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Flashback To MR. BELVEDERE, or “Life Is More Than Mere Survival”

Welcome to the latest installment of Flashback to the Present.  I’ll be your contributing writer, Charles Knauf. 

I’m sorry to say this, dear reader, but ol’ Chucky has a weakness and that weakness is Polka.  With the government’s recent crack-downs on underground Polka competitions, I was forced to walk on the dark side of the Law.  Unfortunately, a few months back I was caught in a U-Haul filled to the brim with counterfeit tubas by Johnny Law after a high-speed pursuit.

I pleaded “nolo contendere” and, since my jacket was clean, didn’t serve any time.  Unfortunately, part of my plea was a mandatory 52 hours of PA, or “Polka Anonymous.”  However, when god closes a door he tends to open a window and I found these places brimming with single women. 

Last Saturday after PA, I wandered around the different meetings and found one such support group that really took me back to a time where problems didn’t seem so bad.

Where men were men, women were women and butlers went by the name of Belvedere.

That’s Mr. Belvedere to you.

Mr. Belvedere (starring Christopher Hewett as the title character) was a great little sitcom that premiered in March of 1985 about a super-intelligent, overly-sarcastic English butler who takes a job working for a sportswriter George Owens (Bob Uecker), his wife Marsha (Ilene Graff), their oldest son Kevin (Rob Stone), their daughter Heather (Tracy Wells), and their young son Wesley (Brice Beckham).

Really, it’s about an overqualified butler employed by your average, working-class Americans out of Pittsburgh.  Sounds simple, no? 

Actually, it was.  And that’s the beauty of Mr. Belvedere.  As with most shows, this one is character driven; however, there was magic in the Owens’ household.  The show’s writing was a perfect combination of sincere, funny and lovable.  Really, out of all of the TV shows in that era that was purely made for families, Mr. Belvedere has a level of charm that most don’t.

And believe me when I say this, but unlike a number of shows that were higher in the ratings than Mr. Belvedere, this show still actually holds up. 

Mr. Belvedere had a number of things going for it; first and foremost, the premise.

Believe it or not, Lynn Belvedere was actually created in a 1947 novel, Belvedere by Gwen Leys Davenport.

In the novel, Belvedere was a genius who decides to be a babysitter for three jerk kids because he’s secretly writing a novel about the village around him.  Belvedere is actually a pretty fun novel if you have time to check it out.  Three films starring Clifton Webb as Belvedere (Sitting Pretty, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College and Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell) were released in the forties to much success. So the major television networks have been trying to adapt the novel Belvedere for roughly 30 years (including three pilots produced during the fifties and sixties) until they did it right in ’85. 

Hmm: a novel about a snarky, intelligent man babysitting three rambunctious kids, observing the scenes around him while doing it and writing his experiences down.  Things are starting to fall into place, huh?

Who knew this show was actually based on a novel?

I DID, THAT’S WHO!

Anyway, as I said before, the writing was sincere without being schmaltzy, funny without being ridiculous and lovable without being corny. You can chalk that one up to two things: one, the writers and two, the actors.

Without taking anything away from the rest of the cast (especially Ilene Graff, who played the mother Marsha Owens and has an impressive career in film, television and stage), without a doubt the two main players in this ball game were Christopher Hewett and Bob Uecker.  These two couldn’t be better cast.

You see, the run on joke throughout the series was this “odd couple” battle between Christopher Hewett, an Oxford Repertory Company-trained stage actor that performed in over 100 plays and Bob Uecker, an MLB veteran for the Milwaukee Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves as well as an actual sportscaster and actor in such films as Major League 1 & 2.  They were two very different, yet equally talented actors.

Mr. Belvedere is so solid that it actually reminds me of another show that gets much more acclaim, The Golden Girls.  Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE The Golden Girls; it was a wonderfully funny show with a superb cast that deserves all of the love that gets thrown its way.  It’s easily one of the best television programs ever made.

However, Mr. Belvedere is a genuinely great show that virtually gets no attention.  Hell, the fan site doesn’t exist, reruns only play on FamilyNet (I have no idea which station that is) and, after almost 30 years, they’ve only released the first 4 seasons on DVD.

Where’s the Belvedere love?

Curiously enough and like most great things with zero television presence today (MST3K, Police Squad!, Father Ted), you can find a ton of the episodes on YouTube.  I am often surprised at how many random shows I can remember watching as a kid that I find on YouTube.  Sometimes, you can find full seasons of shows you never expected.

My advice is this: give Mr. Belvedere a shot.  If you don’t like it, then you’re wrong.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a special lady I met at a support group for women with unsightly facial hair that, in the right light, actually looks a little like Belvedere.

Wish me luck.

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