Shark Bytes

From Laura: ...I remember ROTF when they helped the little boy get even at school with a bully. I loved this show and wish I could see them again.

Does anybody have the episodes? I've been looking for them everywhere; nobody seems to have them.

Exactly 9 minutes 23 seconds into the first show when find out that Eric made a deal with his wife never to haunt humans. What?? A comedy about ghosts and the shows writers decide that they will not have them scare anyone?? That would be as if the first episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" she agrees never to use her magic. For the record, they only made 6 episodes, but NBC only showed 4. The 5th episode was pulled only an hour before it was suppose to air and replaced with a repeat of some other show. All six episodes were shown in Britain. The show was suppose to be based on the movie "Topper", but was really based on a 1986 episode of Amazing Stories directed by Joe Dante where an old couple who died in an auto accident are ghosts who nobody can see and live(?) in their old house. An family they cannot stand moves in and they decide to haunt them, but are to nice to be effective, that is until the final few minutes of the episode when they do something that scares the family off [ I cannot remember what. Most of that series seems like a blur to me now. ] a couple of years later the same story was used in the movie "Beetlejuice" with the addition of Keaton's character. Nearly Departed was the third time in three years that the same story was rehashed, only this time instead of the couple trying to haunt the new family out, they agree to let them stay because the dead wife likes them. Eric Idle [ the dead husband ] doesn't like them, and things get worse when the new families obnoxious grandfather moves in and can see and hear the ghosts. Except for a brief segment where Idle helps the grandfather cheat on a drivers test. For most of the series all the ghosts do is comment on what the living humans are doing. The only truly funny moment comes when in the third episode Idle's character is allowed by his wife to haunt a thug who was bullying the grandfather at a bus station. According to those who watched the last two episodes in Britain, they were funnier than the first four. But after hobbling their series by preventing their ghosts from doing the one thing that always made ghosts [ in comedies at least ] funny, the show never recovered.

Don't remember much about the show, except that it was a disappointment considering Eric Idle was the star. It was so unfunny, it was embarrassing. Seems to me Eric and Caroline McWilliams were husband and wife ghosts who died in a car crash, and were damned to haunt this television show, uh, I mean house. This ghost concept was something out of the sixties, and was probably written by has-been writers from Bewitched or something.

This show never had a chance to jump 'cause it was cancelled after like 10 episodes. No big deal really, it wasn't that good. But when I later got into Monty Python's Flying Circus, I recognized Eric Idle as "The British Guy" from "That Show Aboot the Dead Couple". Nobody knew what I was talking aboot.

Loved the theme song, hated the show. I can remember some of the lyrics: "Everyone lately/is making us crazy/since we have joined the deceased/There'll be no resting in peace, we're/Nearly Departed..." It proved two things: Eric Idle was the only member of Python who had an even remotely decent singing voice, and the writers didn't know how to use him (but then, no American show ever made full use of his talents). Glaring proof the people behind this show were idiots: who do they pair the great Eric Idle with? Caroline McWilliams from "Benson!" What??

This show never had the chance to jump. In fact, I thought it was a figment of my imagination until I saw it listed on JTS. Nearly Departed was fantastic. The theme song was one of the best in sitcom history, and I still get goosebumps remembering the writing "magically" appearing on the fogged-up window. BRILLIANT!

Day One. More precisely, right after the opening song. It was great.

Another example of why Eric Idle has become my least favourite Python. Somewhere along the line he decided to start kissing up to Americans. His post Python humour seems to be based on Johnny Carson's tiresome shtick of saying the name Ethel Merman (Hey, it's a name that guarantees a laugh!!) Watch any of the old SNL's, where either Michael Palin or Eric Idle are hosting; for Palin, the cast go out of their way to copy Python style humour, with Idle it's American all the way. Too bad, because some of his skits for Monty Python wer hilarious.

Actually, I have three episodes of the show on tape. Eric Idle was very funny in the first two episodes, but the rest of the cast could have come from "Stock Characters R Us." Idle is the only reason I keep the tape.