Night Court Boned the Fish When...

[jessm78]

I agree with you. It did seem too sanctimonious and PC (and this show had a history of being very un-PC). I was about 12-13 when this episode aired and I was pretty aware of who Andrew Dice Clay was, so I recognized what they were trying to do with that. Even then I didn't appreciate the whole "Ooh, you can't say that about people who are [fill in the blank]. That's just horrible!" thing. The only thing I got a laugh at was the way the newsstand guy started laughing at him and said "I'm just wondering if you look as stupid as you sound." Sure, these guys' humor might just come of as stupid and low-brow to people, but the way they tried to show it was like hitting the audience over the head with an anvil. They could have been a bit more subtle and not made the whole episode about it.

Season 8 definitely saw a marked decline in quality to me.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by jessm78

I agree with you. It did seem too sanctimonious and PC (and this show had a history of being very un-PC). I was about 12-13 when this episode aired and I was pretty aware of who Andrew Dice Clay was, so I recognized what they were trying to do with that. Even then I didn't appreciate the whole "Ooh, you can't say that about people who are [fill in the blank]. That's just horrible!" thing. The only thing I got a laugh at was the way the newsstand guy started laughing at him and said "I'm just wondering if you look as stupid as you sound." Sure, these guys' humor might just come of as stupid and low-brow to people, but the way they tried to show it was like hitting the audience over the head with an anvil. They could have been a bit more subtle and not made the whole episode about it.

Season 8 definitely saw a marked decline in quality to me.

Was this a habit of Night Court towards the end of its run? I was watching another episode from that season on Encore Classic yesterday in which Roz has to "babysit" an obnoxious child star. Roz at the end goes off on some tangent about how the boy's mother should actually act like a responsible mother and not simply his manager/"meal ticket". And naturally, the studio audience erupted in applause when Roz told the mother off. To me, it immediately came across as preachy (something that say, Diff'rent Strokes or one of the Miller-Boyett sitcoms on TGIF would do), and I would highly doubt that Night Court under Reinhold Weege, would resort to such a thing.

[jessm78]

Oh goodness, I remember that episode with that brat kid and Roz teaching his mother to stand up to him and act like a responsible mother. It did seem preachy to me. I've been rewatching that season on DVD lately, and I caught part of "Mac Takes a Vocation" the other night. That's the one where that judge hired Mac to work for him, but they found out he did it to pander to his new district (which was 50% minority). Harry discovered it from a newspaper article, went to talk to Mac about it who was giving the judge the benefit of the doubt, but then of course realized it was true.

I don't remember them addressing things like this earlier on. It did seem to be pretty heavy-handed.

[TMC]

I'm very intrigued over just how bad the last season was. I've heard that Season 8 was originally meant to be the last, but for what ever the reasons, NBC picked it up at virtually the last minute. Perhaps as a result or a byproduct of this, the producers claimed that they didn't have any real storylines or good ideas mapped out for a possible ninth season. When I saw the mini-Night Court reunion (w/ Harry Anderson, Markie Post and Charles Robinson) on 30 Rock, I'll admit that I was extremely confused over what they were talking about (maybe because I never really watched Night Court during its original run on NBC, since I was still very young at the time). Incidentally, Encore Classic just showed the episode from Season 8 that introduced that infamous "Phil Foundation" storyline.

[jessm78]

Yup, back when it was originally airing, I remember hearing that season 8 was going to be the last one. They originally planned to have Harry and Christine get married, and Dan was to become a priest (or so I'd heard). You can tell they'd been renewed in a hurry and basically cobbled things together for the next season the way they opened it. I guess they decided they still had the thread of Bull with his girlfriend and decided to marry them off. And there was the idea of "how do we get Dan back after he's gone berserk after what Will did to him?", with him starting off in dog court and then working his way back up to Harry's court. Other than that, it really did seem like they didn't have much of a direction for that final season. It's funny, I never really thought about it that much back then (I was 13-14 when the final season aired), but it did seem really different to me and I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous seasons.

Ugh, the Phil Foundation. That one episode where Dan is fretting over all the pollution, global warming, minks being killed for coats, etc... he was just insufferable. And doing a total 180 and becoming sickeningly nice (especially in such a short time) was unrealistic to me.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by jessm78

Yup, back when it was originally airing, I remember hearing that season 8 was going to be the last one. They originally planned to have Harry and Christine get married, and Dan was to become a priest (or so I'd heard). You can tell they'd been renewed in a hurry and basically cobbled things together for the next season the way they opened it. I guess they decided they still had the thread of Bull with his girlfriend and decided to marry them off. And there was the idea of "how do we get Dan back after he's gone berserk after what Will did to him?", with him starting off in dog court and then working his way back up to Harry's court. Other than that, it really did seem like they didn't have much of a direction for that final season. It's funny, I never really thought about it that much back then (I was 13-14 when the final season aired), but it did seem really different to me and I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous seasons.

