Shark Bytes

I think the reason Arnie was promoted was that it turned out he was the only one in the company who actually knew how to make flanges!

A charming show that fit some serious thought between the laughs--for one season. Then in the second season they started making a point of emphasizing Arnie's Greek heritage. One episode did manage to smoothly incorporate references to this heritage into the story: The company's head honcho, Hamilton Majors, Jr. ("Just call me Ham") wants Arnie to agree that he'll go to his final rest in a mausoleum shared with "Ham" and his family. Funny scene of Ham taking Arnie on a tour of the mausoleum, showing him the places inside where the various occupants will "sleep." Arnie gets out of it by presenting a picture which Ham finds awfully unappealing, of Arnie's extended family practicing what was said in the show to be an old Greek ritual of regular visits to the graves of their loved ones, where they all sat around right on top of the grave and had a picnic. Here they fit the emphasis on ethnic heritage neatly into the story, but in most episodes the emphasis on Arnie's ancestry seemed forced, and the show went kaput as a result. I seem to recall that the network executive who decided to have Arnie go ethnic was the same guy who decided in the same season to have Mission Impossible lose the international intrigue, and instead have the IM Force go after American gangsters. Another bad move that wrecked what had been a good show, but at least MI had been around for a good long run. Arnie was cut down when the show was just beginning to find its wings. Really a shame for a show that had started with such promise.

ARNIE was a highly underrated sitcom that briefly graced the Saturday night schedule on CBS. The gifted Herschel Bernardi played a blue collar worker at a company I believe was called Continental Flange who gets promoted to a white collar position at the same company and how he adjusts to being an executive. The show also featured the vivacious Sue Ane Langdon as his wife and Roger Bowen (who played Col. Blake in the original movie version of M*A*S*H) as his boss, Hamilton Majors. Very funny show that rose above its mundane plotting and mediocre writing because of the immense screen presence of its star. Mr. Bernardi's talent prevented this sitcom from being ordinary and yet, this another show that never jumped the shark because it never found an audience. It's a shame because ARNIE probably could have become a classic in the tradition of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW if it had been given a chance to find an audience and had a little more solid writing.

I remember "ARNIE" very well. I agree with the poster that said the show was great season number 1 and stunk the second season. It was two totally different shows. It was a shame because if it would have continued being what it was in the beginning it would have gone on to be an all-time classic, in my opinion. ARNIE was screwed with worse than any show I can remember- sort of like THE FLINTSTONES.

I watched this show as a 7 year old. Two things I clearly remember. One was when Arnie told his son to go outside and water the lawn. I remember thinking, "Why would you water the lawn?" I guess it was more arid in California than Pennsylvania. The other was when Arnie was promoted to management and his wife was excitedly asking him his salary. $16,000? No. $18,000? No. $20,000? Yes. She screamed for joy. Sadly that salary is still a big deal for many people after more than thirty years of inflation.

Did it JTS? It's strange but I too can only vaguely remember this show but I remember that I liked watching it. I probably haven't seen it since it went off the air yet I can remember certain events from its last season. For me, a 14-year-old mid-western teenager, I always watched with fascination the lives of the two teenage children on this show. They lived in California, which to me was where all the "cool" people lived. They had those cool California teenage lives with their cool California teenage problems. So unlike my life. (Hey, it was a phase with me, Okay ?) The stories on "Arnie" were also very down-to-earth and believable. It's the kind of show where the main character (Arnie) would lie awake at night worrying about some event at the office the next day. I think anyone who's gone through bad times or had to make a major change in their life would probably have liked this show. I also remember reading the 1986, obituary of Herschel Bernardi (in the NYT?) and how it mentioned "Arnie" and how the main character struggled with his blue collar to white collar change at work and its effect on his life. It was a very good obituary and brought back fond memories of something I had long forgotten about.

Even though I could hardly describe even one episode, and haven't seen any since it was new (except two that I got from a tape trader), I remember it well in a general way, especially Roger Bowen's character. Almost no one played comical authority figures, especially executives, better than he did (anyone who knows him only as Colonel Blake has just seen the tip of the iceberg). He even played a confused store owner in a long series of "Highland superstore" commercials. Even though Arnie was Herschel Bernardi's show, and he was great in the role, the thing that it always makes me think of is Bowen talking in a sort of "Eastern" sounding voice (a little like William Buckley's) and using all those business executive cliches.

Arnie....a great show! Until the suits at the network tried to take a hip show with wry humor and turn it into the usual run of the mill corny sitcom CBS ran back in the 60's. Arnie's first season was excellent. Herschel Bernardi was a blue-collar hero and Roger Bowen was the all-too familiar front-office control freak. Over the summer hiatus, some CBS exec tampered with the show and the writing and story lines took a major turn for the worse. Too bad it didn't survive in the middle of the Saturday night lineup.

Never jumped. The best episode was when a big executive's classic car (about to be entered in a show) was inadvertently crushed into a block (by mistake---and as I recall, Arnie was partly to blame). But the crushed car ended up winning a trophy because it was abstract and unique---so all ended well for Arnie.

I don't quite remember but during the opening credits, there was some sort of memorandum that included "promote Arnie NuvO" and was checked off. Later in the opening sequence, Arnie "blue collar" threw something up into the air and it returned as an attachÈ case to land in newly suited Arnie Nuvo's hand. The opening credits turned me way off. No offence to accomplished actor (but often histrionic) Herschel Bernardi...as for Sue Ann Langdon - check out some old Playboys. The epitome of trailer park.

I liked "Arnie". Not a bad little show sandwiched in between the long running dramedy "My Three Sons" and a brand new sitcom called "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". I believe what really killed "Arnie" was its move from 9PM Saturdays to 10:30PM Mondays in the fall of 1971. It was on way too late for a family sitcom to be airing. I guess someone at CBS really wanted to do away with this cleverly written show. Well, it worked. By the end of the second season "Arnie" was gone and to this date, I've never seen it rebroadcast. Maybe TV Land will air "Arnie"!?

I still remember the episode where Arnie had to choose between keeping his mustache and getting a promotion. Classic.

Interesting premise - shipping dock foreman is elevated to executive suite of a flange (?) company. He is put into some new office called company (or product) improvement or customer satisfaction or something like that. The youngish president is all supportive, a senior older executive is totally against it. How does a blue collar guy get along in suit world? And with his former co-workers? Arnie's wife was played by SueAnne Langdon who was the neighbor that Walter Mathou wanted to get in Guide for the Married Man. She was a knockout in that movie. Here she related that the producers really schlumped her down to look dowdy and flattened her chest. Anyway, when Arnie is promoted, it is explained that this is a new position in management and the pres. wants a different/new voice in the executive suite. However, in season two, about the 3rd or 4th episode, they got Bob Cummings to come and do a guest shot and they decided to have him play the previous holder of that position. Except wait!, there was no previous holder as it was a brand new position. The story line was, this previous executive was coming back and maybe he would want his old job back and Arnie would have to go back to the Loading Dock. The writers were now looking for anything to write about. The show was on its way out. The Mary Tyler Moore Show started the same year as Arnie back to back I believe. MTM made it, Arnie didn't.

Herschel Bernardi as Arnie , a poor schlub from - what ? - a loading dock ? is promoted to management. Sexy wife......sentimental and funny. I was really young but I thought it was kinda neat.