Classic TV

We’ve hit an interesting point in the arc of TV storytelling. It’s almost completely self-referential. Like monks from those earlier Dark Ages, copying illuminated manuscripts over and over again, today’s Hollywood hacks are feeding internally until there is no discernable output or input of ideas. Only yeasty, subdividing molecules of “Cop,” “Hot Chick”/“Dopey Chick”/“Brainy Chick,” “Cute Kid,” “Uptight Mom,” and “Bumbling Dad.”

Which got me to thinking. Wouldn’t TV be a lot better if rip-off shows substituted Great Minds of Western Civilization for their original characters? The only rules: A surrogate character must have roughly the same attitude as the original. Extra credit for sound-alike names. Like, for example…

All in the Family, with Edith and Nietzsche Bunker.

Gloria: “Daddy, when are you gonna start treating Ma like an equal?”

Nietzsche: “As yet woman is not capable of friendship: Women are still cats and birds; or at best, cows.”

Mike: “The way you make Edith wait on you hand and foot is a crime!”

Nietzsche: “Listen, Meathead. Once upon a time ‘good’ meant ‘godlike,’ and actions were considered good when they were done by the powerful. The chief virtue was power. ‘Bad’ meant common or poor and described those who were not powerful. Nowadays youse Commie pinkos are pushin’ a morality that’s all about loooove and compassion, and it comes from the resentment that the base and sheeplike feel toward the powerful. What was good now is called evil and what was bad came to be called good.”

Mike: “Sheesh!”

Edith: (scurries in from the kitchen) “Dinner’s almost ready!”

Nietzsche: “Get me a beer, Dingbat!”

Edith: “Sure thing, Neech! Right away!”

The idea works with game shows, too. How about the great 1920s know-it-all fronting her own quiz program: Win Gertrude Stein’s Money. She and Ben Stein have exactly the same haircut, you know.

Gertrude: “Hello. I’m Gertrude Stein. And today, I’m putting up $5,000 from my trust fund that says I know more than you. Money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money.”

Jimmy Kimmel: “Gertrude, our first contestant today is a football coach at a males-only military academy. Welcome, Jack.”

Jack: “Thanks, Jimmy. Hi, Gertrude.”

Jimmy: “Please step into the isolation booths. The categories are the Island of Lesbos, ethnic jewelry, Provincetown, Legends of the LPGA, and David Crosby.”

Even Nick at Nite classics could benefit from creative recasting. Imagine that unforgettable uptempo chacha music and the big Valentine heart as animated letters spell out “I Love Luther.”

Desi enters the apartment, carrying an armload of papal indulgences, a rosary dangling from his coat pocket.

Desi: “Luther, I’m hoooome. Hey, wha’s this note you nailed to the door? You got some ’splainin’ to do!”

Luther: “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”

Desi: “Luuuuuuther!”

Luther: “Waaaaaah.”

Memo to CBS: Want to shake Ray Romano’s long-running sitcom out of its creative doldrums? Turn him from a likable sports columnist into a depressive alcoholic turning out masterful stories of blue-collar despair. Presto: Everybody Loves Raymond Carver.

Robert sits snacking at Ray’s kitchen table, compulsively touching his glass or spoon to his chin before eating or drinking.

Ray: (takes an anguished slug of gin straight from the bottle) “Will you please stop with the chin thing. Please?” (Tilts head back and takes continuous Adam’s-apple-bobbing gulps.)

Robert: “You should really stick to Canada Dry ginger ale. Whadda you got to drink for, anyway? You’re a writer, you got a perfect life. I’m underappreciated, unloved, and always getting slighted by our parents. I’m freakin’ six foot eight!” (Weeps.) “I should be the drunk, but I can’t be, because they’d say I was copyin’ you.” (Pulls out his service revolver, taps it on his chin, and cocks it at his temple.)

Ray: (puts down bottle, brightens) “Wait a minute.” (Pulls a notebook and pencil out of his pocket, prepares to record Robert’s pain in terse, resonant, hard-edged sentences.) “Go on. My life is going to change—I feel it.”