Creator: Paul Reiser, Danny Jacobson
Years: 1992-1999
Honestly, I meant to rank this around #70 and just completely spaced it.
Another inoffensive, nondescript situational comedy that I watched nearly every episode of for several years. Reiser is decent. Hunt plays off him pretty well for dramatic moments but isn’t very funny. The supporting characters are unmemorable. Lisa Kudrow got her big break playing Ursula Buffay.
Two things that stick with me:
1)In one of their many fights, Jamie calls Paul a jackass. I had never heard a swear word on TV (other than “hell” or “damn”) before that day.
2)There’s an episode where Paul goes to pee standing up with Jamie in the bathroom, and she tells him that’s gross. He points out she goes to the bathroom with him in the room all the time. She says it’s different, and he’s disgusting. Needless to say, I don’t pee in front of my wife.
I read once that this show tanked on DVD because people were so upset that the marriage ended up failing. I feel like I’ve talked about this here before, but I can’t remember why.
Also, I’ll pee in front of anyone, and wouldn’t be weirded out if anyone did it in front of me.
You did mention this before, when I put Mad About You on my theme song list.
And, I looked it up. While their marriage is rocky in the final season and they separate, the denouement from their future kid talks about how they wind back up together and are happy.
For realsies? Huh. The person who gave me this information, then, misrepresented the series.
I dunno. It’s just a tacked on sentence in the final episode. It’s not like we actually see them work on their marriage and pull through it.
Ah. The old deus ex machina, perhaps tacked on by a writer who didn’t agree with the show’s direction in the final season.
Or in response to an annoyed focus group audience?
For sure. Fucking focus groups.