TVLAND [correction] had a Night Court marathon over the weekend to honor its addition to the schedule.
I really enjoyed this show when I was younger (it was on in my formative years, so to speak) and some of the episodes shown suggest why. For instance the Wheelers* were on a four part episode in which Christine (Markie Post), the defense attorney, became a judge. It was when the ensemble cast at its prime, before the last couple seasons when the show kind of lost some of its steam. The jokes were a mixed bag, but the cast was great and on their game. The talent involved suggests why certain shows that are not always that funny are enjoyable, sometimes even past its prime (Friends, however, overstaid its welcome by about three years).
Many episodes could be summed up thusly:
This episode pretty much sums up everything the show did, for good or ill: huge laughs, an absolute willingness to go for any kind of joke no matter how old, corny, or vaudevillian (and I mean those words as compliments), a blisteringly fast pace up until the big "serious" speech at the end, and an attempt to put some kind of social-commentary face on the whole thing (each of the guests represents some cross-section of society: the yuppie couple, the proud single mom, the old-fashioned couple adjusting to new realities, and the immigrant couple). It's like one of Weege's Barney Miller scripts rewritten by Paul Henning.
The show was actually equal parts swarmy (especially the prosecutor, Dan Fielding) and corny -- there was continuously some scene that felt more appropriate on Seventh Heaven, though in a Night Shift short of way. For instance, over the weekend there was a heartwarming (so to speak) episode where gruff (with a heart of gold) Roz reaches a mixed up teenager who just was involved in an armed robbery. Or, when Judge Harry Stone helped some defendant or maybe Bull (the bald bailiff with the heart of a kitten) with some personal problem. It was a weird mixture, low brow mixed with overdone sentiment.
But, it did basically work. No work place comedy really works on the same level these days. The 1980s and early '90s in my opinion had some pretty good television, at least on the pure simple enjoyment level, much more than today in most cases. Honestly, as I probably noted here already, I just don't like much of the original programming that is on. The best bet often is late night repeats and maybe some pay stations, only some of which I get (like Showtime -- Weeds sounds good, but I don't get it). Night Court repeats are a good addition to the mix.
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* This couple still cracks me up. As one admirer notes:
The episode also features the show's most famous recurring characters, Bob and June Wheeler (Brent Spiner and Annie O'Donnell), a perpetually luckless couple from West Virginia. Except that when they first appeared, the stereotyping provoked a lot of angry letters from West Virginia, so when they reappeared in this episode (having bought a hot-dog cart that got destroyed by the hurricane), they announced that they lied: they were not from West Virginia, but from Yugoslavia. ("Isn't the accent obvious?") They became so popular that they were supposed to become permanent characters, but Spiner got the part on Star Trek and put an end to that.
Spiner also played John Adams in a revival of 1776. O'Donnell appears to still get some t.v. guest shots -- none quite like June Wheeler, I bet.