Weekend Post

I watched the movie of THE ODD COUPLE recently starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. A lot of it still holds up, but when I first saw it as a kid I was hysterical. I couldn’t imagine any better casting than Matthau & Lemmon.

Seeing it again, after many many years, one thing struck me – I now greatly prefer Jack Klugman and Tony Randall as Oscar and Felix. Sure, part of it is familiarity, but Randall really WAS Felix Unger. Jack Lemmon was a gifted comic actor who played the part very well. And Klugman’s Oscar was the equal to Matthau’s, plus he played better off of Randall as Felix. To me. You may prefer Matthau & Lemmon. Or you may have seen the original Broadway production with Matthau and Art Carney and to you that’s the real Odd Couple.

Or even Morris Fishbine and Larry Crellman, who played them in a local community theatre in your town and to you those are the guys.

Probably the only thing that everyone can agree on is that when there was a revival on Broadway a few years ago and Nathan Lane played Oscar that was absurd.

But for most of us, it’s who you grew up with. Same with James Bonds. It used to be that there was no contest. Sean Connery was James Bond. But to younger generations Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and most recently, Daniel Craig is THE real 007.  If you went through the '60s completely drugged out you might think David Niven was the penultimate James Bond.  But you would be wrong (you'd probably be dead). 

Same with Superman. To baby boomers there’s only one: George Reeves, even though he had a gut and thinning hairline. For most of you however, I imagine Christopher Reeve is the one and only Man of Steel. If your favorite is Brandon Routh seek help.

When my partner and I took our first meeting at MASH, producer Gene Reynolds loaded us down with research and invited us to come back with stories. (We sold one and that was the beginning of our four-year association with MASH). But amongst the reading material was the novel of MASH. The 1969 movie starring Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould was very faithful to the book. So reading it was very strange. I kept trying to picture Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers in the roles performing the scenes, but in my head was the movie. And the character of Hawkeye is quite different in the Sutherland vs. Alda version. It was very schitzo.  Ultimately, I preferred Alan's Hawkeye, but I have to be honest -- it took about a season of the TV show to change my allegiance. 

So now, as a friendly blog survey, let me ask you, dear reader and pop culture maven..

Who is your favorite Felix & Oscar?

James Bond?

Superman?

Batman? (Michael Keaton? Really?)

Lois Lane?

Sherlock Holmes?

Dr. Who?

Darrin Stephens?

Hawkeye? 

Host of THE PRICE IS RIGHT? 

Thanks in advance for playing the game. I look forward to your feedback.

 

from By Ken Levine