Mon 13 Aug 2012
A TV Review by Michael Shonk: ANDY BARKER, P.I. (2007).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Comedy , TV mysteries[12] Comments
ANDY BARKER, P.I. NBC. Red Pulley Production. Conaco, NBC-Universal. Cast: Andy Richter as Andy Barker, Clea Lewis as Jenny Barker, Harve Presnell as Lew Staziak, Tony Hale as Simon, Marshall Manesh as Wally. Created by Conan O’Brien and Jonathan Groff. Music by Adam Cohen. Directed by Jason Ensler.
Episodes are available on DVD and downloading sites, as well as at Hulu.com where they can be watched for free.
While Barney Miller remains the greatest ever TV detective comedy, Andy Barker, P.I. may hold that title for TV PIs. But then consider the competition. Generally PI comedies featured a lucky idiot PI (The Michael Richards Show), parodies (Ace Crawford, Private Eye) or gimmicks (Small & Frye, with a six inch PI). What made Andy Barker different was he was a good and dedicated professional at both jobs, CPA and PI.
Andy lives in a nice middle class home in Fair Oaks, California, with his happy supportive wife and young children. He is a kind, well-mannered, nice guy with a natural talent for solving murders and tax forms. Richter is near perfect as he played his typical role of an average man quick to accept and deal with any strange thing happening around him.
Andy opened his new accounting business in a local outdoor mall. His first client is a femme fatale looking for help from the office’s former occupant, PI Lew Staziak. Out of boredom and with no other clients, Andy checks out her story. He visits Lew who has retired to a rest home. But after Andy solves the case, Lew decides to keep working as a PI and will from then on take for granted Andy’s help. Lew is as nuts as he is violent.
Andy’s new business neighbors are not much more stable. Under Andy’s second floor office is “Video Riotâ€, a video store run by film buff Simon who thinks of himself as Andy’s PI partner. The mall’s restaurant is “Afghan Kebabs†run by Wally an immigrant who, after 9/11, changed his name and covered his restaurant in patriotic American décor with his surveillance camera hidden in the head of a Richard Nixon bust.
The writing uses the contrast between the fictional PI lifestyle versus reality as a basis for some delightful off beat humor. For example, the cliché plot device of a time limit such as a bomb set to go off at midnight. In “Dial M For Laptop,†Andy has only until midnight to find his stolen laptop with his father-in-law’s tax return or miss the tax deadline (trust me, it’s visually funnier than it reads).
This was a bad time for NBC. The network had reached new heights in its ability to keep any possible success away from any of their series. Andy Barker, P.I. was too quirky to attract a large audience, but to set it up against events such as NCAA Final Four tournament, and very popular series such as CSI and Grey’s Anatomy was one of NBC’s dumber moves.
EPISODE INDEX:
◠“Pilot†(3/22/07, Thursday 9:30-10pm) Written by Conan O’Brien and Jonathan Groff. Guest Cast: Vanessa Branch, Gary Anthony Williams, Steve Cell, and Nicole Randall Johnson
Andy Barker, CPA, opens his new business office in a small outdoor mall, but he finds himself helping a client who mistakes him for the office’s former occupant, a hardboiled PI.
Ratings: 6 share versus ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (23), CBS’s NCAA Basketball tournament (10) and Fox’s rerun of Family Guy (5).
◠“Fairway My Lovely†(3/22/07, Thursday (9:30-10pm) Written by Alex Herschlag and Jane Espenson. Guest Cast: Peter Allen Vogt, Margaret Easley, and Nicole Randall Johnson
When Andy’s gross and massively overweight client dies on a golf course, everyone assumes it was a heart attack, except the man’s wife who hires Andy to prove the man’s mistress killed him.
Ratings: 5 share versus ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (22), CBS’s NCAA Basketball tournament (13), and Fox’s American Dad (4).
◠“Three Days of the Chicken†(3/29/07, Thursday 9:30-10pm) Written by Gail Lerner. Guest Cast: Brian McNamara, Terry Rhoades, Ben Falcone, and Boogie.
Andy helps Wally who is being shaken down by an evil Chicken cartel.
Ratings: 4 share versus CBS’s CSI (22), ABC’s rerun Grey’s Anatomy (10), and Fox’s rerun Family Guy (5).
◠“Dial M For Laptop†(4/5/07, Thursday 10-10:30pm) Written by Chuck Tatham. Guest Cast: David Huddleston, Traci Lords, and Frank Santorelli.
Andy’s laptop is stolen when Lew’s plan to help a victim of blackmail leaves Andy unknowingly in the middle.
Ratings: 4 share versus CBS’s Shark (17) and ABC’s October Road (9).
◠“The Big No Sleep†(4/14/07, Saturday at 8-8:30pm) Written by Josh Bycel. Guest Cast: Jesse L. Martin, Nestor Carbonell, and Kim Coates.
Lew expects Andy’s help in revealing a woman to be a fraud and adulteress, but Andy has trouble at home. His baby daughter refuses to sleep until he finds her missing stuffed toy, Snowball.
Ratings: 3 share versus CBS’s Cold Case rerun (9), Fox’s Cops (6), and ABC’S Saturday Night Movie (Shark, 2004) (6)
◠“The Lady Vanishes†(4/14/07, Saturday at 8:30-9pm) Written by Jon Ross. Guest Cast: Ed Asner, Amy Sedaris, and James Hong.
