Alas.
That's really all I can say.
Somebody decided to give Fran Drescher another TV series.
It's called "Happily Divorced" and it's on TV Land right after
"Hot In Cleveland", which I watch regularly.
Which doesn't help matters.
I can't stand Fran Drescher. So sue me.
It's not that she can't act. She can.
It's not that she doesn't have really good comedy chops. She does.
It's simply that voice.
And that laugh.
I can't get past either of them.
It's chalk on a blackboard.
It always has been.
I really thought that if anyone was going to be typecast after "The Nanny", it would be her.
Once it had left the airwaves, I had often thought "What the hell is she going to do with the rest of her life?"
I never figured "Another TV series".
And I was actually torn about watching it, at least once.
Rita Moreno was cast as a regular, playing her mother.
I love Rita Moreno.
I did a pilot with her once.
It was a joyous experience.
Mainly because of her. What a pro!
So I was, as Jimmy Durante would put it, "on the horns of a dilemmia".
One the one hand, Rita Moreno. On the other, Fran Drescher.
I Tivoed the first episode.
I started watching it.
Rita Moreno wasn't in the first five minutes.
Fran Drescher was.
So I never got to see Rita Moreno.
Five minutes was all I could take.
And I never went back.
And unfortunately, during "Hot In Cleveland", they do incessant promos for "Happily Divorced".
So I have to make sure that I Tivo "Hot In Cleveland" and only watch it that way and make sure that I'm quick on the fast forward trigger-finger.
Maybe she's a lovely person. I don't know.
I've never met her.
Maybe this is a harsh way to judge a stranger, but it's the only way at my disposal.
When "The Nanny" was in production, my friend Rick, whom I met when he enrolled in one of my writing classes, and has since become an outstanding writer, worked as a mechanic at LAX, working on the Lear Jets usually inhabited by celebrities.
Fran Drescher boarded one of his aircraft, about to fly off to somewhere.
One of Rick's other responsibilities was to help load the luggage into the baggage compartment.
Just as the plane was fully loaded, Fran Drescher's male assistant, described by Rick as overtly gay (he was probably a little more disparaging than that), went over to Rick and announced "The Nanny needs her Louis".
The assistant was referring to her Louis Vuitton travel bag.
Rick knew that this bag was one of the first things that was loaded on to the plane.
He sized up the situation, looked the assistant in the eye, and said
"Go tell the Nanny what she can do with her Louis!"
Imagining the look on her face when her assistant told her whatever he told her is my only pleasant memory of Fran Drescher.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those of you in the Tri-State Area, I'm doing a reading and signing of my book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", on Tuesday, August 2nd, at the
Huntington Book Revue, Huntington Long Island, at 7pm.
I look forward to seeing anyone who wants to see me.
******
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
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About Me
- mark rothman
- Hi. I am, according to my Wikipedia entry,(which I did not create) a noted television writer, playwright, screenwriter, and occasional actor. You can Google me or go to the IMDB to get my credits, and you can come here to get my opinions on things, which I'll try to express eloquently. Hopefully I'll succeed. You can also e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com. Perhaps my biggest claim to fame is being responsible, for about six months in 1975, while Head Writer for the "Happy Days" TV series, for Americans saying to each other "Sit on it."
I'm a cancer survivor. So far. And with no real help from the medical world where I went undiagnosed for ten years until internal bleeds almost ended my life. Intestinal cancer. Found practical when nothing else was left to guess, remove, test or mis-diagnose. As I recovered from one of many operations ( well many to me) I received a book. Cancer Schmanzer. By Fran Drescher. And a Gilda Radner one as well. (I got three copies of that awful Da Vinci Code too). Just out of boredom I read Fran's book and have kept up over time with her cancer work. http://www.cancerschmancer.org/about-us
ReplyDeleteI can hear you lay me out, say -so what-but I really thank her for this work on behalf of women seeking better care than they often get. She really understood what that was like and spoke well to it. It actually is a good gift for a woman dealing with this kind of reality-and she keeps a positive tone.
It won't improve your opinion I guess. No. It certainly doesn't change her laugh or voice-but I'm glad she turned that voice towards something like this.
(I had a small son that liked her show-at two I pretty much complied with his wishes. I wasn't a fan of her at first, it grew on me mostly because he liked her. Now he would never admit it-so it's something I don't embarrass him about-just a curious moment in life.)
left out an ly.
ReplyDeleteI implied that perhaps she is an absolutely lovely person. And maybe she has helped a lot of people dealing with cancer.
ReplyDeleteI just can't get past that voice and that laugh.
"No. It certainly doesn't change her laugh or voice-but I'm glad she turned that voice towards something like this."
ReplyDeletegot it. you can't.
I have to disagree to agree with you. I don't think the woman can even act. She constantly looks directly into the camera, even when it happens to be behind her, and she has to turn completely around to do so. Her timing is awful and her delivery often falls just plain flat. The voice and laugh, oh yes, just icing on an already nauseating cake.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying she isn't a decent human being,and her work for women with cancer is distinguished. All I'm saying is perhaps she might consider staying BEHIND the cameras.