Would You Consider The Underrated 'Odd Couple' A Groundbreaking Show???

[Brian Damage]

I do, but I wanted to get other people's take on this subject. Since the movie and then the show premiered back in the early 70's, it seems everybody has at least once or twice tried to emulated the magic of the Odd Couple as a tv series in some form or another.

[bookandfilmnut]

Originally Posted by Brian Damage

I do, but I wanted to get other people's take on this subject. Since the movie and then the show premiered back in the early 70's, it seems everybody has at least once or twice tried to emulated the magic of the Odd Couple as a tv series in some form or another.

I am not sure if I wold use the term "ground-breaking", although I certainly do this the show did signal a transition in sitcoms. In fact, perhaps "transitional" would be the best term for it.

What I mean is, sit-coms of the late 60's tended to have their humor based upon the circumstances in which the characters found themselves (i.e. stranded on an isalnd, fighting a war from a prison camp, trying to hide the fact that a family member is a witch/genie/car/talking horse etc. The characters were in some ways interchangeable from one show to another, the differences and the humor came from the scenario in which they were placed. The humor was zany - and in some cases it was more visual than verbal comedy.

By the 1970's, sit-coms were returning to character-based humor (like Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Dobie Gillis) in which the personal quirks and traits of the characters themselves were the source of most of the humor. The Odd Couple was kid of a hybrid - still maintiaing the wacky humor of the late 60's but also containing a lot of humor based upon the personalities of Felix and Oscar.

But I am not sure I would call it "ground-breaking" in the same sense that All in the Family, MASH or Mary Tyler Moore was.

[howilu]

I wouldn't consider it a groundbreaking sitcom, though it was the first sitcom of the 70s to have two men living together.