Night Court

I really didn’t think Warner Brothers would ever get around to this, but they’ve finally — almost five years after the first season was released — announced a release date for season 3 of Night Court, the ’80s NBC comedy that was halfway between underrated classic and guilty pleasure. (It had enough respect in the industry and Emmy nominations/wins that it couldn’t quite be considered a guilty pleasure. But it was so uneven, and flamed out so badly at the end of its run, that I wouldn’t really try to argue for it as a classic, even though it had the most and biggest laughs of NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup.) I wonder if the 30 Rock episode last year had anything to do with reviving interest in releasing “Warner Brothers’ intellectual property.” If so, thanks, Kenneth.

Didn’t have a lot of posting time today, but here is a Filler Clip™ of a particularly For The Win nature: scenes from the second appearance of the second-greatest comedy guest characters of the last 25 years (after Mr. Bookman), Bob and June Wheeler, played by Brent Spiner and Annie O’Donnell. Written by series creator Reinhold Weege in a two-part episode called “Hurricane” that should have made the “top 100 episodes of all time” list, these scenes are not sophisticated in any way — including the old-fashioned reaction shots and “let me get this straight” type straight lines — but damn, low comedy is brilliant when it’s done right. Of course today, for the most part, it’s the good one-camera shows that are less afraid of corny jokes, old-fashioned plots and broad humour, like 30 Rock, which is in many ways the broadest and corniest show on the air. Many multi-camera shows, which theoretically are supposed to go for “hard” jokes to please the audience, in practice wind up going for very mild jokes because just about anything can make a studio audience laugh if it’s delivered with the right rhythm. But many of them would be better off with big, Vaudevillian turns.

After I posted last week about 30 Rock‘s Night Court semi-reunion, I was asked by a couple of people whether Kenneth was right when he said that that show was supposed to end with Harry and Christine getting married, but didn’t because there wasn’t a tenth season (due to the shark-jumping performance of Jenna as were-lawyer Sparky Monroe). I should be embarrassed to be able to answer this, but I’m not. So for all of us who still think it’s awesome that Reinhold Weege and Linwood Boomer had their names on a show at the same time, here’s a chronology of one of the most complete and total creative collapses ever undergone by a good, Emmy-winning show.

My Night Court nostalgia seems to be spreading. Tonight’s episode of 30 Rock will have a subplot where Tracy tries to cheer Kenneth up by inviting cast members from Night Court to pay him a visit. (The episode is even called “The One With the Cast of Night Court.”) But the cast listing suggests that only three cast members will actually be in the episode: Harry Anderson, Markie Post, Charles Robinson. Why they couldn’t get John Larroquette when he was on Chuck just recently, I don’t know. Though the fact that Richard Moll isn’t there probably just adds to the urban legend that he didn’t get along with his castmates.

Finally, Night Court seems to be re-emerging. OmniTV is showing it on two different channels, though in confusing ways. (At the moment Omni1 is showing the second season three times a week, uncut, and Omni2 is showing the third season five times a week, but with syndication cuts. The logic of these programming choices is inscrutable, beyond the obvious conclusion that they’re using Night Court episodes as a cheap way to plug any hole they have in the schedule.) And three years after the DVD release of the not-very-good first season, the second season will be released sometime this year. I’m not confident that it’ll sell enough to get to the third season, which was probably the best overall, but I can hope.

In 1933, Walter Lantz made a cartoon starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit called “Confidence,” where the Depression causes harm to Oswald and his barnyard friends, and so Oswald goes to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to get a lesson — in song! — about the only thing that can cure the Depression.