Fridays

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Fridays was the name of ABC's weekly late-night hour-long live comedy show, which aired on Friday nights from 1980 to 1982.

The program was ABC's attempt to cash in on the success of NBC's popular Saturday Night Live. Like SNL, each week, Fridays featured a different celebrity guest host (in its second season, at least), fake newscasts, musical guests and cast members performing comedy sketches, and spoofs of television shows and commercials.

The cast included Mark Blankfield, Maryedith Burrell, Melanie Chartoff, Larry David, Darrow Igus, Brandis Kemp, Bruce Mahler, Michael Richards, and John Roarke. In addition, staff writer Rich Hall appeared in some segments on the series, but he was not a regular cast member. Head writer/producer Jack Burns also occasionally appeared.

Background

Blankfield and Kemp (who were husband and wife) were recruited from Low Moan Spectacular, a comedy group which had briefly been considered as a ready-made cast for the series. Mahler—a gifted pianist and violinist—made several bizarre appearances on TV before joining the Fridays cast, including performances on The Gong Show and Fernwood 2Nite. Igus had co-starred in an obscure CBS series called Roll Out, and had also appeared in the motion picture Car Wash. Chartoff had been a cast member on the soap opera Search For Tomorrow in 1976, and had also appeared in 1978's American Hot Wax. Burrell had been a member of a well-known L.A. comedy improv group, The Groundlings, which had also launched the careers of Paul Reubens, Robin Williams, and Phil Hartman, to name a few. For his part, Roarke had performed comedy in Boston. Larry David—who specialized in angry characters—was discovered at Catch a Rising Star in New York City. Michael Richards was discovered similarly at The Improv in Los Angeles.

Differences Between Fridays and SNL

The humor of the show differed from Saturday Night Live as much as it included even more references to drugs than the NBC series, included more political humor, and was frequently more experimental than Saturday Night Live.

Unlike Saturday Night Live, Fridays did not have a guest host during its entire first season, though it did feature musical acts. During the second season the show began featuring guest hosts, sometimes resulting in some odd combinations when the musical acts were taken into account. For instance, the episode which aired on January 16, 1981 featured Shelley Winters as the guest host and The Plasmatics as the musical guests.

In addition, the musical guests were more adventurous, featuring many punk and new wave artists (see the "Memorable musical guests" section below). The production values for musical segments were higher, using colored concert style lighting, as opposed to SNL's flat white illumination.

Recurring sketches and characters

"Drugs 'R' Us" - Blankfield as a strung-out pharmacist who apparently samples his own goods liberally. Catchphrases: "I can handle it!" and "Take a pill!"
"Nat E. Dred" - Darrow Igus plays a Rastafarian chef who prepares—and smokes—food items heavily dosed with ganja. Catchphrase: "Is it turmeric? No no NO no, gimme ganja! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!". Similar skits included "Rasta-Claus".
"Battle Boy" - Michael Richards as a hyperkinetic young boy who stages elaborate war scenarios in his backyard with toy soldiers, mutilates his sister's dolls, and gets yelled at by his lazy mother.
"Dick" - Michael Richards as an overzealous would-be ladies' man.
"Pitkinville, Montana" - Rich Hall narrates footage of a fictional small town of tiny model people, usually at the mercy of household implements such as an electric hair dryer simulating a hurricane.
"Latin DJ" - Bruce Mahler fills time between records by reading radio commercials entirely in Spanish. Catchphrase: "La musica de musica de los Talking Heads..."
"The Three Stooges" - Bruce Mahler, Larry David, and John Roarke portray Moe, Larry, and Curly as drug-addicted troublemakers. Reportedly these sketches were halted when Moe Howard's family threatened to sue.
"Live and Be Well (also known as Matzoi)" - Bruce Mahler and Larry David as two particularly earnest rabbis co-hosting a TV show. Mahler's "Rabbi Glickman" character on Seinfeld was essentially a reprise of his character in these sketches.
"Howdy Doody" - A running gag on Fridays was that Howdy Doody was such a huge star that he could always jump the line ahead of anyone at restaurants and nightclubs, no matter how famous they were (Frank Sinatra, for instance). Kramer's "Right this way, Mr. Doody" line in an early Seinfeld episode was Michael Richards' tribute to this now-obscure running gag.
"Pastor James Babbit" - Mark Blankfield portrays a pulpit-bound preacher intending a meaningful sermon, but whose twisted perceptions and obvious repressed insecurities would lead to paranoid ranting and the divulgence of personal references of humiliation.
"Dancing Chickens" - Bruce Mahler would play piano accompaniment to a raw chicken stuck on his hand and wearing little black plastic shoes. The sketch always ended with the chicken in a pot of boiling water next to the piano.
"The Golden Boys" - Larry David and Mark Blankfield would play two egotistical, posturing wrestlers, presaging SNL's "Hans and Franz". Catch Phrase: "We're young, we're goodlooking and we'll be there!"
"The Brotherhood of Men Who Hum Between Words" - A monastic order with the odd habit of humming between every word. Later skits had brothers who only hummed between every third or fourth word, and at least one who refused to hum at all (he was considered to be Reformed).

