Episode 49: Fish

Weird White. Welcome back to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm your host. Mike White joined me, of course as the rookie mister Christashu. Oh no, boy, that that nickname has nothing to do with what we're about to talk about, and I am so so sad that that is the case.

Yes, we're doing it, folks. We're taking one episode. That's all we can handle. One episode. We're going to be talking about the two seasons, well season and a half of Fish, the spinoff of Barney Miller.

We figured we had to talk about it. Taking pull it for you people here. Well, and here's the thing. We had talked about this a lot. I mean we've mentioned it with Auto, We've mentioned it with Richard, We've talked about this idea of let's cover this at some point.

But we knew it was going to be hard, if not impossible, to find. And it is impossible to find I believe a generous span or redditor or what was this on? We found you found this, right, you found the files, but somebody sent them to you. Someone said something to us at one point, right. One of our listeners told me where we could get these files.

Because it was available on so the first season just so people know, Total Clarity first season is part of the DVD box set of Barney Miller. When they re issue this thing on Blu Ray, I'm not sure if they'll include Fish. I'm not sure if they'll include both seasons of Fish. But if they didn't, well, yeah, but the yeah, especially since they remained well, I don't know if they were remassing. It's one of those comprehensive type things.

I mean, if it's like I mean, because Shout Factory is the one who put the series out, so I feel like if they were to do like a up up convert of the show, it might be something worth just Efemera having on the disc. Maybe. Yeah, but I don't think that this one is worth the juice is not worth the squeeze. Let's say no. So continue.

We got a I found two episodes through a torrent. Site and that was tough to get those to download. Finally got them. One of our listeners said, hey, you can get this. Via a Canadian site.

They stream these episodes. So I tried to download stuff from there, was unable to, and then one day it just happened to find that both seasons were available as a torrent and got those and I don't know why. I don't know how they came up with the second season and second season, I will say, there's no like, you know, little icon in the corner. It's not like they were taped off of TV or something. Lights Baby, Are you a fan?

No, none of that's. That's my favorite. Are you a winner? Not like that copy of long legside just down? Yeah?

Yeah right yeah, literally. Though, yeah, we I didn't watch every single episode because my god. Because you're not a fucking because you're not, because you don't have best I can tell enuses and heads in your freezer. That's why it's wild. How bad this is so two seasons fish, We've talked about it, We've theorized about this.

We have the two young kids that he had had on uh on Barney Miller for two episodes. We saw these guys. It was Victor Breitzer and Jilly that's right, the one who gets knocked up off screen as a sixteen year old, which is a very stark ending to this story. Very Yeah. John Cassini not my favorite actor.

He looks like a little mobster guy. Oh what are you talking about? Hey, I'm a little geekster. What are you talking about? Hey?

Yo? Oh oh oh. And both of the girls. Did Jilly and what's the other one, Diane? They they're basically the same character, like there no difference between these.

Like there's one episode that I was watching where Denise comes there, sorry, Jilly comes down and she's just. Like, what are you doing? You wear my shirt? And then the other. One's like, well it looks standing around me, and I'm like, oh my god, these two are the same person.

This is John Cassisi's in the background just going, oh oh wait. I'm gonna go, well, what are you doing? Little Todd Bridges is loomis what? I'm gonna be so funny with you. We're gonna trade lines.

Here, oh god, yeah, oh dear. And then Todd Bridges. Just screams the entire time, like every single line, and it all has to be racial stuff. It's all like, my people are being persecuted, man, what are you talking about? That's why I'm in a gang.

I'm I'm nine years old and I'm in a gang already. I'm like, whoa did? Yeah, yeah, I don't. So here's the thing. I don't understand.

What in God's name they were thinking with this premise. This premise is, without a doubt, one of the biggest missteps I've ever seen in terms of pairing a character with a situation like just base situation that makes sense. Like I think it's something like the George Lopez show where he's essentially playing himself. Right, he's playing himself. He goes and works in like a warehouse, like an automotive warehouse, but he's playing himself, so it kind of rights itself.

It makes sense if it was George Lopez as the pilot of an an airliner in the fifties and that's the TV show, it'd be like, this is like some sort of weird thing that makes no sense, and this is that exact setting. Why would you take Fish and put him as a a owner of a halfway house for wayward teens? What in God's name about fish? In Barney Miller signaled to anybody, this guy needs to be around children as a base premise for the show, because uh, Dear God in Heaven, this was a really bad choice. The premise alone is is an affront to good sensibility.

