Shark Bytes

"It says 'crunchy.'"

I don't care and never did if Lynde was gay. He was funny as hell. The problem with this show was two-fold. One, it was dropped into the Wednesday at 8:00 time slot against Carol Burnett and Adam-12. Two, the writing was ridiculous. Lynde should have taken off like a comet with his own sitcom, but I don't think ABC really put much effort or money into it. Go ahead, name a show (except for this one)that Paul was on that didn't make you laugh out loud.

He was gay? wtf?

Yep, it is very incredible the things we remember from the most obscure tv and think for a moment nobody else does.

The one scene from "TPLS" I'll never forget is an episode where Paul is in the doghouse after all out family fight fest and has to sleep on the living room couch.

After moments of restlessness trying to fall asleep, he notices the pillow's attached warning tag. He mutters, "Do not remove this label or you will b subjected to imprisonment" Then he says aloud, "Go ahead and take me!".

Again, Paul Lynde could take the most mundane lines make them gems.

I rmember this show well . . . And never knew that Paul Lynde was homosexual until much later ( Maybe I was naive, or influenced by the lack of gays in this country) so that didn't matter. What I enjoyed about the show was his incredibly cynical and snide repsonse to everything around him . . .It was so unexpected for a family man in that time period.

Favourite episode: When the daughter posed nude for a painting, and Paul's desperate attempts to have it banned only lead to more and more people seeing it, until it achieves great recognition. Last line after finding out that it is going on display at a New York museun with the daughter in attendeance, Paul collapses into a chair and intones to his wife " She's had a hard day being pornography . . . Take her into the kitchen . . . Fix her a cup of hot chocolate . . . And then KILL her . . . "

Paul Lynde was by far the funniest character on Bewitched and it was logical that he get his own series. The standard series at that time (like now) was to take the central actor and surround him with a family and hope the chemistry worked.

In this show, it did not and maybe the premise was tough to take because of the mannerisms but Paul Lynde donig his normal schtick was funny.

The show flopped because pretty much everybody knew what an ambling shambling queen Paul Lynde was.

actually, it was PAMELYN Ferdin, not Pamela. She was one of my favorite child actresses.

To the above poster cc the Paul Lynde Show - I thought I was the only person in the world who remembered the wife-husband exchange "How goes the rat race, dear?"/"The rats are WIN-NING!!" ... Classic Paul Lynde!! Thirty+ years, and it still s t u c k with me. Glad there's someone else out there who remenbers.

Okay, so Paul Lynde was, well, since we're back to an era when such things were not often spoken of openly, let's just say that he batted from the left side of the plate. It wasn't ridiculous at all that he played a family man, and I doubt very much that this was some underhanded way to forward a political agenda. Look at old television and movies, and you'll see plenty of actors who are obviously of Lynde's persuasion, who get laughs without said predilection being presented openly, by playing characters who are persnickety and proper, or characters who, like the Lynde show's character, are straight, but sort of unmanly, bumblers. As for the quality of the show, well, this one probably jumped the shark from the start, except for one moment: It was worth sitting through some bad episodes for the scene where Lynde's character arrived home from work and his wife greeted him with the question, "Well dear, how goes the rat race?" To which Lynde responded, in that nasally, wiseass tone so well known to viewers of the Hollywood Squares, "The RATS are WIN-ning!" The way Paul Lynde delivered the line made this one of the all-time memorable television moments, on an otherwise lousy show.

Paul Lynde WAS a good comedy actor but THE PAUL LYNDE SHOW was one of the most stupid shows in television history. It jumped from the get-go.

Paul Lynde married with kids? And they said My Mother the Car had a ridiculous premise. Why didn't they just go all out and cast Lilly Tomlin as his wife?

Man, this site still amazes with its ability to dredge up very buried memories that one wouldn't think would see the light of day again. For many years Paul Lynde did in fact play a frustrated suburban dad lamenting about "those kids" in the play "Bye Bye Birdie", so the basic role wasn't unknown to him. America is meaner and cruder than it used to be but it wasn't THAT naive back then; any adult with some sense could see that Paul Lynde was a flamer. There were more things in previous times that were considered to be better left unsaid. It's just that in the greater exposure of a national network show it had less a chance to be credible, unless, as others have indicated, that is was written more in a cleverly ironical sort of way, but it wasn't and it blew and turned out to be a waste of Paul's great talents. Also, to the above poster, any attempt on my part to explain Lynde's comic appeal would be wasted. Let's just say that your idea of the big funny appears to be multi-car pileup at a NASCAR event.

This show blew to high heavens! A stinkfest if ever one existed! Paul Lynde was a no-talent nitwit that apparently "had the goods" on one or more network executives, enabling him to appear in our homes for several years. Geez, think about it, that stupid grinning mug of his, crackin' wise and yet never really saying or doing anything funny. The Paul Lynde Show sucked then, it sucks in memory, and it will suck for all future generations...

I agree that Paul Lynde as a family man is a pretty wild premise. But you have to take into account that there was a time when people did not acknowledge the existence of homosexuality. People who watched Liberace's show were in total denial that he was gay, even though it was obvious. And consider movies: there was a character named Clifton Webb, who appeared in several movies in the 40's and 50's, such as Mr. Belvedere and Laura. They frequently cast him as a family man or the leading lady's suitor, and he was very obviously gay. But back then no one would acknowledge that gay existed. And this kind of denial was still prominent when The Paul Lynde Show was produced.