Sketches

"Diner of the Living Dead" - A couple (played by John Roarke and Maryedith Burrell) visits a diner run by and catering to zombies, who are seen eating human body parts and killing a living human (played by Mark Blankfield) with what seems to be a chainsaw in the diner's kitchen. The sketch was so offensive to some viewers that an apology was made on the following week's show by Chartoff, and it was removed from subsequent airings. Six ABC affiliates also pulled the series from their schedules as a result of the sketch.
"The Ronny Horror Show" - A sprawling 17-minute send-up of the incoming Reagan Administration based on The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the sketch, Ronald Reagan (played by John Roarke in Dr. Frank N. Furter drag) plans on creating the ultimate Republican, but inadvertently creates an angry black militant (played by Darrow Igus) instead. To this day many consider this sketch to have been the series' tour de force. However, like "Diner of the Living Dead," the sketch was only aired once due to a complaint from Lou Adler, the producer of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
An emotional sketch in which a son (Richards) visits his father (Roarke) who protests that he "doesn't know him" and "has no son". The son, thinking this is alienation and the consequences of the generation gap, begs him to let him in until he realizes that he's in the wrong apartment. Richards claimed later that this sketch was edgy enough that it was placed last in the show.

Musical guests

Although Saturday Night Live had featured a number of punk rock and New Wave acts in its first few seasons, Fridays took that ball and ran with it. Acts which appeared on Fridays include:

Pat Benatar
Gary U.S. Bonds
The Boomtown Rats
The Busboys
The Cars
The Clash in their debut American TV performance
Devo
The Jam
King Crimson
KISS
The Plasmatics
The Pretenders
Rockpile
Sir Douglas Quintet - appeared on the show that featured Andy Kaufman
The Stray Cats in their debut American TV performance

The Andy Kaufman incident

One of the most memorable moments on the show was an evening when comedian Andy Kaufman was hosting the show. During one sketch, about couples at dinner sneaking away to the bathroom one by one to smoke marijuana, Kaufman, who loved causing trouble on live TV, broke character and refused to read his lines. Richards got up from the table, grabbed the cue cards and threw them down on the table in front of Kaufman, who responded by throwing a glass of water on Richards. Some of the show's cast and crew members became angry and a small brawl broke out on stage. Since the show was broadcast live, home viewers were able to see most of these events transpire on their television screens until the network cut the cameras off. Kaufman returned the following week in a taped apology to home viewers. This incident was recreated in the 1999 film Man On The Moon. The film revealed that the event was pre-conceived, but of the on-air personnel, only Richards and Kaufman were aware of the joke.

The end of Fridays

The series ended in 1982 following ABC's decision to expand Nightline to five nights a week, which forced Fridays to air at midnight instead of its first season timeslot of 11:30. Although by the end of its first season Fridays was outperforming Saturday Night Live in the ratings (admittedly at a time when Saturday Night Live's ratings were practically at their nadir), the later timeslot badly hurt the show during its second season. One final attempt was made by ABC to save the show by putting it on in prime time. However, the one episode which was broadcast in prime time was scheduled against Dallas, which was then the #1 TV show in the country. Predictably, the ratings for this prime time episode were dismal. This episode, broadcast on April 23, 1982, was the last of the series.

Post-Fridays careers for the cast

Chartoff, David, and Richards are today the most active and successful ex-members of the cast. Larry David would, a few years after the end of Fridays, go on to help create Seinfeld, one of the most popular television shows in American history. Michael Richards became one of the stars of that show with his performance as Cosmo Kramer. Other former Fridays cast members also turned up occasionally. Bruce Mahler made four appearances on the show as "Rabbi Glickman," Maryedith Burrell appeared twice, and Melanie Chartoff also appeared twice. In addition, former Fridays writers Larry Charles, Elaine Pope and Bruce Kirschbaum later became writers for Seinfeld. Today Larry David stars in the very successful Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Following the demise of Fridays Michael Richards played small roles on TV and in movies, most notably in 1989's UHF. Following the end of Seinfeld (for which he won three Emmy Awards) Richards starred in a short-lived sitcom, 2000's The Michael Richards Show, in which he played detective Vic Nardozza. He is known to be a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason.

Melanie Chartoff co-starred for three seasons in the early '90s TV series Parker Lewis Can't Lose and today is a very successful voice actor (best known for her work on Rugrats) and acting coach, also doing theatre and TV work.

John Roarke, a skilled impressionist and celebrity impersonator, is active as an entertainer at corporate functions, and still occasionally works on TV and in the movies. Ironically, one of the characters who he impersonates is Richards' Kramer character on Seinfeld.

Bruce Mahler retired from acting in 2001 to focus on his Florida-based production company and was an assistant production manager on Bruce Almighty and Freddy vs. Jason. Besides his work on Fridays and Seinfeld he is also known as Douglas Fackler in the Police Academy movies.

Blankfield, Kemp, Burrell, and Igus have continued appearing on TV and in movies in recent years; mostly in small roles.

DVD release and revival possibilities

No DVDs have been released yet from the series; reportedly because Michael Richards was the only cast member who had the right to approve any home video releases from the series written into his contract. To date, he has not signed off on a DVD release, though some clips of Richards on Fridays appear on the Seinfeld Season Three DVD.

Edited episodes of Fridays appeared on the USA Network later in the 1980s, but the series has not been aired since then.

No reunion of the Fridays cast has ever occurred. The closest thing to a reunion to date was the 1998 series finale of Seinfeld in which Richards, Chartoff, Mahler, and Burrell all appeared, and which David directed.

There have occasionally been vague rumors over the years that ABC has sometimes considered reviving the series with a new cast. However, this seems extremely unlikely given the series' short original run, the difficult ratings, and the continued runs of Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

External links

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