And I will tell you this is one of the most unfunny things I've ever seen like unfunny. Like we've talked about this before, Like, comedies are really hard to talk about because for the most part, it's like, hey, remember that one part and then we quoted remember that like we did. Caddyshack was like us quoting the movie for like thirty minutes is what it felt like. Comedies are hard to talk about, but bad comedies are easy to talk about because bad comedies, I think are the worst kind of movie. A comedy that's bad is just the worst because it's like it's like with something like modern Problems, which we covered on our Chevy Chase podcast.

When a movie is so unfunny, it's like it's like having your teeth filed down with this fucking rusty spoon. There's just nothing enjoyable about a bad comedy. And what makes it worse in this show's case, they put a laugh track in, Like, fuck you guys, fuck off. It's not even funny. There's no laugh Like the laughter that's being injected here is fucking fake on top of everything else, because none of this shit is funny.

It's not even chuckle worthy. It's not funny. There's nothing funny about this premise because Abe Bagoda, it's so one note, Like his character was one note in Barney Miller, and now it's like the character's been exposed as like it's just a one note character that has no part in his own show. No, he seems like he doesn't want to be here, which makes it very tough. I mean, like, yeah, I would say like Archie Bunker was a miserable human being, but he was in his place.

He had his chair, he had his television, he had Edith to get him beers, he had Gloria to control, he had that numbskull meathead to just you know, dride the entire time he was having an okay time. Meanwhile, Phil Fish is just like I'm miserable at work, I'm miserable at home. Every joke that I tell is going to be about how miserable I am. I'm not going to be able to get into the bathroom because yes, we're still doing the bathroom. Humor with him.

I mean, he basically is like a cameo player on his own show. A lot of times he just comes in to be like the. Ah, I hate everything, and that's it. It's like okay, And then these kids I don't want to follow these kids at all, even even Lenny Bari as Mike, who I think is supposed to be the attractive one. I guess, like the Phonsie, the Phonsie, the fons Standing, he's.

More like the Grand Bradio, you know. I thought he was just Fonsie adjacent or attempted Phonsie. And Jay's like, oh, I'm a guy. Hey, I'm gonna steal a car. He he's not even he's not even shotchy come on.

Yeah, and all these kids they suck like yeah, yeah, they hard car. You know. They think that Victor's burning down the house a couple of doors down. They think he's a pyromaniac. I'm just like and the person this is the worst character for me of all of them.

Barry Gordon as Charlie is the I guess. He's a social worker who is living in the house with them, which is a weird thing as well, and. Or, depending on how you look at it, very hot. Oh Phil Fish, Oh yeah, I wish I could do it. I wish I could do a Woody Yellen.

I can't. I can't. That's what he's what he's doing. Yeah, yeah, Well with the thing and well, mister fish, you need to give the kids some room to breathe. Here in a month, it's just normal kids.

Oh it must have been surreal for you, because does can't he do one of the teenage meaning Ninja turtle voices? He does. He does the voice of Donna Tello, my favorite turtle too, on top of everything else. So when I heard him for the first time, I was like, oh, oh no, my favorite turtle is in this awful show as a Woody Ellen impersonator, Like, what is going on in this fucking show? It's the it's a mishmash of all these weird seventies isms that don't work, and it's and then once you get to the second season, all the kids are like ten, all of a sudden, they're like ten years older, Like it looks like they're all of a sudden, like they've all been aged up ten years because John casisis now an adult, Todd Bridges looks like and they all look like adults all of a sudden.

And then the second season somehow worse than the first season. Episodes I watched in the second season are worse than the episodes in the first season because the first season at least they're somewhat fu precocious kids. Now they're like shitthead teenagers. Well, and it's not like a lot of time passed between these seasons, because this whole thing lasted from February fifth, seventy seven to May eighteen seventy eight, so it's like fourteen months, you know. And like I said, this was a season and a half.

So the first season was thirteen episodes I think, and the second one was twenty two. They're twenty five or sorry, thirty five episodes all together. Maybe they had these things shot a little earlier than they put them out or something. That's Yeah, really, I noticed how those kids age up, and I'm just like, whoa, how does this happen over basically a summer? You know?

Yeah, no, that's what I was like, Todd Bridges and John CASSISI looked like fucking adults all of a sudden. It's and look again, it doesn't help any of this because this let's you know, because again, this show is so hard to talk about. I was thinking about this while I was watching it. I wanted to ask you as as kind of a fun aside here or something we've never done. I wanted to ask you, in comparison to this idea, take another character from Barney Miller and put them in another sitcom like this that would be as bad.

