The New Odd Couple
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| The New Odd Couple | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Running time | 30 minutes per episode |
| Starring | Ron Glass Demond Wilson John Schuck Bart Braverman Jo Marie Payton Liz Torres |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | October 29, 1982–February 25, 1983 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| IMDb profile | |
The New Odd Couple was a short-lived new version of the 1970-75 television series The Odd Couple. The show ran on ABC-TV from October 29, 1982-February 25, 1983. The premiere show aired on a Friday at 8:30 PM.
In this series, Felix and Oscar were both black. Felix was portrayed by Ron Glass and Oscar was portrayed by Demond Wilson. The characterizations were still the same, as Felix was a prissy neatfreak and Oscar was a fun loving and sloppy character. John Schuck also appeared as Murray The Cop, who was still kept Caucasian, as was the character of Roy, who was played by Bart Braverman.
The show ran for 13 episodes. 8 of these episodes used recycled scripts from the original series. By the time the writers began producing new scripts, it was too late, as the show never found an audience, (one of its many problems was that it used a laugh track instead of a live audience) and ended up being cancelled on February 25th, 1983, having only been on the air for less than 4 months.
[edit] Reruns
Reruns of the series aired on BET in the early 1990s. TV Land occasionally aired reruns when they were airing reruns of the original 1970s series.
[edit] Trivia
- The theme music was still the same (composed by Neil Hefti), but it was played with a more urban arrangement.
- This was the second attempt to remake a series of one of Neil Simon's plays with a primarily African-American cast. The first was Barefoot In The Park (which also premiered on September 24, 1970, the same day the original The Odd Couple series did).
- The program was also notable for featuring one of the few instances of product placement with its inclusion of the Apple Lisa computer, which could be glimpsed during the shows run.
