Shark Bytes
This show never had a chance to jump. It wasn't great- I won't lie- but it was not as bad as some of these people would have you think. First of all, it was NOT a sitcom. It was a half-hour drama/comedy, filmed without a live audience and without a laugh track. I saw both episodes and there is NO sass-talking black woman with a heart of gold. There is no old man who always wears a hat. (Watch the show before you trash it). The episodes I saw were about as decent, realistic, and genuine as television gets. Daniel Stern plays a recently-divorced man with two teenage children... he works at a rec center and is trying to find some peace in his life. Was the show gut-bustingly hilarious? No. Was it nonstop gripping drama? Not exactly. But of all the shows to come and go in the last few years, Danny was one of the better ones. It was never given the chance to jump the shark.
The 2001 Fall comedy line-up has to be the worst since 1983! We've got schlock like "Inside Schwartz", "According to Jim", "The Ellen Show", "Emeril" and "Bob Patterson" polluting The Big Three's airwaves so let's all be thankful that CBS pulled the plug on this stinkbomb after two episodes. P.U.!!!!!
Day One: Oh, who to blame? Star Daniel Stern or executive producer Daniel J. Stern or, perhaps, writer Daniel J. Stern. This show makes a viewer look back fondly to tv staples such as "The Michael Richards Show" or "Bette." I only saw the first episode, (which means I saw half the episodes televised, though I look forward to the USA Network airing the unseen, or "lost", episodes) but instead of "jumping the shark", this show was constantly "cork-screwing toward hell." What other show featured a janitor (who looked like many a sexual predator) serenading the star with a Marvin Gaye tune? Or the painful scene where TV's Danny rides with the kids whining about everything and wishing he could just whittle like some old guy on the side of the road? Or the supposedly heart-warming scene where Danny, whose supposed to be teaching a ballet class for the woman he has a crush on, has the little girls plowing into a tackling dummy? It's heart-warming until the first broken neck. I could go on, but I'm feeling too depressed. I'm sure "Inside Schwartz" will put a smile back on my face.
To say this dreck jumped on Day One is a bit of a misnomer. It actually jumped several months before, when someone at CBS thought Daniel Stern would be someone to build a sitcom around. And what a sitcom it was! It had everything a show from Hell could want: two wise-cracking kids, a zany grandpa who always wore a comedic hat, an overweight sass-talking but heart of gold black woman, a creepy guy at work, and loveable Daniel Stern complaining about his gut, his prostate, and his trouble with women! Pure hilarity! The show was cancelled after two airings in the Fall of 2001. The producers are currently awaiting trial in The Hague.
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