R.I.P. the Honest Laugh

By RICHARD CORLISS

Cancellations bring an end to an era of sophisticated sitcoms

The small Minneapolis TV newsroom was dark with disuse when the old gang--Mary Richards and Lou Grant, Murray Slaughter and Sue Ann Nivens, Ted and Georgette Baxter--came back one last time for reminiscence and rue. As clusters of the faithful were doing in living rooms and the classier pubs across the country, the WJM team had assembled to lament the untimely passing of some fine old friends: Louie De Palma, Doctor Johnny Fever, Detective Harris, Mork from Ork. With a few swipes of TV executives' pens, four of the best comedy series of the late 1970s--Taxi, WKRP in Cincinnati, Barney Miller, Mork & Mindy--had been erased from the prime-time schedule. Their ghosts would haunt reruns, but the message seemed clear: the era of the sophisticated sitcom was over. Thus it was fitting that the characters who had inhabited the Mary Tyler Moore show, first and best of breed, should reconvene after a five-year separation to pay their respects.

"I guess I'll miss Taxi the most," Mary said, sighing her big sigh. "It was written by our writers--James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, Ed. Weinberger, the great David Lloyd. The Taxi characters were so much like us, and so good at it. The Sunshine Cab Co. was a place to work in that became a place to live in. And your co-workers became your friends: Alex the off-duty rabbi, and sweet dim Tony, and Latka the gentle schizoid. And Reverend Jim, phoning in his blissed-out wisdom from Planet X. And Elaine, the only woman, who desperately wanted to be somewhere else but couldn't leave the place she knew as home . . ."

She stifled a sob. Lou looked up from a bottle of Top o' the Heather long enough to mutter, "There goes Mary Waterworks again." Sue Ann nibbled on a quiche.

"I liked Louie," said Ted, his cracked-cello voice aswoon. "The man had style."

"Louie!?" Murray snorted. "That malevolent little fireplug? That broken toilet of a man? That Rumpelstiltskin sadist to whom everything human was alien? Who was happy only when he could make everyone else miserable--which was most of the time? Who gave new meaning to the phrase old meany?"

Ted nodded. "Like I said, the man had style."

Murray ignored the remark. "I'll miss WKRP in Cincinnati," he volunteered, his bald head waxing nostalgic. "They were like us too--a tiny, not very successful radio station whose employees were never quite resourceful or ruthless enough to be No. 1. I always thought of them as human Muppets. Dynel Andy and soft, squeezable Mr. Carlson tried to keep their charges in order. But Venus Flytrap and Johnny Fever, the disc jockeys, were too weird, and Les Nessman too straight, and Bailey too nice--a little like you, Mary--and Herb Tarlek too wonderfully oafish to realize he'd never make the big score. And the lovely Jennifer . . ."

"Loni Anderson!" Ted ejaculated.

"I'd love to squeeze her Dynel!"

"That's my little Teddy bear," murmured Ted's wife Georgette in fond exasperation.

What these shows told you," Murray concluded, "was that being on top of the career heap wasn't as important as being with people you liked, who kept you amused and alive through the long day--and, if you needed them, through a longer night."

"Hot spit, Murray, that was eloquent," Ted said. "Why couldn't you have written like that for me when I was the best darn anchorman in the Twin Cities?"

"Because, Ted, the best darn anchorman in the Twin Cities couldn't have spelled WKRP, much less pronounced it."

Sue Ann shook her flossy head. "You boyscancarpallyouwant," she said. "Give me the real men of Barney Miller. I just love their adorable little Greenwich Village precinct station, where every cop is strong and sympathetic, and every criminal is some species of Jewish Munchkin. And Captain Miller--Hal Linden!" She gave a Wife-of-Bath chortle. "Who wouldn't want to be arrested by him! You know, after WJM gave me my freedom, I actually applied for a job as a policewoman on Barney Miller." Her porcelain face cracked for a moment. "But they said the rough language would have been too upsetting."

"Oh, Sue Ann," Murray drawled, "I'm sure they would have got used to it."

Sue Ann stood behind her old adversary, massaging his neck. "Dear sweet witty Murray," she intoned. "Once the prince of the newsroom, now captain of the Love Boat. Tell me, how do you remove the barnacles from your scalp?"

"I like Mork," Georgette said in her wee airy voice. "I like how it's a children's show that every five-year-old can get a cute little giggle out of, but it's also a show for the most intelligent adult because Robin Williams runs a mile a minute making a pretzel out of his body and his voice and his mind with jokes about old movies and the latest fads, and how Mindy--Pam Dawber--is the kind of wife I'd like to be to Ted." She drew a breath. "And that's why I like Mork."

"But, honey," Ted whined, "you mean you prefer that spaced-out outer spacer to my own new series, Too Close for Comfort, where I get to be outsmarted by my tank-topped daughters and fall over backwards at least three times an episode?" His voice dropped an oratorical octave: "It all started in the five-watt brain of a comedy writer in Fresno, California. . ."

"Shut up, Ted," Lou growled. "You guys are sittin' here bellyachin' that a few TV shows, written and performed by a few good people, are going off the air. Well, what about me? I was canceled too, y'know. And I'm still Lou Grant."

Oh, Mr. Grant," keened Mary. "We all felt so bad about you that we didn't want to say anything. I mean, maybe your show wasn't, strictly speaking, a comedy. And maybe it sometimes bit off issues bigger than it could chew. And maybe it was a little self-righteously liberal. And maybe. . ."

Lou interrupted: "Is there a 'but' coming in here somewhere, Mary?"

"Yes, Mr. Grant," Mary replied. "But . . . Lou Grant created rounded characters who were able to develop in their own stubborn ways. It allowed you and Rossi and Billie and Charlie and Art to grow, to shrug off shtik, to hone your rough edges, to give the viewer an idea of hard-working professionals who could still find all the time in the world for one another. You did something important, Lou Grant. Something to be proud of." She kissed him.

"Mary, this is a very touching moment," Lou said. "I can't wait for it to end."

It ended, as it always did in the WJM newsroom. The gang gathered to sing a last chorus of "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," Mary turned out the lights. And everyone went home to watch M*A*S*H. --By Richard Corliss

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