I've just been watching a lot of this show lately, because Tivo is catching practically every one that Lifetime airs. And Lifetime airs a lot of Mad About You. And I'm watchin'. Maybe I'm having a fit of mid-90s nostalgia.

For me, it's almost entirely about the Ira love. I just really like Ira. He makes me laugh. Some of the eps I've seen lately have shown his character to be very decent, kind-hearted, a good friend, etc.

I always liked Paul Reiser; I find him funny more often than not. Paul Buchman can be a little annoying sometimes, but mostly I like him too.

Probably in order of preference, my favorite "regular" characters would be Ira, Paul, Fran, Jamie, Mark, Lisa.

The show totally jumped that shark with the whole Mothers Always Bring Extra Love thing, and I don't like Carol Burnett as Jamie's mom at all. Jamie had so many different parents, it's quite amazing. I saw a very early episode in which her mom was Muriel from "Too Close for Comfort," and I liked her as mom. But that actress might possibly have died, I can't remember. Paul's parents, on the other hand, are great. Those two actors who's names I'm not sure of did a terrific job as overbearing mom Sylvia and easygoing Burt.

Anyway... I present, a Mad About You thread. This is what I'm saying. (TM Paul Buchman)

Yes, poster child, another of THE really, really, REALLY funny sitcoms.

UNTIL they decided to mess with the 'what made this show funny in the beginning' scheme of things. Thinking, they HAD the audience, so let's screw with their minds. Like introduce a kid, and STILL expect them to laugh.

Not so much, as Paul used to say.

One of THE funniest moments for me is when Jamie's sister **whoosh** came into their apartment, talking all the time, WHILE he was filming an unedited documentary on their home life, changed her shirt in his bedroom, still talking all the time, and **whoosh** exited their apartment.

Very funny stuff.

THEN they screwed with it. Big surprise. End of show. Big surprise. Burt Buchman shaved off his moustache. Big mistake.

Perhaps Burt's mustache was the key to the show's humor. Like Chandler's third nipple, the source of all his powers!

...maybe not.

I love when Paul takes Burt to the eye doctor and runs through the medical history checklist, and Burt says yes to everything. He had every disease on the list at some point in his life and he's matter-of-fact about it. Paul: "How was rickets?" Burt: "Not bad."

(or something to that effect)

This cracked me up, especially because it was a rather risque scene at the time; Anne Ramsay's bare back was exposed and the enterprising viewer could discern a bit of rear-side-angle breast contour (stop looking at me like that!), and she delivered what was, at the time, one of the dirtiest double-entendres I'd ever heard on TV: "So my new boyfriend called, and he didn't wanna go out, and I'm like, 'what am I supposed to do, stay at home and play Hello Kitty?'"

Also, from that episode, one of Paul's lines: "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. The Yi Brothers . . . they're not so much brothers." I think of that every time I hear of someone who just thinks a gay couple are "roommates" or something.

I loved this show, too. I always liked the Thanksgiving episode where they're trying to hide from everyone the fact that the turkey is ruined and Jamie ends up throwing one out the window. That scene gets me all the time.

One of my other favorite eps is the one where Lisa and Jamie accidentally switch purses while Paul is desperately trying to get his gloves back for his trip to the Yukon. At the end in the airport when Paul thinks he's taken an electric razor out of Lisa's purse just as she walks in the terminal:

Lisa: "What's he doing with my stun gun?"
Jamie: "Stun gun?"
Electronic buzz and Paul yelling "OUCH!"
Jamie: "Help me get him up!"

Never fails to crack me up!

You guys are mentioning my favorites. I LOVE that Yi brothers line, it cracks me up to no end.

And the purse-switch one is definitely my favorite Lisa episode. Too funny!

Nancy Dussault is still alive. Jamie's moms: Nancy Dussault, Penny Fuller, and Carol Burnett. Jamie's dads: Paul Dooley, John Karlen, and Carroll O'Connor.

The only thing I didn't like about this show was that they used a lot of Jewish stereotypes and touched on some intermarriage topics but never actually came out and said that Paul was Jewish. I mean, he is in real life, his mother acted like the stereotypical Jewish mother, and they never had a Xmas episode or showed their actual wedding ceremony (so viewers can't be sure) but I always thought that was funny. It isn't as if it takes so much courage in the late 90s to have main characters that are Jewish on TV. Anyway, I am likely reading too much into it.

Word on the Ira love. He is great. And the purse switching episode is one of my favorites.

And as much as I hated it when they got a kid, I bawled at the series finale and still do when I see it in reruns.

