Donny'll Be There for Them

[calliaume]

From Entertainment Weekly's web site:

DANNY AND DONNY Note to Hollywood agents: You have only a few more opportunities to squeeze your clients into bizarre cameos on ''Friends.'' For instance: In a February sweeps episode, a past-his-prime stripper at Phoebe's bachelorette party will be played by Danny DeVito. (Um, was there ever a time when people would have paid to see Danny DeVito in a G-string?) Appearing on that same episode, fully clothed and playing himself, will be Donny Osmond, whom Joey meets when the soap actor appears as a celebrity guest on Osmond's ''Pyramid'' game show. Hmm, thongs, Danny DeVito, Donny Osmond … how about, ''Things We Never Thought We'd Mention in the Same Breath''?

[Jay Temple]

Interesting.  Can someone give me details about the episode of The Odd Couple where Oscar and Felix were on Password together?  I'm assuming that this will be the first episode of a TV show where a character is a celebrity on an "ordinary" edition of a real game show.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Nov 10 2003, 12:34 PM\'] I'm assuming that this will be the first episode of a TV show where a character is a celebrity on an "ordinary" edition of a real game show. [/quote]
 Zach will be along with an exhaustive list of TV shows that disprove this assumption shortly.

[calliaume]

Interesting. Can someone give me details about the episode of The Odd Couple where Oscar and Felix were on Password together? I'm assuming that this will be the first episode of a TV show where a character is a celebrity on an "ordinary" edition of a real game show.

Oscar and Felix happen to be eating at the same New York restaurant where Allen Ludden and Betty White are dining, and Allen invites Oscar to be a celebrity on NY-based episodes of Password, and Felix connives to be his partner (under the theory that celebrities could pick their contestant partners).  Felix's thought process for giving and receiving clues, however, proves to be a little unorthodox on the air.

"The password is... gravy."
Betty:  "Sauce."
Partner:  "Mayonnaise?"
Oscar:  "Meat."
Felix:  "Lincoln!"

[GS Warehouse]

[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Nov 10 2003, 04:24 PM\'] "The password is... gravy."
Betty:  "Sauce."
Partner:  "Mayonnaise?"
Oscar:  "Meat."
Felix:  "Lincoln!" [/quote]
 I forgot what Oscar's guess for the password "bird" was, but Felix's clue of "Aristophones"* was waaaaaaaay out of left field.  During the commercial, Felix explains his clue, but Oscar didn't care.  "Aristophones is ridiculous!"  Guess what happened next...

"The password is 'ridiculous'".
Oscar (angrily): ARISTOPHONES!
Felix: Ridiculous.
[ding ding ding]

* My apologies if this name was misspelled; I never took Greek mythology in college.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Nov 10 2003, 05:56 PM\'][quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Nov 10 2003, 04:24 PM\'] "The password is... gravy."
Betty:  "Sauce."
Partner:  "Mayonnaise?"
Oscar:  "Meat."
Felix:  "Lincoln!" [/quote]
I forgot what Oscar's guess for the password "bird" was, but Felix's clue of "Aristophones"* was waaaaaaaay out of left field.  During the commercial, Felix explains his clue, but Oscar didn't care.  "Aristophones is ridiculous!"  Guess what happened next...

"The password is 'ridiculous'".
Oscar (angrily): ARISTOPHONES!
Felix: Ridiculous.
[ding ding ding]

* My apologies if this name was misspelled; I never took Greek mythology in college.[/quote]
It's spelled "Aristophanes."

And of course, since Aristophanes wrote the ancient Greek comedy "The Birds," in Felix's mind the clue was quite sensible--and perhaps if he was playing Password at a college professor's party, it would've been--but not with Oscar Madison in a TV studio.

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Nov 10 2003, 03:24 PM\']

Interesting. Can someone give me details about the episode of The Odd Couple where Oscar and Felix were on Password together? I'm assuming that this will be the first episode of a TV show where a character is a celebrity on an "ordinary" edition of a real game show.

Oscar and Felix happen to be eating at the same New York restaurant where Allen Ludden and Betty White are dining, and Allen invites Oscar to be a celebrity on NY-based episodes of Password, and Felix connives to be his partner (under the theory that celebrities could pick their contestant partners). [/quote]
This is what I get for thinking.  I assumed that the writers knew what sort of trouble the network would be in if they let Felix play with Oscar in a "regulation" game.  Thus, I concluded that they must have rationalized some other way for it to happen.

I should add that I'm not counting sketch comedy shows.  I remember "the Brothers Brothers" as the celebs on a $100,000 Pyramid sketch on In Living Color.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Nov 11 2003, 11:44 AM\'] This is what I get for thinking.  I assumed that the writers knew what sort of trouble the network would be in if they let Felix play with Oscar in a "regulation" game.  Thus, I concluded that they must have rationalized some other way for it to happen.
 [/quote]
 Ah, the golden days of television, where you didn't have to FREAKIN' RATIONALIZE everything.

The point is that most of the viewers then DIDN'T CARE how Felix wound up being Oscar's partner. They thought "Hey, this could be pretty funny", and went with it. Suspension of disbelief and all. The same suspension that lets Cliff Clavin within 50 yards of a Jeopardy buzzer.

The "Star Trek" franchise ruined all of this, if you ask me. Nowadays, if you pipe up and say "Hey, they shoulda made a Star Trek episode about this", you can't go twelve seconds without some uniformed jackass who could never in his wildest DREAMS pass a Starfleet physical jump up and spout chapter and verse as to why That Could Never Happen. And loudly, too, 'cuz he's got pointy latex ears over his real ones.

[calliaume]

Ah, the golden days of television, where you didn't have to FREAKIN' RATIONALIZE everything.

The point is that most of the viewers then DIDN'T CARE how Felix wound up being Oscar's partner. They thought "Hey, this could be pretty funny", and went with it. Suspension of disbelief and all. The same suspension that lets Cliff Clavin within 50 yards of a Jeopardy buzzer.

None of the requirements for playing ever occurred to me for years, and I doubt they occurred to most viewers.

What I always wondered was, "Hey, they had Felix and Oscar appear on Password and Let's Make a Deal, both of which ran on ABC but taped in Los Angeles -- why didn't they go on The $10,000 Pyramid, which actually taped in New York and would have made more sense?"

Probably going to the well once too often, and they'd have to use many of the same conceits as they did for the Password setup.  Also, Pyramid and The Odd Couple only had an ABC overlap for a year.