Funny stuff, but perhaps not funny enough, this pilot for a sitcom starred movie short funny man Dave O'Brien, the regular Joe who got into all sorts of unintentional scrapes in many Pete Smith specialties. Jeff Donnell, Columbia's busy but forgotten queen of the B's, is his scatterbrained but long suffering wife, a sort of reverse "I Love Lucy" where the husband is the one who ends up the dingbat while the wife is more of a Gracie Allen type. The sensible ones who are always having the slow burns is the hot-tempered father in law, while the mother-in-law strives to be the peacemaker. The pilot involves the accidental destruction of the father- in-law's car and the attempts with disastrous results that are amusing, if familiar. Sitcoms like this were a dime a dozen, although there is a hysterical reference to the legendary little old lady from Pasadena.
2 Reviews
Someone turn OFF that awful laughtrack!
planktonrules2 June 2018
Laughtracks have been used with television shows since nearly the beginning of television. Because of that, you tend not to notice all the laughs that were later superimposed onto the show. But in the case of a failed sit-com pilot, "Meet the O'Briens", the laughtrack is noticeable because it was so poorly used...and featured tons of laughs at things that simply weren't funny. I am sure this must have had something to do with why the show never was picked up by the networks.
Why else was it a failed TV pilot about a young couple living with her parents fail? Well, a lot of the jokes are very slapsticky...such as Dave O'Brien falling down the steps or the engine getting torn out of his car by the dopey mechanic (Willie Best) or the father-in-law driving the car through the garage. If you love action, you might like all this. To me, however, it seemed forced and not particularly funny or fun to watch.
Why else was it a failed TV pilot about a young couple living with her parents fail? Well, a lot of the jokes are very slapsticky...such as Dave O'Brien falling down the steps or the engine getting torn out of his car by the dopey mechanic (Willie Best) or the father-in-law driving the car through the garage. If you love action, you might like all this. To me, however, it seemed forced and not particularly funny or fun to watch.
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