I want to hear what you would come up with as like the next the worst thing, because this is pretty bad like this, this premise is so fucking faulted from the front that I can't understand how this made it past the drawing room board, like for real, because like, this premise is so bad it's it's shockingly it's shockingly bad just on the face of it. Even the idea that Fish has to spend time around Bernice is a bad idea given the way that they interacted in the actual original show, Like I would never have watched the original show and go, oh yeah, I want to see more of Bernice and Fish together, like Jesus Christ, what Yeah? And poor Florence Stanley. She's the best part of this whole show, correct she?

I mean, she's the best part of a really bad shot. I mean, she deserves so much better than what this show is. And yeah, as far as a oh gosh, I can't even imagine, because I'm trying to think of like all the bad spinoffs that happened. Like taking Enus out of that The Dukes of Hazzard and giving him his own show was a really bad mistake. I'm trying to think of some of the other like, oh, like Jody Loves Chachi.

What if it was like a Scanlon show? Oh my god, well yeah, and he even it's that Scanlon in this one. But that actor does show up in here. Yeah, And like so many of these actors are from Barney Miller. Even, oh god, I'm baking on this name already.

Barry Morton, Berry Gordon also you know, showed up in an episode of Barney Miller. So it's like they took all of these actors that have been on the show and just said, oh, we're going to place you in this new show. You're going to be so happy to be in Fish. Shooting right down the block from Barney Miller, I'm sure, like you know, shooting on one sound stage over. Yeah, I was.

I was trying to think about what would be an equally flawed and absurd and I guess just not great remise, Like I would have to think anything would like I don't know, like, yeah, something with Scanlon would feel like a pretty dumb idea intern of like why would anyone do it? I mean, like, I obviously, you know, Gregory Sierra got his own show spun off I mean not from Barney Miller, but I mean it ends up being kind of Barney Miller adjacent because it's what like a it sees. They're like, it's like an ambulance show, right, Like it's like, yeah, I think it's a hospital show. And then yeah, Danny Arnold produced it. I want to say, yeah.

Yeah, so like like a like a Jack Sue spinoff show would have been like a really bad idea, or like even a wo jeho It show. I mean, obviously, I mean that's probably it. Like wo Jeho It's his own show. That was a thing that we also had to see. I don't know, is this or that worse?

Is this worse or is that worse? Oh gosh. I mean we talked about how unfunny it was. I mean, at least the Wojo thing was only two episodes, and this is thirty five. Yeah, this was a lot of money spent by somebody to make this fucking show.

And then I don't even just understand how it got picked up for a second season. The first season was so bad. Maybe it was a contractual obligation thing. Maybe that's what was ordered, was two seasons. I don't know.

Like that's the thing about this show. It's one of those shows that's kind of lost on top of everything else, Like there's an entire season of the show that you really can't find anywhere. And so, I mean, again, is it unfortunate that this show is really bad? No, because you've already alluded to plenty of spinoff shows from the seventies and eighties that are spinoff shows from characters from shows that are good, and then the varying degrees of success that has had beyond that, Like, at the end of the day, this was a thing that they were doing like all the time, and some of them worked and some of them didn't. And I don't have enough knowledge to say more worked than didn't or either way, but I will say this one does not work.

No, No, not at all. Yeah, it's interesting to look at the history of television in the seventies and see which shows were spin offs of other shows Like Norman Lear had a real touch for that. So you know, some shows that people wouldn't even think that they were spin offs, like Maud or the Jeffersons or well, yeah, our Chie Poker's Place. That makes a lot of sense. But they were all gosh, there were Gloria spun off of that, but like Gloria wasn't that good, Maude was fucking fantastic, you know, The Jeffersons was what it was.

I mean, there were some some good ones and some bad ones. When you think that, like more Coamini spun off of Happy Days, you know, and Laverin and Shirley, and I'm sure was. It Happy Days or spin off? Happy Days was kind of like a it was almost a pilot for from Love American Style because they did that one episode that was somewhat similar but not one hundred percent, but yeah, it was pretty much like a almost a secret pilot inside of Love American Style. Well, and you know, I'm I looked at some lists of some shows because again I'm a little younger than you obviously, and I don't know all of them, but looking through the list, like a lot of these shows are spinning off from things that are really famous.

Like you said, Happy Days, I not, I guess not I love Lucy, but I mean there's a I guess technically, Mary Tyler Moore. Yeah, all in the family, like you said, I mean Barnaby Jones, even as technically a spinoff show from Cannon like Anthony, Yeah. Mary Tyler Moore. She spent off Rhoda, which was a success in itself, Phyllis, which wasn't that successful. I guess lou Grant you could say.

Is a spin off of it. Technically it is, yeah, different, different tone to it. Well, so is this though, right, Like, that's the thing about this show versus Fish Fish versus Barney Miller. This show's tone is fucking weird on top of everything else. I don't understand the tone of this show because it's not funny.

