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'Rerun' hits and missesBy ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic
© St. Petersburg Times REVIEW: The Rerun Show debuts at 9:30 tonight on WFLA-Ch. 8, moving to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays next week. Grade: B-. It sounds like the dumbest idea for a TV show in a long while. A new series featuring a cast of new actors re-enacting scripts from old sitcoms such as Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life word for word? Surely this is network TV desperation exemplified -- a baldface effort to cash in on TV nostalgia in the dog days of summer. Believe it or don't, Rerun Show co-star Don Reed had the same initial reaction. "I'm saying, 'We're going to do the original scripts word for word? How is that funny?' " said Reed, a gifted mimic who alert TV fans might remember from Robert Townsend's groundbreaking Partners in Crime variety specials for HBO. "Where's the comedy going to come from?" As it turns out, the comedy mostly comes from a cast filled with mimics such as Reed, who offer Mad magazine-style, exaggerated impersonations of now-classic sitcom characters. In Reed's able hands, George Jefferson becomes a mass of personal tics; a grunting, bobbing, eye-popping caricature who, somehow, reminds you of The Jeffersons star Sherman Hemsley's amusing energies. Gary Coleman's legendary Diff'rent Strokes character Arnold Jackson is played by a woman in a bad wig with sneakers tied to her knees. And comic actor Paul Vogt -- a veteran Disney World performer -- presents the group's best turn as a breezily out-of-it Mrs. Garrett in both Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes, capturing actor Charlotte Rae's hiccupy vocal rhythms. Visual gags also provide a way to twist the original scripts. Reed plays Willis Jackson thumbing through a copy of Playboy's spread on the late Diff'rent Strokes star Dana Plato, just before her character bursts through the door to pose in titillating pictures taken by a leering Mr. Drummond. Producers John Davies and David Salzman somehow persuaded Columbia Tri-Star to allow access to hundreds of scripts from TV series produced by the company, including Bewitched, One Day at a Time, What's Happening! and Married ... With Children. By the time they began filming the parody episodes -- each features two spoofs, with the scripts edited for time -- the production had tracked down items such as the couch used on Married ... With Children and the bunk beds from Diff'rent Strokes. Davies explained the source of the show's comedy succinctly: "When sort of average TV writers take on serious social issues, there's a lot of hilarity to be mined there." Perhaps. But viewers' response to The Rerun Show might depend on their perspective. Those who grew up with the shows will likely vibe with the parody style. Who wouldn't snicker at seeing framed mug shots of troubled Diff'rent Strokes stars Plato and Bridges hung on that show's legendary staircase? (Some limelight-hungry sitcom veterans even make cameo appearances, including Coleman and The Partridge Family's Danny Bonaduce.) But when the mimicry is more subtle -- including a Partridge Family segment where the group sends up Shirley Jones' vacuously upbeat Shirley Partridge -- the entertainment value drops. And at a time when most summer programming depends on young eyeballs for success, it's doubtful young viewers will flock to parodies of shows they already view as kitschy farces. Despite inspired moments, The Rerun Show's initial joke fades quickly. It's a telling commentary on summertime TV that such fare is hardly the worst thing on the dial these days.
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