Tony Randall

Here’s a genuine rarity with an all-star writing staff. The Tony Randall Show was his first show after The Odd Couple was canceled. It was produced by MTM, though unlike most of MTM’s other shows, it was on ABC rather than CBS. It followed the same pattern as MTM’s previous hits like Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart: take a star, put him or her in a different city (every MTM show had a different locale; in this show, it was Philadelphia), and go back and forth between the lead character’s home and work lives. Randall’s character was a judge and a widower with two kids, so the show’s two home bases were his house, where he lived with his kids and his wacky, bad-cooking  English housekeeper (the famously troubled Rachel Roberts), and the courthouse, full of wacky co-workers played by terrific character actors like Allyn McLerie and Barney “Seinfeld’s TV Dad” Martin.