I don't understand how it could be this unfunny. And I think, you know, we've always heard this, you know, the gag of like you never work with kids and you never work with animals. Yeah, uh yeah, this is why. This is why I genuinely think, this is why this show is so loaded with kids that it's like and the kids are so unfunny that this is Yeah, this is why you don't have a children's show with adults. I mean, it does remind me a little bit of the Brady Bunch, but if the Braid, if the Brady kids were all felons, you know, like, yeah, if I didn't give a shit about any of those kids and really only wanted to see missus Brady and Alice, that's like the only characters that I cared about.

It basically be this. And if I openly hatditted all of the Brady kids, I guess this is the other thing. Yeah, they're really poor. I mean, the problem is they're really poorly written. All the kids are really poorly written.

They're all really obnoxious. Like there's nothing likable about any of the ChIL child characters in this show. And that is a shame because we spend, like you've already alluded to, so much time with them. They're the main characters of this show that's called Fish. Yeah, Like, what in God's name what are they thinking?

It's interesting that in the first episode they're just moving into this house and they're talking about how they Fish wants to go back to his apartment, and then Bernice moves all the furniture over and it's just a huge mess. And I kept wondering, like, is this going to be a mess for the entire season? No, it's not, But the house is just dingy and nasty kind of thing. But yeah, we start off almost every single episode with the kids and then getting into trouble. It's really bizarre.

There is a one episode where Dietrich shows up and he is so unfunny in this episode, he's just there to react against stuff, and he doesn't have that many good lines, and it's like, what do you guys do in that writing? Right for Landsberg? Like he is one of the funniest characters. As we've said, there is an episode season one, episode ten, and it says hal Linden is in this episode. I watched it.

It's literally Bernice calling Barney and you just cut to him in his office. I think he says like two lines and hangs up the phone and then gives this like little funny look. That's it, Like that's the tie to hal Linden in. This tire series. It's crazy.

Yeah that I saw that as well, and what in God's name I mean it's it's Yeah, it's one thing to have your show with the spinoff show not be great, but it's another thing to then bring characters from the original show in and have them be unlike the versions of the characters that they're portraying in that original show, like what it's Yeah, I mean, if anything, and this is, honest to god, I think if anyone listening to this wants to embark on this journey with us that we've gone on to watch some of this show, I think, if anything, this show gives me a better appreciation for fucking how well written Barney Miller is, because this show is one of the worst written sitcoms I've ever seen. It's criminal.

I mean again, it's criminally unfunny, and a sitcom being criminally unfunny and getting two seasons is Yeah, it's shocking and a bit much so. Yeah, and again, having the characters from Barney Miller show up the Landisburg thing, I think for me is the worst affront because he actually shows up. It's not just like a cutaway that they filmed on the set of Barney Miller, which is just, I mean, frankly, the funniest fucking thing. Like I hope Pal made. I hope Pal made segmentimum for that day because he deserved it, because that shit's hilarious.

Like, yeah, I was wondering what it was going to be and the fact that Landisburgh showed up, like, kudos to him. Maybe it was like a contractually obligated thing. I hope he got paid well for it. But yeah, how Lindon really, what's the term phoning it in? Literally literally literally?

I don't blame him. I don't blame him. I mean, look like I you know, we have and we have not gotten a chance to speak to either how Lindon or Max Gale. I would I mean, I'm sure if we got a chance to talk to them, we would ask them, you know, about this show and you know, just mention it. And I I don't resume to know their feelings, but I think they would have to know this show isn't good, like oh yeah, you know, maybe thankfully how Lindon was lucky enough to not have to be on it very much.

Just kind of what it feels like. I mean, it's not like. They're not trying. I mean, it's just they're trying, but it's just it misses every single time. All of these jokes miss, the pathos misses.

I don't care about it, any of these people. And by this point, I don't care about Fish, you know, like I said, I just care about Bernsee and that's it. I'm like, yeah, Bernice, lead this guy, you know, like, get out of here, take maybe take the kids and go because you seem to enjoy them. But I don't know, it just feels like she deserves a better life. I feel like I should, should, you know, have one of those mind eraser things from Men in Black and give that whole like speech to Edgar's wife, you know, just like go out, you know, enjoy yourself, get a makeover, and clean up this house, because damn.

Yeah, get yourself an ice piece of ass. Yeah. Yeah, Fish is a miserable sack of shit. And that's the other thing that I think. I mean, we've kind of talked about it a little bit, but I think this is probably the opportunity now I too, since this is the this I think is literally the last time we're ever going to really talk about him on on our Barney Miller show.