Hmmm, good point, AngelaLucas. That never occurred to me!

Yes to all the episodes mentioned here. I don't always catch the reruns but boy! were the early ones good. I liked their use of names back then, too. Hank Azaria (although he may not have been a name) and Mel Brooks. There were others, I'm sure. I did not like Carol Burnett and Carroll O'Connor as the parents.

I loved, loved, loved the takeoff on 'Citizen Kane' where the relative, during a family videotaping, reads the manufacturer's name on the front of the camera when he has a heart attack and dies. LOL, I forget the name, but the rest of the episode is spent trying to figure out what this episode's version of 'Rosebud' meant. Hysterical.

Or the one where Paul imagines he has died and Jamie 'moves on'.

Oh, and the one where they found the love letters in the toilet tank.

When the show was good, it was great. Even the theme song was good. They messed that up at the end too, didn't they?

When they had the kid and Jamie changed, it was dreadful.

I hated it when Mel Brooks was on. He took over the entire episodes and I guess that's okay if you're a fan, but I'm really not. I like him on Curb Your Enthusiasm so far because that hasn't happened yet.

I didn't like any of Jamie's parents. And I never bought that Lisa was the oldest - she acted so much like the irresponsible youngest child and Jamie like the practical older sister.

I did like Paul's parents, though. His mom was great and so was Louis Zorich as Burt. He was in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof, which I had forgotten until I saw it on TV the other day. He was the Russian constable.

And I was so glad they got rid of that awful Selby. He grated.

I've seen Louis Zorich often onstage (usually in musicals); he's always great. But better with a moustache. And although Cynthia Harris became so identified with Sylvia Buchman (and played her brilliantly), most of her career she spent playing more elegant WASPy types: Wallis Simpson (the Duchess of Windsor) in a TVmovie, the supercilious head secretary Iris on the first season of "LA Law." She's quite an actress. Robin Bartlett became a semi-regular as Paul's sister, but I'm sorry we only got to see his other sister (played by a fave of mine, Randy Graff) once.

I'm also sorry about some of the turns the series later took: the tiresome almost-adultery, a couple which were just plain ugly and malicious (Paul calling a co-worker a "big sissy," the couple mistaking a large man for a pregnant woman), some that were risqué just because the show was financially successful enough to demand and get away with it (Paul takes Viagra), and then the whole bad turn with the baby-having. The series finale was one of the most depressing and unfulfilling I can recall.

But man, were there some good episodes early on. Some have already been mentioned, but the very first half dozen, as we were gradually getting to know them, were lovely. The brilliant antics on Jamie's first day back at school. Yes, the Thanksgiving one. I also enjoyed the British couple across the hall, including Paxton Whitehead, then Jim Piddock, then Paxton Whitehead again as Hal (with Maggie making one hurried reference to 2 divorces followed by remarrying hubby #1 and they both had the same first name). And just one reference (in the Laugh-In episode) to the fact that Judy Geeson had in fact been a swingin'-60s go-go kind of girl in her early days, making her a perfect Judy Carne stand-in.

And then, of course, the Alan Brady episode. "Oh PAUULLLL...."

I caught an episode last night during my fit of insomnia (it had cheesy HH quoting Romeo and Juliet to a hospitalized Paul, ugh!)

I loved Burt, Burt Buchman.

How come no one ever mentioned that the show constantly changed its cast. Was Ira in the first season, if so he must have been well-liked and got to stay on? Where did Selby go? Did Lisa marry that guy?

Lisa didn't marry. If the guy you are referring to is the Klarik guy - she cheated on him with a handyman and they called off the engagement.

Ira was in a few of those first eps (I don't offhand know which ones) and I don't think they ever gave an explanation as to what happened with Selby.

Selby just stopped dropping by (at least while we were watching) 8 or 10 episodes into the first season. The actor's name remained on the credits for a while, but not Tommy Hinckley himself. John Pankow played Ira a few times later in that same season (more of a recurring guest star) and in short order became a regular. I didn't mind Selby but he was such a one-note character (moocher who drops by unexpectedly) that after a few episodes he was doomed. (The perpetually late friend in the first half-dozen episodes of "It's Garry Shandling's Show" was a similar case.)

A few seasons later (I think it was in the pre-credits teaser) Paul and Jamie were sitting on their couch busy with something -- I think going through their mail -- and while doing that she absentmindedly asked him "Hey, what happened to that guy Selby we used to know?" I think Paul shrugged. And that was, to the best of my recollection, the only time they recalled him. It was more of a "wink" to longtime viewers, acknowledging that once characters are written out they pretty much cease to exist. Do they say anything about this on the first-season DVDs?

