct, as the pilot introduces Jerry, the pragmatic Robert Petrie-type, who becomes the new head writer of Jackie Thomas’ banal family sitcom, leading a staff that includes a Sally-like broad, a Buddy-like jokester, and a Mel-like wimp.