That we've been doing this also, I think reinforced to me how glad I am that Abevagoda has been gone from Barney Miller for as long as he has been, because this show, whenever he is on screen, the show is worse for it. Yeah, he is just so strange because We liked him so much at first at first, but his character's one note, and that note is just like played over and over and over and over again this show. Like you said, it's always the same note. He's always doing the same thing, it's always the same reaction. It's like, how can this be the case?

How can this have been the way this show was written? This character has no emotional range whatsoever, and even the moments where they attempt to do it are completely undercut because a Bagoda is not believable. He's you just he's he's too curmudgeony and written into a corner as a character at this point for it to be anything other than this one note laid over and over again over everything else. Nothing else is really harmonizing. But it's a discordant tone that you can hear every time he shows up, because he drags the show down with his miserable energy.

And you know, like every episode of Barty Mail, well, I think they do a fade out quite a bit, but I want to say that there's a lot of like freeze frames at the end, and ab go to just telegraphs the freeze frame so much, will like put his hand on on a balustrade or something and just be like huh and like take a big breath and let it out and then boom, the. Freeze frame happens. I'm just like, are you that lazy that you have to prep yourself for the freeze frame here? Like, is this supposed to be funny? The very end shot is you just a rum thing and then freeze frame.

But that's how they end a lot of these episodes, and like they don't even know how they end the episodes. There's a lot of times where I'm like, well, you didn't even resolve the situation. Yeah, well, and that is the I mean to your point. That is the other thing about this show that really is is hard to deal with is that the stories go nowhere and they're so there's so one note and samey that Yeah, it is just these kids getting in trouble. Okay, these kids getting in trouble okay, Like how is that it?

How can that be? It? Like? How can that be? All?

This show is for thirty six episodes and that's and that's the that's the biggest crime here is like it honestly, because I watched four or five episodes, like all the episodes felt the same, even the ones that had the Barney Miller characters in them are just these kids are little shitheads and you don't want to be around them, and you're forced to be around them, and that feels like a bad enough punishment as it is. But then Fish shows up and drags it further down because he's just as miserable as the kids are. Well, it's funny to me because we just watched the episode where Fish comes back. I think that was the last posted episode we had, was him coming back, and like you said, finding out that Jilly had got pregnant and married the baby's father, and then to find out that Victor got arrested for assault and battery.

I'm like, okay, great, your influence was really positive on the Fish, Like why did you even there to run this halfway house? And then apparently for fans of the show. Please tell me that there are fans of the show. I mean, every every show, every movie has a fan out there, right like. Someone's favorite productions, someone's favorite productions.

Baby. Our friend Ryan, he put he put it out there into the world that that's the case, and I'd be inclined to agree with him. That person who loves this show good on you. But yeah, why you know? That means that people out there are just like, well, what happened to Mike Loomis and Diane you know who cares?

Yeah, that's that's that's the response. Where is Todd Bridges homeless on the street being. He and his little brother got picked up by another white guy and their live been in a DLXE apartment. On the East Side. Are they having good times?

Yes? They are? Are they living in some different strokes? Is that what it is? I don't okay, I didn't know which show he's from, again, being a little younger than you.

Those are shows I've never seen. Is that the one with Willis he was? Willis he is? Willis okay? The one that.

Constant Lee is being questioned about what he is talking about. By mister Gary Coleman, The Galaxy of Prawns. God, yeah, and I honestly, you know you mentioned the Bernice being the best part of the show. I think Todd Bridges is okay. That's alright, Yeah, I mean he's I don't know how young he is at this point.

This is what seventy seven, seventy eight, and he was born in sixty five. Wow, sixty five twelve years old twelve thirteen, okay, yeah, a little older than I thought he was. I thought he was like eight nine years old. It's a pituitary thing. Oh, that's what it is.

He just has it a little while Perry cole Ben handled a lot. Yeah, I don't know. I mean again, like in the season too, Todd Bridges looks like a fucking adult, so yeah, you know, and and John CASSISI looks like a man. And this like it's worse like John CASSISI, Like again you already mentioned it, Like he's like a little gangster child, and then he becomes just like an insufferable, like street dickhead teenager and it's like, uh, okay, yeah, I don't know if they were just like casting call for the most unlikable people possible, but it's kind of what it feels like, unlikable and unremarkable and man, on top of everything else, the intro to the show, how heartwarming? How heartwarming?

Ab A Goota standing in the doorway just acting fucking annoy being passed by all the kids like cool, and then it's just like shots of him like eating shit and just being mad. It's it's so good it's just if you don't want to watch the show, just watch the credits for the show and you will get an entire idea of what this fucking show is. And you never even have to hear a line of dialogue, which, which honestly seems like a seems like a plus, especially in Barry Gordon's case. Great John Cacci was at one point, this is according to the imdbach trivia, so take it with the grain of salt, was at one point the director of Global Construction for City Realty Services, the City Group unit that manages its offices and branches.

