The Oxygen Network is running the old half-hours of Love, American Style from the late sixties/early seventies and I'd forgotten what an amazing mixed bag that series was. Many episodes are unwatchable but some are quite fun, either for the guest stars or the funky 1970 sensibilities and fashions. They ran one the other day where a wonderful character actor named Eddie Mayehoff took a dreadful script and just made it soar. (If you don't recall his name, he's the guy who played Jack Lemmon's lawyer in How to Murder Your Wife.)
And there was a haunted house episode wherein Vincent Price sure raised the level of the proceedings, and another where Shecky Greene and Cass Elliott played a very funny couple. Against this, you had an awful lot of episodes that now look like they were cast out of the commissary staff — "stars" who I don't believe were even known entities then, let alone now. Others suffer from two different strains of "pilot" error. They're either failed pilots that were played off as episodes of Love, American Style…or "backdoor" pilots, meaning that the producers were trying — usually, too hard — to whip up something with spin-off potential. (Happy Days evolved out of an unsold pilot that was folded into the series but that was a singular exception.)
Most episodes aren't that wonderful as entertainment but there's a certain charm to the period and a fascination in seeing some of the great character actors at work. As I write this, I'm watching one with Louis Nye, Eve Arden, Robert Q. Lewis, Michelle Lee and Joanne Worley…struggling and occasionally succeeding in the deathless sport of triumphing over one's material. Tomorrow, I believe they're going to run one with a very young Albert Brooks playing — you'll never guess this — a cold, self-absorbed Yuppie-type. I've set the TiVo to record every episode but I often bail out about three minutes in if there's no sign of treasure.