QUIET! As I mentioned, I am in L.A. this week with Jen and Lucy, and spent this afternoon in the library of the Museum of Television and Radio in beautiful downtown Beverly -- Hills, that is.
I watched a pair of What's My Line episodes with Woody Allen and Nichols & May as the mystery guests, plus a Nichols & May appearance on The Steve Allen Show -- witty, funny stuff from almost fifty years ago, before the three went onto mass fame on stage and screen.
But the highlight was being able to revisit Newhart Episode #184, a/k/a "The Last Newhart".
If you've seen it, you know how brilliant it all is, with the townspeople selling their homes to the Japanese, save Bob and his wife; the farewell "Anatevka" (from Fiddler on the Roof) by their goyische neighbors; then, "five years later", everyone comes back to visit Bob, and then there's a golf ball, and, yeah. If you've seen it, or even if you haven't, you know that the very ending is a piece of comic brilliance that may never have been topped by a sitcom finale (though the hall-of-bitterness Larry Sanders finale comes close.)
Two details worth noting, even for those who remember it well, both relating to brothers Larry, Darryl and (his other brother) Darryl. First is that (and I forgot this) the episode is the only time that Darryl & Darryl speak during the entire run of the series, yelling "QUIET!" at their five-years-in-the-future wives, three yapping yentas from Long Island, just a great little grace note/present for the audience. A great moment in a great episode.
But second is this note of trivia: who was that playing the middle wife, Sada, way back in 1990? Jeepers, was that Lisa Kudrow, in her second-ever tv role? Wow.
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