The next trivia item, December twenty fifteen, sentenced to two to six years in prison for money laundering and bribery. Yeah, he's a gangster dude, totally, is it is? Yeah? I knew. I actually knew about that because when we did the Bugsy Malone episode on the Culture Cast, I think I brought that up because I was like, this guy is like a real life mobster dude, Like, Okay.

It's so funny to look at his filmography because Bugsy Malone, like you said, Barney Miller Kentucky Fried movie. He makes another pregated appearance Fish of course, and then a TV movie from nineteen eighty two called Gemini, which also stars or really the star of it is Scott Bayo. It's like he tied his star to Scott Bao for a little while, which is a bad idea. Yeah, well, I mean, hey, Scott BeO is definitely not even the best part of bugsy Malone, so that's true. Yeah, there's a little known actress in there named Jody Foster.

You might have heard of her. Yeah, I wonder what she's up to right now? What's she doing these days? You're not doing much? I'm sure right, Yeah, it's uh yeah, John, Yeah, I think the worst part about this show actually is John CASSISI, which is unfortunate, like the he works so well in bugsy Malone, But that's because bugsy Malone is like exactly the kind of movie that in a character actor who looks like him and talks like him would benefit from.

It might be it might be some of the most perfect casting I've ever seen. Frankly, and Bugsy Malone, he's one of the best parts of that movie. He's better than Scott bo Is in that movie one hundred percent. He makes an impression in that movie. John CASSISI does, however, that character and then that performance does not work here at all, And again he just comes off as this like unlikable shithead street kid in Bugsy Malone, you fully believe that he's like a little mob boss, shithead street kid.

Well, I can see him getting into construction for City Bank, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, jesus hey allegedly allegedly, allegedly alleged. I mean, he was convicted, but you know, as we all know, convictions don't matter, so no, no. You can just stack the Supreme Court and you'll get out of anything. Yet those like Canes, got those piling up like candy exactly, John CASSISI, everybody, Yeah, this is this.

You said it, You put it pretty aptly. This is definitely a bullet that we're taking for our audience because I do not think anyone should spend time with this. And like you already alluded to, you can just watch this on the blue on the on the released DVD if you want to see the first season. But if you really want to spend twelve episodes times twenty minutes worth of time doing that, let me tell you I can find other things for you to do, like if you need some gestions, go clean out your clothes, go spend time with your loved ones, do anything other than sit and watch this show. Because you will not get rewarded for spending time with Fish at all.

You'll just be disappointed. Take that time, go on out the iTunes. Lead us a five star rating interview. We would love you for it. That's better than twenty two minutes spent with Fish.

Apparently this was canceled before the third season because Abegota asks for too much fucking money. Yeah, yep, that uh you know what they say that tracks, that does track. Yeah, that's a that's Abe for you. A Pagoda really uh you know, a Pagoda seems like a guy who really misinterpreted what his worth was. And that's fine.

I'm not trying to be mean, But I also don't think that Abeagoda in nineteen seventy seven and seventy eight was making decisions in a way that benefited his career because he would have benefited from being on Barney Miller the entire show. Oh yeah, this is not yo. He probably made more money doing this than he did with Barney Miller. But guess what Barney Miller ran for eight seasons. This shit ran for two and then Abe Bagoda didn't really re elevate his career back to a lead in a TV show ever.

Again, most people my age known for Good Burger, and most people your age know him from Fucking The Godfather, which happened before this. Good Burger happened after this, and Barney Miller happened in between. And guess what he didn't really do in between The Godfather and Good Burger much of anything after Barney Miller. Yeah, and that's the truth. That's not me being mean or slanderous or anything.

That's just looking at the facts and his IMDb and his filmography. Apparently he's going to be in an episode of Tales from the Dark Side that we're going to watch over on our anthology horror show which is called Midnight Viewing, So if people are looking forward to that, that's season two, episode twenty. So we're going to be creeping up on that one pretty soon here, Chris. I mean, you know, he had a little roll in Canniball Run two and the stuff and a couple other things, but yeah, nothing never kind of recaptured the magic of this. Oh, he wasn't North.

One of the worst movies ever made, the Rob Reiner film that ended Rob Reiner's amazing streak of just knocking. Him out of the park. Rob Reiner is never covered from that one. Is that the one with Elijah Wood? Yes?