Ugh, the Phil Foundation. That one episode where Dan is fretting over all the pollution, global warming, minks being killed for coats, etc... he was just insufferable. And doing a total 180 and becoming sickeningly nice (especially in such a short time) was unrealistic to me.

I think that at the end of the day, Night Court's main issue just like Murphy Brown (which is currently paired w/ NC on Encore Classic) is that it was on the air too long. Night Court probably should've called it a day, when Reinhold Weege stepped down as executive producer. And just like Murphy Brown (remember the last season involving Murphy betting breast cancer), perhaps Night Court under the Chris Cluess and Stuart Kreisman regime began to take itself a bit too seriously.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by jessm78

Oh goodness, I remember that episode with that brat kid and Roz teaching his mother to stand up to him and act like a responsible mother. It did seem preachy to me. I've been rewatching that season on DVD lately, and I caught part of "Mac Takes a Vocation" the other night. That's the one where that judge hired Mac to work for him, but they found out he did it to pander to his new district (which was 50% minority). Harry discovered it from a newspaper article, went to talk to Mac about it who was giving the judge the benefit of the doubt, but then of course realized it was true.

I don't remember them addressing things like this earlier on. It did seem to be pretty heavy-handed.

Encore Classic just showed that episode. What's funny is that if I'm not mistaken, it wasn't like Night Court didn't do "serious" episodes involving Mac and his race prior to that. For example, there was an episode from I think the second season, in which Mac's grandfather disapproves of his interracial marriage to Quon Le.

I guess the new producers, unlike when Reinhold Weege was around back then, lacked the skill or subtly to make social commentary be well balanced w/ the humor. Watching Season 8 again, I guess w/ the stuff that you and I brought up, it came off as a case of too much (unnatural) pontificating (if that makes sense).

[TMC]

Originally Posted by jessm78

Yup, back when it was originally airing, I remember hearing that season 8 was going to be the last one. They originally planned to have Harry and Christine get married, and Dan was to become a priest (or so I'd heard). You can tell they'd been renewed in a hurry and basically cobbled things together for the next season the way they opened it. I guess they decided they still had the thread of Bull with his girlfriend and decided to marry them off. And there was the idea of "how do we get Dan back after he's gone berserk after what Will did to him?", with him starting off in dog court and then working his way back up to Harry's court. Other than that, it really did seem like they didn't have much of a direction for that final season. It's funny, I never really thought about it that much back then (I was 13-14 when the final season aired), but it did seem really different to me and I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous seasons.

Ugh, the Phil Foundation. That one episode where Dan is fretting over all the pollution, global warming, minks being killed for coats, etc... he was just insufferable. And doing a total 180 and becoming sickeningly nice (especially in such a short time) was unrealistic to me.

It seems like after reading into it some more (and watching the episodes again on Encore Classic), the new producers, Stu Kreisman and Chris Cluess, felt that Dan finally needed to "answer" or "pay" for his amoral, selfish behavior over the years. Hence, he is given an otherwise extremely contrived "redemption arc". I think that maybe if the show was more "subversive" or over-the-top w/ its humor (instead of what I would consider, too "dry and corny" by this point), then maybe the whole thing could've worked better. Instead, it seemed like Kreisman and Cluess were virtually "deadly serious" (it seems like whatever serious issue the show wanted to make like going after Andrew Dice Clay via the "Potty Man" character, came from Kreisman and Cluess themselves) in wanting Night Court to "change its ways" so to speak.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Nyan

Dan's emotional breakdown. I think Dan should have been shipped to rehab for a few episodes until he got better instead of pushing him into hallucinating Phil, becoming quasi-missionary and recreating the courthouse in the basement. Through most of the series sexuality and mental health are portrayed positively but I was really disappointed in Night Court for the way it handled Dan Fielding's stress break with reality.

I really don't understand why the writers/producers were going out of their way to humiliate Dan and make him look like a chump in the last two seasons. I don't know if John Larroquette was getting tired of playing such a lecherous, sleazy individual or it was the producers feeling that Dan couldn't get away w/ his amoral behavior w/o any consequences. The producers seemingly wanted to evolve or "redeem" an otherwise unsympathetic comedic protagonist, but they did it in the most contrived, heavy-handed, and implausible ways imaginable.

