Shark Bytes

I loved this TV show. It testd many boundaries. At the heart of it was a sweet exchange between Mason and Redgrave, much like real life can present. I wish it was available on DVD.

Jackie Mason's "on the roof" Catskill style rantings made this show worth watching, as others have stated.Re: the above comment regarding Catskills Comedy's alleged "death" and Lenny Bruce's cultural awakenings ...be it noted that still, in our "culturally awakened" era, Jackie Mason's Catskill Comedy has had season after season of sold out hit shows on Broadway, mega hit HBO specials,best selling books, a TV series, a radio show, and a hit DVD & CD.
Now, if only the death of Lenny Bruce
(of a drug overdose) had taken with it the cynicism, bitterness, darkness, and obsenity which he spewed (causing one entertainment critic to name him "America's #1 Vomic"), we might be a somewhat happier generation.

One of the posters is correct. This show was indeed cancelled because of Mason's ethnic slur.

I watched this show once when I was 10 yrs old.

I remember that this show was not god awful. I think the real problem was that it just wasn't laugh out loud funny.
It had kind of a subdued amusmenent to it.

I think Jackie Mason lost this show for political reasons, not necessarily because it wasn't a very good show (lousier shows have been on for several seasons). The story is this: Back in 1989, Ed Koch, a good friend of Mason's, was running for his fourth term as mayor of New York City. David Dinkins, an African-American who had been Manhattan Borough President ran against Koch for the Democratic nomination. Mason took it upon himself to stump for Koch's nomination. He regularly lampooned Dinkins in the process. One day, he went too far and called Dinkins "a fancy shvartze with a mustache." (A "shvartze" is a Yiddish term for a black person. It is now considered a slur.) The uproar here in NYC was huge and this show was cancelled soon after.

Chicken Soup was a cute show that suffered from miscasting.. or the one bad apple sank the whole show syndrome. Lynn Redgrave's Orish act was just embarrassing. Any other actress would have livened up the part. I wonder why they had to make Jackie Mason's love interest Irish: the legacy of Bridget loves Bernie perhaps. At any rate, Lynn turned viewers off.

Ugh. How did that ugly little troglodite Jackie Mason get a prime time show? "Catskill" humor died with tapdancing, Mitch Miller's Sing-a-Long, and all other bland forms of show bizness that were killed by various cultural awakenings in the 60s. After Lenny Bruce, no Catskill comedian stood a chance. ABC hyped the Hell out of this show for months before it came on too, so I can only guess that Jackie had pictures of some ABC exec sodomizing a decapitated goose.

This wasn't on long enough to jump. I'll be honest I never saw the show, but then again I never had the chance. It was actually given good reviews and given a good slot after Roseanne. It had really good ratings. Most shows would kill for a top 10 but Roseanne was at or near #1 and Chicken Soup was losing about 25 0/0 of the audience. So even though it was at/near the top 10, the network execs in their infinite (lack of) wisdom cancelled it after 3 or 4 shows. The shows they kept putting in its place did so much worse. Now look at ABC. Vying for 4th or 5th with WB and UPN. And with decision making skills like that, no wonder.

Casey-Warner Productions went to the well once to often with this show. Sure, putting stand-up comedians like Bill Cosby and Roseanne Barr in sit-coms based on their acts were great ideas, but doing the same thing for Jackie Mason wasn't so great. Basically, he played a former pajama salesman who falls in in love and has a relationship with Lynn Redgrave. Jackie Mason and Lynn Redgrave?! That would be the oddest couple in ABC's history until Jim Belushi and Courtney Thorne-Smith in "According to Jim" came on the air! The only good part of the show was the beginning when Jackie would stand on the rooftop of his apartment "kvetching" to the audience about his problems- basically his stand-up act. The show only had good ratings because it followed "Roseanne" on Tuesdays nights, but ABC wasn't fooled and the show was quickly cancelled. If NBC had this show on the air now, it would be on Thursday nights at 8:30 PM Eastern (7:30 PM Central).

This is absolutely the worst show I ever watched. I only wanted to say this because there are many times we (friends/family) have had discussions on the worst shows and they think I made this show up. Thank you for having this website to prove them wrong. I actually sat down and watched this show a long time ago. This show was hands down the worst show that I have come across in my 25 years on this earth. I would give anything to have that half hour of my life back. I can't reiterate enough on how bad this show is but still to this day I remember the name of the show -- that's how bad it was. I always mention this show when people have discussions about TV and no one has ever head of it. I please advise the TV networks to never attempt to have another show like that again. CHICKEN SOUP will undoubtedly be this worst show from the past present and future to make it to TV. Only with the web I have managed to voice my opinion to the two people who will ever visit this show on JUMP THE SHARK.