Yeah? Is that the one where it's like the like the narration is is it Tom Hanks narrates the movie or something. I want to say, Bruce. Some pretty famous actor, right, but it's like a weird ass movie. No, it's bad.

It's a really bad yeah. Yeah, and it was. Yeah, Allen's Wibel wrote it. He was a writer first Saturday Night Live, so he had kind of a pedigree. But yeah, it was.

Yeah. I actually saw it in the theater and I couldn't believe how bad it was as I'm watching and I'm just like. This is terrible. Oh a goodo is in it? Yeah yeah, which is a real shame.

And you know, the other thing that he's known for, mostly for me, is that website is able to go to dead dot com because that was a joke for years he seemed to be dead and of course, like, yeah, we're saying like back here in the mid seventies, we're just like. Oh, he's so old, but he's only like not even fifty. I think. Great, they're like creeping up on fifty. It's like, oh Trinity, Yeah, born in eighteen.

Twenty one, so yeah, he was in his fifties. So he was probably my age when Barney Miller started, I feel I look a little bit nicer. Yeah you do. And when did he pass away? Like just recently, right, like in the last five years?

Yeah? Oh yeah, so in last ten in the last ten years. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the other thing that a lot of people my age would know him from is is the his appearances on Conan.

Yeah, oh yeah, that is true, like him and oh gosh, Grady from uh from sanfordan Son. What was his name, Whitman Mayo. Mayo was definitely his last name, But yeah, he was all over Conan and as well, like Conan, seemed to latch onto older stars from sitcoms in the seventies. Did you know that Abe Vigoda's real life wife who he married in nineteen sixty eight and she died in ninety two. Bernice was her name.

No, it was not, it was that's what it says here. Good lord. Yeah, yeah, you think he hated his real life wife as much as he hated Bernice in the show. I hope that. I hope that.

Yeah, me too. Yeah, you know, it's it's sad because a Pagoda, like I said, it seems like a shame that this is where his career went and that this show ended up being what he wanted to do instead of Barney Miller. Because you know, as much as we don't miss him in Barney Miller, who knows what those seasons would have been like if he had been there. They might, they might, they might have actually done something with his character and changed his character. There is guaranteed to be no character change if they get his own show like this, and that's the case.

His character is exactly who he was in Barney Miller. And that's a problem. If I were to have written this show, and I think we've already talked about this, are alluded to this, this should have been a va GOODA and Bernice go to Boca mm hmm, and like he's like a fucking mall security guard or he's like a I don't know, like just something or he's nothing like a bank or something. Yeah or no, yeah, he's like a security guard. At a bank or who the fuck knows just something or or you know who knows, or he's like a landlord.

He's like a landlord of like a hoteller. Him and Bernice own a bed and breakfast or something, And so you get a little bit of the kind of Barney Miller of it all, where you have weird people coming in that he has to interact with and he can roll his eyes at weird adults. And then you have Bernice being you know, her usual self. And I think that would have been a good idea, like them running a bed and breakfast would have been kind of fun like. But no, instead we've got them running a halfway house for teenagers.

Okay, Chris, should I watch Good Burger? I don't think you'd like it? No, I don't know, like it's I don't know. Have you seen those kinds of movies, those Nickelodeon movies before? No, but I've seen all the house party films.

Oh. I mean, I don't know. It'd probably be interesting to check out. I mean, a vagoda is in it enough to warrant you checking it out. I just don't know if it's like your thing specifically, But if you're wanting to check it out for aid Vagoda, he's in it enough to check it out for sure.

Well, hell, I'm all about Robert Wall being in there, and. Of course said bad, Yeah, Simbad isn't. There's Simbad plays I think Keenan and Kel's teacher. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's the other weird thing to think about, Like when you think about someone who, to contrast, just speaking kind of randomly, Keenan Thompson, someone who went out on his own and had his own career and has made I think a case for being like one of the greatest like improv comedians ever because of his tenure on SNL. He's been on SNL for like fifteen years. But contrast that with someone like a Vagoda who could not get out of his own way long enough to have his own show actually be successful. And you have someone like Keenan Thompson who's never really stepped into the spotlight but has been a like a team player on SNL for like a long time. It's weird the decisions that people make and how it affects their careers because this, I think fish is honestly the thing that a Pagoda did that probably like really hurt his career in the long run, because I mean the way he left Barney Miller was not great, and this show ends up being not great.

So yeah, it's just all around, I repeat it, not great. Yeah, it's a real shame because I mean, having grown up with Abe Vigoda and being familiar with his work, even see them show up in little things like Joe Versus the Volcano or The Cheap Detective, some of these like smaller roles that he did over the years. I really admired him and liked him and everything, but this whole adventure of Barnie Miller has showed me like, ah, yeah, he was a little greedy, his character was a little one node he did this really bad spin off, and of course I can't say that it's not his fault because he wanted this spinoff, wanted to go on to bigger and better things and Barney Miller could offer him. Yeah, they really didn't do it though, I mean, hey, yeah, shut himself in the foot.