I got hooked with the episode where Paul has to register Jamie for school and dragoons everyone into helping him and it was just one funny scene after another, culminating in the moment where Jamie, with perfect deadpan, shows Paul all the different ID's with everyone's pictures on them. I laugh just thinking about that one.

I thought the show turned a bad corner with the non-adultery and separation, and after that it seemed to go from "Mad About You" to "Mad At You", but perhaps the root problem was that once Helen Hunt started winning awards they forgot that Paul Reiser was a significant talent - he'd co-created the show and I believe was responsible for casting Hunt - and threw the show to her. It wrecked the balance and paradoxically made her character less sympathetic.

I adored Burt Buchman. Love Louis Zorich in general, and adored him on "Brooklyn Bridge".


Some of the guest stars worked out very well - Carl Reiner and [minority opinion here] Yoko Ono. Mel Brooks, not so much, and Bruce Willis... was a good sport, I thought.

And I hated the implication at the end that Jamie and Paul had not been good parents.

I know I watched the finale but I can't remember how this show ended. Was it them getting divorced and reuniting years later for a funeral or somthing? I do remember that it was depressing, as mentioned above.

The first few seasons of this show had a lot of superb episodes - but the near-adultery episode was the beginning of the end in terms of the writing losing its way. It seemed as though rather than be satisfied with being a well-done amusing diversion, TPTB decided that it was time to start making grand artistic statements.


I totally agree with this, and once again it's a phenomenon that (for me, at least) grew much worse as time went on. After season 4, I pretty much started hoping that an Alien would appear and mistake Paul Buchman for Carter Burke. When that didn't happen, I stopped watching the show altogether despite my great fondness for Helen Hunt.


Cynthia Harris was marvelous as Sylvia - she did a great job of walking the tightline between being amusingly annoying and being gratingly annoying. Or in other words, it was fun to watch her annoy the characters in the show, but she didn't become annoying to the viewer.

Helen Hunt has a great pair of breasts.

Some trivia: I happened to be in the studio audience for that taping, and when they did the first take of that scene the audience *roared*, it was just so freakin' hysterical. Hold-your-sides, run-out-of-breath, start-to-cry laughing. They did a second take, and as you might expect, we didn't laugh nearly as much the second time around. When I saw the episode on TV they actually ended up using the second take -- I think we may have been laughing too loud the first time!

I gotta say, my sis and I really liked the series finale. I guess it felt honestly emotional to me rather than manipulative, and the present-day plot about not really being married was funny as well.

One of my all time favorite episodes of any show ever. I was hoping to see it this past Thanksgiving but alas, I did not.

The finale had Janeane Garolfalo as the grown-up Mabel, no? I didn't watch it, and still can't.

GaryV, how funny that must have been. It was a classic piece of television, perfectly timed, like when Niles ironed his pants in 'Frasier'. It's sad to see when the shows don't have the spark anymore.

And how cute was Jamie in those pajama bottoms and tee shirts? Then the writers colored the character mean, just.mean, and the show lost all heart. Like Debra in 'ELR', another show which has lost any dynamic it had in the beginning.

Wonder what gets into a writer's mind?

Something else that cracked me up...when they'd tell Murray to 'go get the mouse!', and Murray would trot off screen and then you'd hear this dull *THUNK*

Ah, Murray...you're still my favorite TV pet.

I didn't like the last season arc, either. But what I did like about the series finale was that in a sense, it didn't actually seem final. Most show finales tend to make me feel like--that's it, it's over. Nothing more is gonna happen to these people. Everyone's leaving...no more wacky hijinks like all their lives are ending. With this show, I liked that we saw clips from what looked like could have been episodes well into the future, and it was kind of reassuring to see that wacky hijinks would still ensue, you know? Mabel growing up and Paul and Jamie's reactions,("Sonya's an acronym too! Some Other Name You A**!"), what was gonna happen with recurring characters. It made it seem less like the show was actually ending, just that we wouldn't get to see it anymore.

That's why I liked the finale. Too many shows end with a wedding, or a birth (which in this case would have been fine with me), or moving ... but MAY showed you what happened. I like that, it reminds me of John Irving's books - he always tells you what happens to all the characters, not just main ones, so you're not just hanging.

When the finale was on, we were on vacation in Las Vegas. It was early May. We stayed in our room and watched it, even though my sister was taping it for us. I just had to see it then. And I cried so hard. But I really think it is one of the best series finales I have ever seen.

