Customer Reviews

Car 54 Where Are You? Gift Set [VHS]

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Car 54 belongs chronologically, stylistically, and in terms of personnel, somewhere between Sgt. Bilko and the Munsters.

Timewise, Car 54, made in 1961, is halfway between Bilko (1956) and The Munsters (1965).

It shares writer/creator with Bilko (Nat Hiken), and many actors. Fred Gwynne, in at least two Bilko episodes, stars in both Car 54 and The Munsters. Rupert and Emma Ritzig (Joe E Ross and Beatrice Pons), supporting characters from Bilko, become Gunther and Lucille Toody, main characters in Car 54. Al Lewis, the supporting character Schneider in Car 54, becomes one of the main characters in the Munsters, Grandpa. Numerous other supporting and occasional characters are shared.

Between the mid-fifties and the mid-sixties, US sitcom humour became diluted and bland (at least what we saw on this side of the Atlantic). The brashness and abrasiveness of Bilko had just about disappeared by the mid-sixties (together with the funniness) to be replaced by comedy series such as Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, where you needed a laugh track to know just when to laugh. Car 54 still had humour in abundance, with incredibly intricately crafted plots and subplots to create the comedy situation.

As well as the excellent plots and script, the strength of this series lies in the cast, especially Joe E Ross as Gunther Toody. You come to feel genuine affection for these characters.

This boxed-set features the episodes:

Who's for Swordfish?

Something nice for Sol

Home Sweet Sing Sing

Change Your Partner

I Won't Go

Muldoon's Star

Paint Job

Love Finds Muldoon

My one complaint is that the set with only eight twenty-five minute episodes has been spread over four videos. It could easily have fit on two. Hopefully it will soon come out on (one) DVD.

Gwynne and Ross were wonderful together in this classic cop sitcom. See Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis in their pre-Munster roles.