Yeah, it's and it's a shame because again, like I said, I think there's a universe where he stayed on Barney Miller, and him staying on Barney Miller. I think was the right was one hundred percent the right call. So he didn't do that, and yeah, his career suffered for it, and it's unfortunate. But I don't know if there's much else to say about Fish other than avoid it. Like the plague.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah it's not Yeah, it's it's it's one of these things where unlike when we covered the Colchak reboot, I think that got a bad rap unfairly from a lot of the fans of the show, just it not being Colchak, which is fine. It was not meant to be Colchak the way they wanted it to be. This is completely different. This in terms of contrasting this with that spinoff quote unquote, because that's the only spin off for Colcheck you could really even theoretically talk about this is that makes this makes that look like a fucking masterpiece, like the Lajah Conda, you know what I mean, That's like Mona Lisa compared to this, like this is Yeah, this is set bound and bad and everything that Barney Miller is.

This is not all the way down to having stereotype characters, except in this show they're all written like stereotypes. And Barney Miller. They're elevated beyond belief. This show is just lazy. And hey, Avagoda got a nice paycheck though, So there you go.

When we come back next month, we are going to be returning to the world of Barney Miller. Thank you. We're going to be starting the eighth season of the show, the final season of the show, and we will be talking about the episode's paternity advancement and the car. And I think we're going to try to get Richard Adam. Back on here.

Richard Adam starr and creator of the series. Richard had Him's paranormal Bookshelf, which I'm listening to on a regular basis. I don't know about you, Chris, but highly recommend it. Even though it'side out of the weirding Way media platform, we still listen to other people's shows, especially when their friends fart. Yeah, we're not bitter, why would we be.

Every all success helps all of us. And yeah, Richard's a huge fan of the show. And no, we should have invited Richard or Otto to join us on this episode. That's a shit. What have oh they would have God, can you imagine if we made Richard watch all thirty five episodes and then we get on here and we're just like, yeah, I just watch a couple.

I mean, there's let's just say, he would not deserve it. I'm just kidding. I know, I know Richard's listening. We would never do that to you, Richard. We love you, and Richard, and Richard knows better as a fan of Barney Miller.

Richard knows better. Everybody I think who's a fan of Barney Miller knows that this show is not great if they've heard of it. And again, I mean even Auto covers it in his book, which you can find over a Bear Manner Media, which is the from the files of the old one too, And you're welcome, Auto. That's five dollars. Well until we come back next month.

Chris, what are you working on? This? Just podcasting over a weirding Way Media with you and me and all of our buddies doing all sorts of fun stuff. Eighties TV Ladies, which is hosted by Richard Adam's wife, Susan Lambert and Sharon Johnson. Film entaries twisted and uncorked all kinds of fun, exciting audio diversions can be found over Weirdingwaymedia dot com, including my weekly movie podcast, the Culture Cast, which I've been doing checks watch because this is an audio medium for almost ten years now.

So yeah, Weirdingway Media is where you can go to find all of our stuff, aside from ranking on Bond, which can be found on our respective patreons Patreon dot com, slash Culturecast or Projection Booth where the aforementioned Richard Hadham and you and I talk about James Bond once a month, and yeah, we're just now getting into the Roger Moore years. So if you as a fan of seventies TV, like seventies James Bond movies, come on, join us over to our respective patreons and help us out. Because you help us and then you get to listen to our fun exclusive content. And get new episodes of stuff dropped early. It's fantastic.

And if you're over at the Projection Booth Patreon, I try to throw in some of the other shows that we work on here, like a little bit of that Chevy Chase that we're talking about, where we just released an episode of that all about under the Rainbow. I think we've got our Modern Problems episode coming up pretty soon, or it might be dirty work gets released first and then into modern problems. I don't think that we could do a modern problems under the rainbow back to back thing. That might kill our audience. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, just like Fish, we might just kill our audience immediately before we even get started.

So well, thank you so much Chris for coming on and talking about Barney Miller's always. Thank you so much to John Walker for. Our opening theme song, and while our. Closing theme song, I guess is actually by the people that made the the real Barney Miller theme. You're not going to hear the fish theme that very memorable.

That was one other thing that they didn't do. That a really good theme song. You get that rock and Barty Miller theme song, that crazy guitar and the horn section is just going wild. Fish is just kind of a wet fark, just like Fish.