ETA - I wanted a Murray dog. I think he is a collie mix ... maybe collie and border collie? Or golden retriever?

I loved how in the finale Ira is married to Cyndi Lauper (can't remember the character's name)and they have 4 or 5 kids.

Oh, I almost forgot about Murray. I loved Murray. I wanted a Murray. My favorite Murray moment was probably when the Buckmans came home one day and found him standing up - in a kind of 'show dog' stance - on the kitchen table. "This is new, hm?" Paul mused...

And of course, Murray appearances often meant Hank Azaria sightings. Never a bad thing, IMHO.

So true. His dogwalker 'riffs' (now that I have a dog, I do the same thing!) were always enjoyable. Especially his "Come on, Murray the K", a name I hadn't heard since the '60s!

I think my hate for HH began when she got thinner and thinner, and looked so not like the person who began the show, kind of like Rachel on Friends. The belly shirts!!! Jamie I would not have been seen in something like that. I'm not trying to be a prude, but it just annoyed me because it was so out of character.

I can't say Mary Ann without the Cyndi Lauper impression.

I said it over on Fametracker, I'll say it here too, HH is crazy for leaving Hank.

It was a six-part British mini-series called Edward and Mrs. Simpson and it's very well done. Check out the video and you won't be diappointed. But you'll never believe that it's Paul Buchman's mother playing Wallis Simpson. She looks and sounds like a totally different person.

Yeah, let the guy bang all the other women he wants, I say!

Wait, my wife has alerted me that this is not in fact the appropriate response.

They adopted 7 kids, one from each continent and 2 from New Jersey.

I thought the finale was pretty good compared to the traditional wedding/birth scenario, as previously mentioned.

In a fit of nostalgia, I bought this show on dvd awhile back and hated it. Then I was home sick one day and watched the whole of season 1, and now I like it again. I lived the thanksgiving ep too. There is this immortal part where Paul's mother catches Jamie making pudding without marshmallows, and she goes into this long covoluted story about marshmallows and the depression and how they were rationed and she vowed she would never have pudding again without marshmallows. Pause. "But this is fine!" Ha! She had the perfect snitty tone of voice just like my mother has when she is passive agressiveing.

Also, I remember a time this one channel here was showing reruns for awhile and they kept showing the one where Paul and Jamie get locked in the bathroom. I must have seen it dozens of times.

Oh dear God, that episode makes me laugh. When Paul's leg falls asleep and he tries to walk around and shake it out, stamping the floor...that visual is hilarious.

Gracelessly, you just had to plant this in my head, didn't you? I came across the name "Mary Ann" at work today, and had to stifle myself from laughing and making my co-workers wonder what's wrong with me. :-)

Oh, is that what happened?

And don't forget Judy Geeson and Jim Piddock as the snooty British neighbors. They were wonderful, especially in the episode where Murray gets their dog pregnant.

"Paul's mother catches Jamie making pudding without marshmallows"
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought they were sweet potatoes....

Yeah, weren't they great? Actually the husband (Hal?) was Paxton Whitehead/Jim Piddock/Paxton Whitehead, and Judy Geeson even had an offhand "explanation" about it when hubby #1 reappeared -- she kept remarrying men with the same name, including the same one twice. One of those "winks" to the audience (like "whatever happened to that guy Selby?") acknowledging the things we're supposed to "not notice" in the world of TV. To add to the merriment, before he became Hal #2, Piddock played the logic professor when they were trying to register Jamie in her college classes.

Yes, the Thanksgiving dish was sweet potatoes, the most traditional version of which for holidays does indeed include marshmallows.

I kept hoping for Randy Graff to return as Paul's other sister. Was she ever mentioned again?

Most "I never thought I'd see that on primetime" moment: Paul & Jamie are getting ready to leave for an evening out. Paul takes a look at Murray, sprawled out on the sofa and, er, licking himself in that way dogs do. Paul quips, "Hey, if I could do that, I'd never need to go out at all!"

Well, the point was that Lisa had serious emotional/mental problems, which is why she was such an utter flake. The fact that Jamie grew up with the sense that she had to take care of her older sister explained a lot about her character, I thought.

That's one of the things that I liked about this show -- from the beginning, there seems to have been serious thought about why various characters were the way they were. Jamie, for example, after a childhood of taking care of her older sister, marries a man who in many ways needs to be taken care of -- and even when he doesn't need taking care of, she can't let go of the feeling that she's the only one who's responsible for what happens. She never really deals with this pattern in her life, and so it is perfectly logical to me that she would become mean and abusive towards this person that she feels burdened by. The development of her character over time was consistent with the forces that were in play at the very beginning of the series.

