The Odd Couple

Know this topic well? Help others and get FREE products!

Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy? That was the question that fueled a play, a movie, and a classic sitcom. Neil Simon's 1965 play The Odd Couple and the subsequent 1967 movie, starring Walter Matthau as the sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison and Jack Lemmon as the fastidious photographer Felix Unger (Art Carney had the role on Broadway), spawned a popular and well-written television series that ran on ABC from 1970 to 1975.

In the television series, Oscar was played by Jack Klugman (who had taken over the role from Matthau on Broadway), Felix was played by Tony Randall, and the spirit of the play remained intact. Oscar was a happily divorced New Yorker who thought of ketchup as "tomato wine," and who slept with his wardrobe and his meals. Felix, still pining away for his ex-wife, was a neat freak, constantly spraying air freshener in Oscar's direction, and reheating gourmet meals for which Oscar was late. They were the definition of opposites: Felix loved opera and classical music, and Oscar preferred gambling; Oscar gruffly threw stuff on the floor, Felix picked it up, complaining; Oscar smoked cigars and ate junk food despite his ulcer, and Felix had constant sinus trouble, but otherwise took compulsively excellent care of himself. The point of the show was that despite their vast differences, these two guys cared about each other and were friends when it counted.

The only other regular who stayed on through the whole run of the series was Al Molinaro, who played dim-witted policeman and poker buddy, Murray the Cop. Other poker buddies included Speed (Garry Wahlberg), Roy (Ryan MacDonald), and Vinnie (Larry Gelman). Elinor Donahue played Felix's girlfriend, Miriam, from 1972 to 1974. Klugman's real-life wife Brett Somers (a regular on the television game show Match Game in the 1970s) played Oscar's acerbic ex-wife, Blanche. Janis Hansen played Felix's long-suffering ex-wife, Gloria, whose name had been Frances in the play and movie. The series borrowed flighty British neighbors the Pigeon sisters from the play and movie for the first season. Because the roommates were somewhat in the New York media, the Odd Couple could justify guest stars playing themselves, such as Bobby Riggs, Billie Jean King, David Steinberg, Monty Hall, Allan Ludden, Roy Clark, Howard Cosell, Richard Dawson, and Deacon Jones.

Forever linked to their roles now, Randall and Klugman were not everyone's first choices. ABC did want Tony Randall, but also fancied Mickey Rooney for Oscar. The producers wanted Art Carney and Martin Balsam. Garry Marshall and Sheldon Keller served as executive producers for the series; Marshall, who created Happy Days and its spin-offs and directed Pretty Woman, also wrote severalepisodes, and his sister Penny, who went on to direct Big and A League of Our Own, played Oscar's nebbishy secretary Myrna from 1973 to 1975 (Garry had a cameo in one episode, as did Rob Reiner, Penny's then-husband).

Though the series wrapped up cleanly with Gloria and Felix finally remarrying, the Odd Couple formula was oft-repeated. From 1975 to 1977, a cartoon called The Oddball Couple ran on ABC Saturday mornings. It featured Fleabag, a sloppy dog, and Spiffy, a neat cat, reporters who shared an office. Simon updated his durable play in the mid-1980s to support female versions of his characters; it starred Sally Struthers as Florence Unger and Rita Moreno as Olive Madison. From 1982 to 1983, ABC tried to cash in again with The New Odd Couple, which borrowed scripts from the original series but cast black actors. Ron Glass, of Barney Miller fame, played Felix, and Demond Wilson, from Sanford and Son, played Oscar. Felix's ex-wife went back to being called Frances. It did not take long for that show's producer to admit that seven out of the first 13 episodes of The New Odd Couple had been recycled from its predecessor.

Felix and Oscar informed every subsequent role Randall and Klugman played. Randall had his own show, The Tony Randall Show, from 1976 to 1978, in which he played a stuffy widowed Philadelphia Superior Court judge. Klugman and Wahlberg were reunited in the television drama Quincy, M.E. (1976-1983) in which Klugman played the gruff but lovable titular medical examiner (who was never given a first name) who helped solve the murders of the bodies he autopsied, and Wahlberg played police liaison Lieutenant Frank Monahan.

In 1993, Randall, Klugman, Wahlberg, and Marshall returned for The Odd Couple: Together Again, a two hour CBS television movie. Klugman was recovering from throat cancer, and in the movie Felix moved back in with Oscar who was recovering from throat cancer surgery. Randall and Klugman also revived another Neil Simon play—The Sunshine Boys —on Broadway late in the 1990s. Matthau and Lemmon reunited in 1998 in Neil Simon's Odd Couple II. They also did a few other Odd Couple-esque buddy films together in the 1990s, such as Grumpy Old Men and Out to Sea. The original Odd Couple series was rerun in the 1990s on Nick at Nite and Comedy Central. The term "odd couple" goes beyond the pop culture scope and has taken on a life of its own, being used by snappy headline writers to describe any unlikely pair of opposites who are working together or merely get along, much like The Odd Couple continues to get along with audiences of all ages.

Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-present. New York, Ballantine Books, 1995.

McNeil, Alex. Total Television. New York, Penguin, 1996.

This is the complete article, containing 932 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).