He & She - This was another good show........

[Pitooey]

This was another good show that was taken out too early........... I loved this show.

[Fan of old shows]

ive never seen it.

[gilligan fanatic]

I Have Never Heard Of it

[Pitooey]

Bring back this funny show.................

[TMC]

He & She: The great ’70s sitcom that aired in 1967

Most great TV shows that fail commercially are victims of timing. There’s a whole host of single-camera sitcoms from the ’80s and ’90s that might have flourished had they only debuted in the 2000s, which were friendlier to the format. Later on even shows like 30 Rock ran for seven seasons where Arrested Development ran for only three, because the former had the good fortune of debuting a few years later, on a network that had fewer options. Then, shows like the much-lamented Terriers fall into the category of one FX can keep going, because it can justify the expense via future streaming revenue.

Yet all of that ignores the question of influence. Arrested Development might have been watched by a handful of people when it aired, but enough of them were in the industry that its influence has been felt far and wide. Similarly, the single-camera comedy movement of the 2000s would have been nowhere without the early experimenters in the form who tried to bring something more cinematic to the half-hour network timeslot, which was mostly met with complete audience indifference. TV, like all artistic mediums, is often built off of imitation, off of rebuilding things that didn’t quite work until the audience was accustomed enough to their basic building blocks to embrace them.

Such was the case with He & She, a show so good and so mourned that one of its writers took many of its basic elements and re-appropriated them a few years later for a show that spanned nearly a decade and became one of the most beloved comedies of its time: The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Co-created by Allen Burns, who won a writing Emmy for his work on He & She, the major difference between the two programs was simply timing. Mary Tyler Moore debuted in 1970 on a CBS that was eager to shed its image as a purveyor of lowest common denominator shows with offerings suited to the interests of rural rubes. (Some of those shows, such as Green Acres and The Andy Griffith Show, were terrific, not that it changed opinions within CBS any.) As such, the network was willing to suffer lower ratings for a while to get viewers interested in a creatively promising story of a young, single woman making her way alone in the city, particularly if it starred someone like Mary Tyler Moore.

But He & She debuted in 1967, on a television landscape where CBS was still very much invested in rural-themed sitcoms. Indeed, He & She’s lead-in for the one season it ran was Green Acres itself, and in the years to come, He & She’s major players and creative personnel would frequently blame the show’s failure on the bad timeslot. Yet, it wasn’t as if CBS had a huge number of open timeslots conducive to a witty, urban drama about two young married people who were very obviously having copious amounts of sex (and having a great time with it to boot). It was the number one network on television, but that position was earned by seeing how much the viewing public sparked to The Beverly Hillbillies, then draining every last bit of blood from that particular stone. In fact, with its gently surreal streak, He & She’s only compatible lead-in might have been the show where a pig was a major character.

[Alan Brady's Hair]

He & She, like Good Morning World, was an attempt to recapture The Dick van Dyke Show. The Beverly Hillbillies had served as the lead-in that saved the Dick van Dyke Show, so of course Green Acres could have served as lead-in to He & She.* The Mary Tyler Moore Show is even more closely based on The Dick van Dyke Show - it's a virtual reworking. The biggest failing of He & She was that Dick Benjamin and Paula Prentiss were relative stiffs at comedy, at least on TV.

*Ironically by 1967 the critics had been beating on the Hillbillies for so long that supposedly hip viewers might no longer have felt free to enjoy the likes of Green Acres.

[cd637299]

Having been too young at the time to enjoy this show (I was born in 1959 + it was a school night), I’m kinda stunned that this was never digitized and put onto DVD.

With Benjamin & Prentiss having an unusually long Hollywood marriage (61 years now & kudos to them), one would think they’d have a say about keeping their names out there. Oh well.

cd