That's the story that all the gossip columns said, and they were pretty unified on the details: Hank had an affair, Helen told him to piss off. Seems reasonable to me.

My favorite moment in the entire series is the teaser that's simply this: Jamie stomps into the living room, where Paul is reading the paper. She holds out the toilet paper spindle, pulls off the empty core, slides on a new roll, says "VOILA!" and stomps off.

I liked that moment too, Lucky Bishop. And the use of "spindle" and "core" in your description made it that much better.

I was watching the episode where Alan Brady is asked to do a documentary for Paul. Although I really do love Carol Burnett, I still say there was no reason to ditch Penny Fuller and John Karlen for Burnett and Carroll O'Connor. What kind of benefit did it really provide anyway?

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I love that episode! He paints her toenails "Like little tiny canvases..." and he runs in a circle to work up the energy to break down the door, but of course fails. And they have to eat Tums.. and he gives her his last one. It's all very cute.

I also love Murray and the mouse. "Get the mouse!" they're making out on the bed and Murray keeps jumping over and running into the wall. Such a funny episode.

I agree with a lot of the moments you guys have described here. It's funny - I loathe Helen Hunt but I liked her on this show. Although I liked Paul Reiser much better.

One small funny part I remember is from the flashback episode where they show how Paul and Jamie met. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and was depressed, so Fran asked Jamie to come out with her and Mark, who was her husband at the time. Jamie said she didn't want to to be a third wheel and Fran says something like "Nonsense, Mark will be the third wheel!" And poor Mark looked so dejected.

I remember also once Fran was working out and she came over, feeling really confident, and told Paul she was having a "good ass day" and asked him to feel her butt to see how firm it was.

Again with Fran and Mark, their son was driving Paul crazy because he kept calling and singing "Do you know the Muffin Man". Paul was so frustrated he finally blurted out "The Muffin Man is dead!" and the poor kid was in hysterics. I just found that so funny.

Also the episode where Jamie runs in to her ex, played by Eric Stoltz, and I forget what she says exactly but she's babbling and trying to explain to him something that happened from their past. I think the whole point was that she didn't want him to think she's crazy but after her behaviour in this scene he just looks at her and says something like "You're nuts". Does anyone remember this, hopefully better than me?

Anyone remember the Thanksgiving turkey episode? They went through like a half dozen turkeys? Did that happen?

That is the moment that got me hooked on the show. Honest. Because it was so real, and perfectly done, and the timing was so funny. What happened to that show?



It happened, YourDensity. One of the great Thanksgiving episodes of any sitcom ever. Jamie was trying to make a 'perfect' T-Day dinner for both families and one disaster after another foiled her. The local grocer, who happened to be selling ready-to-serve turkeys, made out very well from the Buckmans. So did the viewer. This was one time where 'wacky hijinks ensue' turns out to be a justified description.

I think it got mean, TudorQueen. This show hooked me because of both the reality, clever writing, and the real affection displayed by the characters. Then Fran and Mark dissolved, characters left, characters changed, Jamie got mean, and it all went to hell.

A far more inferior show, 'Everybody Loves Raymond' has shown this lately. EVERYone on the show is now mean. It is unwatchable.

Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' character on 'Seinfeld' changed for the worse as the years went on, too.

I wonder why the geniuses behind the scenes in sitcoms think 'mean' can sell? Especially when they depart from the original formula (a tack I particularly hate...can you say "insert baby here") and make change simply for change's sake?

I don't think it's thinking mean can sell, so much as they don't notice the fine balance of sarcastic tipping in mean's favor, and all of a sudden characters like Jamie Buchman, Debra Barone and Elaine Benes have gone over that cliff irreversibly.

My wife and I used to just love this show. Partly because it premiered right after we got married, so they were going through a lot of the same things we were, but also because it was just. so. funny.

And it gave the best explanation I've ever heard for why guys like to watch girl-on-girl action:

"Because! It's fun, and it's naked...and I agree with both of them!"

I still use that quote about girl/girl. I think it's Paul's delivery that sells it.

I love this show but hardly ever catch it anymore...stupid work! Anyway, I cought an ep later in the series last night where they are at the marriage counselor and they have a problem communicating with words. So she suggests that they don't speak the rest of the day. Using nonverabl cues to get their points across. And Jaime asks if she out lasts Paul what does she get? Does he have to be her slave? Okay it doesn't come off well when I type it, but it was very funny last night. The look on the counselor's face when Helen says that was priceless!