M. Richards got the shaft

Now that we have seen series from all 3 of Jerry's sidekicks, can we agree that Michael Richards had by far the best of the lot? Why wasn't it given a chance to grow? Watching Ellie commits the worst possible sin for a sitcom: NOT FUNNY. Don't any of these people have enough clout to command a decent writing staff? And how can the abysmal casting in the Jason Alexander debacle be explained? The Tick had some potential, but I think a show about Puddy would be even better. Sort of a funnier Home Improvement.

agreed - I enjoyed The Michael Richards Show. It was Kramer in a new setting.

"drw" wrote in message news:[email]...

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No, we can't - because it wasn't the best. I loved Michael Richards on Seinfeld and I greatly anticipated the premiere of his show. The man is a master of physical comedy. I watched the first show and had to turn it off after 15 minutes, because it was so unbelievably bad.

To be honest, I suspect I would have enjoyed it more if not for the canned laughter. In that mere 15 minutes there were far too many instances where there was laughing and nothing funny happening. Perhaps if they had taken the "Ellie" route and left the laugh track out it would have been much easier to find any subtle humor that was there, if there was any.

That's the great thing about "Watching Ellie." I think far too many people are looking for laugh-out-loud comedy like "Seinfeld." Maybe we've even become too lazy to find humor in programs anymore without a studio audience or canned chuckles telling us when to laugh. I enjoy the subtle humor of "Ellie," and hope NBC holds onto it long enough for it to build an audience.

Ditto. The show was a let down but I too wish they had left it on longer. BTW I like Tim Meadows, I think the two of them could have been a good mix.

Also caught Richards on Night Court last night "looking" like a very early Kramer; rerun from '84.

And while flipping channels Monday happened to catch an 18 year old Jason Alexander with a mop head (full head of thick hair) on Before they were Stars, or something like that. He was reasonably trim. What a difference 12 years can make on a person's appearance!

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 19:37:51 -0500, Jp wrote:

But how could you see him? :-)

I didn't see Bob Patterson, but I heard it was weak, like Ellie. M Richards was pretty bad but better than the other 2. Tim Meadows is the worst and William Devane in a comedy sitcom? Bad casting and writing.

drw wrote:

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 10:17:33 -0600, Daniel Abrigg wrote:

Bob Patterson had the most potentional of all the shows, since he was a completely different character. (George's shtick was that he was a loser, and had no qualms about admitting it; Bob MIGHT be a loser, but he'd never admit it; but he was certainly a success in some respects. In fact, I think Bob could be categorize as the Opposite George; if George hadn't gone back to Regular George at the beginning of the next season, he would've been a lot like Bob.) The trouble was that the writing stunk. They had some real moments; but I think I laughed on an average of once per episode; though the last episode had one real howler in it, as I remember. (can't tell you what it was, though.) Ellie was just so damn pompous; even without all the hype NBC was layering on it: claiming that they'd broken the curse without a single episode airing. JL-D talking in interviews; just plain assuming that the show would be on for years. I do truly believe that Bob Patterson would still be on if they had given it The Time Slot of Doom; and they'd have a genuine shot at doing something interesting.

				-==Kensu==-

The idea really intrigued me. I was expecting a more *subtle* sarcastic hypocritical spoof on all the self-help guru's. If the show had been more intelligently written it would have been great. But the Patterson character, from what very little I watched, was just so over the top and blatantly incompetent.

Yes I agree and the show was packed full of cliche characters (the goofy secretary, the dumb technician guy, Bob's son) and one liners. I felt like I was watching Becker or some crappy show lke that.

"Jp" wrote in message news:[email]...

character, from

incompetent.