But to me, turning Dan into a creepily nice, well-doer really took away a lot of the show's edge (Reinhold Weege's departure as executive producer didn't help matters) and bite so to speak. It seemed like the producers didn't totally realize that Dan had for all intents and purposes, become sort of an anti-hero character. I mean, there has to be a reason why John Larroquette won so many Emmys during his run on Night Court.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by king of comedy

I hated the final episode when Bull went with those aliens. That was a WTF moment.

Encore Classic just showed the first part (I'm assuming that it was originally showed as an hour episode when it first aired on NBC back in 1992) of the series finale. I'm I the only one who thinks that maybe the episode involving Bull's wedding to Wanda would've served as a better series finale?

[TMC]

Originally Posted by jessm78

I agree with you. It did seem too sanctimonious and PC (and this show had a history of being very un-PC). I was about 12-13 when this episode aired and I was pretty aware of who Andrew Dice Clay was, so I recognized what they were trying to do with that. Even then I didn't appreciate the whole "Ooh, you can't say that about people who are [fill in the blank]. That's just horrible!" thing. The only thing I got a laugh at was the way the newsstand guy started laughing at him and said "I'm just wondering if you look as stupid as you sound." Sure, these guys' humor might just come of as stupid and low-brow to people, but the way they tried to show it was like hitting the audience over the head with an anvil. They could have been a bit more subtle and not made the whole episode about it.

Season 8 definitely saw a marked decline in quality to me.

The writers/producers simply focused on the fact that Andrew Dice Clay was a bad guy because he was a politically incorrect (e.g. offensive to women, minorities, etc.) "insult comic". The real issue with ADC wasn't that he enjoyed being vulgar and offensive in his act, it's that ADC in hindsight, was a hack.

I don't care about comedians who do vulgar stuff as long as there's a point to it (and still subscribed to the setup/punchline format) and that isn't all that you have to offer. In ADC's case, it was misogynistic ranting and dirty nursery rhymes. To put it in another way, it seemed like he was trying to be shocking just for the sake of it. He had no depth to his material to put it in another way.

He was in a way, kind of the Larry the Cable Guy of his heyday, in that his whole shtick was putting on a "persona" of sorts. Larry the Cable Guy has the cartoonish redneck persona (even though in reality, he's from Nebraska and is named Dan) while "The Dice Man" had the macho, chauvinist, tough-guy from Brooklyn persona.

[billybatts]

When Christine married that jerk cop i was done.

[MikeLutton]

I couldn't stand quan lee I thought she was pushy and very annoying same with bull but that just me

[AMackII]

The Phil Foundation

[TMC]

Originally Posted by jessm78

I agree with you. It did seem too sanctimonious and PC (and this show had a history of being very un-PC). I was about 12-13 when this episode aired and I was pretty aware of who Andrew Dice Clay was, so I recognized what they were trying to do with that. Even then I didn't appreciate the whole "Ooh, you can't say that about people who are [fill in the blank]. That's just horrible!" thing. The only thing I got a laugh at was the way the newsstand guy started laughing at him and said "I'm just wondering if you look as stupid as you sound." Sure, these guys' humor might just come of as stupid and low-brow to people, but the way they tried to show it was like hitting the audience over the head with an anvil. They could have been a bit more subtle and not made the whole episode about it.

Season 8 definitely saw a marked decline in quality to me.

I thought about this thread again after reading an entry on Andrew Dice Clay on TV Tropes. Basically, a big factor in "The Diceman's" own downfall was that people weren't sure if what he was saying in his act was meant to be the gospel or he was playing a character. So he ultimately wound up attracting the wrong type of fans to his act who just took what he was saying at face value.

The problem with Night Court, is that instead of focusing on people who may misinterpret what Andrew Dice Clay was saying in his act and not take into account, and not realize that what he may be doing is a deconstructive parody, they just take the simplistic and basic route of saying that "Dice Clay is a bad guy because he's a foul mouthed, politically incorrect comedian." If you're going to just base your argument on that, then you might as well go after virtually every other stand-up comedian who dares to curse and talk about other cultures in society and what not. It's basically a "slippery slope" to put it in another way. My point is, why couldn't Night Court, if they had to attack comedians like Andrew Dice Clay, attack him on the basis of his penchant for blurring the lines between the character and actor?

To give you a better idea, the Beastie Boys had this song called "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)". The song was meant by the Beastie Boys to be an ironic, sarcastic song. But the people who the song was meant to make fun off (hedonistic "dude-bro" fratboys) actually thought that the song was meant to be celebratory of their lifestyle and behavior.