Andy finds a decades old lost letter from Lew’s ex-lover claiming she was framed for the murder of her gangster lover. Andy looks into the case, leading to the return of Lew’s evil former partner, Mickey.
Ratings: 3 share versus (CBS’s Cold Case rerun (9), Fox’s second Cops (7), and ABC’S Saturday Night Movie (6).
Source for ratings: TVTango.com
August 14th, 2012 at 8:17 am
Michael, I concur that this was a hugely underappreciated show, and it is nice to see its memory kept alive. Good work! I am headed to Hulu to relive a few episodes. I remember when the Paley Center did an event celebrating Late Night with Conan O’Brien in LA a while back, and I am very, very happy to report that on top of everything else, Richter is an extremely nice, friendly, unassuming guy.
August 14th, 2012 at 9:23 am
Steve…a series rather than just the pilot movie…ANDY RICHTER CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE was a better series than this one, but this one was highly agreeable.
August 14th, 2012 at 9:35 am
David, thank you. “The Big No Sleep” was my favorite episode (it even featured a disease I have and it does not cause you to walk with a limp or need a cane).
August 14th, 2012 at 9:45 am
Todd, I need to see ANDY RICHTER CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE. Conan O’Brien’s writing is hit and miss with me, but I enjoyed how he and the writers took the PI genre in a different direction than the usual PI sitcom. From Simon referring to old movies such as CHINATOWN to the episodes titles, they gave an impression they were fans of the PI genre and know it to be more than Sam Spade in a trench coat.
August 14th, 2012 at 10:53 am
Todd
That was a cut and paste error that I spotted last night, thought I’d fixed it, but the correction never took hold. Until now. Thanks!
August 14th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Michael
I’m not a big Conan O’Brien fan, so I passed on this when it was first on the air. Then when the DVD came along, I thought I might give it a try, then said to myself, the series only lasted six episodes. How good could it be?
Maybe better than I’d thought. Your comment #4 is the clincher. I’ll give one of the Hulu shows a try.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:06 am
‘This was a bad time for nbc.’ ?
Things have not gotten better in the intervening years – I don’t need to cite chapter and verse, do I? I’ll just mention Jay Leno at 10 Monday-Friday nights. The latest is that stupid Animal Doctor show whose preview was so important (apparently) that NBC cut The Who out of the Olympic closing ceremonies.
August 15th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Jeff, seeing what has happened to my favorite network NBC (or as Nikki Finke at Deadline.com called them Numbskull Broadcasting Company) makes me as sad as watching the great trade paper “Variety” destroy itself.
The early previews for ANIMAL PRACTICE were funny, something too many of today’s sitcoms are not, so I was looking forward to watching it (on the flipside I watched zero amount of the Olympics). I was hoping for a nice silly funny comedy with animals that the whole family could watch. I was more than disappointed. The show seemed afraid to embrace its greatest strength, cute animals are funny. Instead, they focused on a group of the most unappealing alleged humans possible.
When ANIMAL PRACTICE gets cancelled, some will blame backlash from the Olympics disaster, but it will be because the show is not very good.
August 15th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Michael
Too bad about ANIMAL PRACTICE. Not being sitcom fan, I wouldn’t have watched it, but after reading your comments, I don’t think anyone else will be either. It sounds awful.
What’s going on with VARIETY? Like many in-print periodicals, they’re probably trying to work out what stays in print versus what goes on online?
NBC had the same problems with their Olympic coverage as they do every four years (waiting till evening to show many events on a delayed basis instead of live, cutting away at bad moments, not showing gold medal ceremonies unless an American won) but the athletes and competition were wonderful, and everyone in this house was sad to see it end. If you watched on the backup channels, there was often limited commercial interruption. I even enjoyed watching soccer, a first time for me.
August 15th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
The problem with “Variety” is it is in such bad financial shape the owners, who have been trying to sell it off for awhile, can’t find any suckers to buy it.
The trade used to be the New York “Times” of Hollywood trade papers. It was the source for entertainment news and reviews. But they failed to see the shift in readers, including the Hollywood insiders, from print to the internet.
Today, much of the best of its staff works elsewhere or is retired, “Variety” hides behind a pay wall, while “Hollywood Reporter.com,” “Deadline.com,” etc are offered free and have replaced “Variety” as the place to find entertainment news for those “in the know” and well as many of the rest of us. Of course, “Entertainment Weekly” is still the place most get their entertainment news (making the trades even less important).
As for sitcoms, my ambitions were always to write comedy from sitcom (NEWHART) to light drama (REMINGTON STEELE). I find it difficult to watch most today because they are either so badly written or I find few characters or premises that interest me.
ANIMAL PRACTICE is to medical dramas such as HOUSE as ANDY BARKER PI is to PI dramas. I like Andy Barker the character, and even when the supporting cast such as Simon gets on my nerves, the show is well written enough for me to want to see more.
August 18th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Since this is a private eye series I’ll mention it here in case no one has brought it up before. The Complete PETER GUNN series is being released on dvd on October 23rd. Artwork posted on DVD VERDICT website the past few days.
August 18th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Well, that’s what I call GOOD news! It’s what I needed today, after they finally let me come home from the hospital.