DVDS SEEN : Pair’s Evening Shade still a laugh
Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/231884/
For the current state of Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason’s fortunes in Hollywood, specifically with cable giant HBO, you are encouraged to check out today’s Michael Storey TV Column on Page 3 E.
Have you read it ? Woo-whee. The upshot is that you shouldn’t expect to see any new Thomason product on HBO anytime soon. Like maybe after hell freezes over.
For happier times for the famed pair of sitcom kings you can check out the DVD release of Evening Shade Season 1 (Paramount, $ 39. 99 for fivedisc set ).
The first episode of Evening Shade debuted Sept. 21, 1990, sharing space on CBS with Thomasons’ hit Designing Women. At the time, of course, the Thomasons had clout and Burt Reynolds, looking to revive his wheezing career, needed some.
Reynolds signed on to play Wood Newton, the former NFL player-turned-football-coach for Evening Shade’s outmatched team. Because he’s Burt Reynolds and this was Hollywood, he got the younger, vivacious Marilu Henner as a wife (to Evening Shade’s credit, the show mentions the age gap, although Reynolds’ ungainly hair weave was begging, unsuccessfully, for viewers to think otherwise ). They also threw in a bunch of kids because no sitcom was complete without some urchin saying some impossibly cute thing.
Perhaps the Thomasons had felt burned by trying to hold the cast of Designing Women together (which proved to be a tabloid-fueled trial with Delta Burke involved ). That could be the explanation as to why Evening Shade was overstuffed with character actors — nobody other than Reynolds had a big enough part to hold the show hostage.
It turns out to be an altogether appealing and accomplished group of character actors. Charles Durning is the town doctor who throws in an extra 10 to 15 vowels in simple words such as “nuts.” Elizabeth Ashley plays a Blanche DuBois character on speed. Hal Holbrook, the best of the lot, is a stoic center of gravity and a sly comedian. His deadpan delivery of even the corniest of punch lines is masterful.
And, yes, Evening Shade is corny and baldly sentimental in ways that have long since faded from television. However, the DVD set (which, oddly and unfortunately, doesn’t come with any extras ) shows off a program that is hardly a fossil. The pace is certainly and blessedly quicker than it was on Designing Women and the studio audience-supplied laugh track, which sounds so odd now, is hardly off the mark. There are many genuine laughs here.
The show doesn’t even have to be funny to appeal to citizens in the state of the real Evening Shade, peppered as it is with references to Hot Springs, Jonesboro, Wiederkehr champagne and more. Also, pay close attention to the second episode where Billy Bob Thornton has a quick cameo delivering flowers.
— Werner Trieschmann Notable DVD releases on Tuesday: Celine, Monarch Home Video, $ 19. 95 — An unauthorized bio-pic that apparently is too timid even to use the last name of the Titanic belter of schmaltzy tunes. Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse, Comedy Central, $ 26. 98 for twodisc set — The madcap and profane mind of Robert Smigel is behind this parody of a children’s show. Smigel’s greatest creation, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, makes an appearance or two. Robot Chicken Star Wars, Turner, $ 14. 98 — A George Lucas-approved, Cartoon Network-aired spoof of the movie that has been spoofed a billion times already. Fans on Amazon. com swear this one is funny.