"The Odd Couple" is a play, a movie, and a tv show that tells the story of two divorced men - Felix Unger, a neurotic neat freak, and Oscar Madison, a compulsive slob, both living in the same apartment. Although they are good friends, they constantly get on each other's nerves. This FAQ mostly deals with the tv show.
"The Odd Couple" began as a play written by Neil Simon that was performed on Broadway starting in 1965, starring Walter Matthau as Oscar and Art Carney as Felix. Later in the show's run, Jack Klugman took over the role of Oscar. In 1968, the play was made into a movie starring Walter Matthau as Oscar, and Jack Lemmon as Felix. The tv show began in the fall of 1970, and it was produced by Garry Marshall, with no involvement from Neil Simon. Although the show never made it into the top 25 in the Neilsen ratings, it lasted for five seasons and 114 episodes. The show's highest rating came in the 1972-1973 season, when it charted at #36.
For a full history of the Odd Couple in all of its incarnations, check out the History page.
The show went through quite a few date and time changes during its five-year run on ABC. Here is a list of all the days and times it aired (Eastern Standard Time):
Sept. 1970 to Jan. 1971 - Thursday nights at 9:30
Jan. 1971 to June 1973 - Friday nights at 9:30
June 1973 to Jan. 1974 - Friday nights at 8:30
Jan. 1974 to Sept. 1974 - Friday nights at 9:30
Sept. 1974 to Jan. 1975 - Thursday nights at 8:00
Jan. 1975 to July 1975 - Friday nights at 9:30
This was a remake of the original series, produced by Garry Marshall, that featured a primarily African-American cast playing the roles of Oscar and Felix and their friends. It aired from October 1982 to June 1983. For more information (as well as sounds and pictures), check out the page about other versions of the show.
This was a Saturday morning cartoon that aired from September 6, 1975 to September 3, 1977. It featured two characters - a sloppy dog named Fleabag, and a neat cat named Spiffy - who shared an office as reporters. It was produced by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng.
Here is a complete cast list:
In a 1996 chat on Nick at Nite Online, Jack Klugman was asked, "How close was the character you played to your real self?" He responded, "Too close for comfort. If you could see my condominium right now, you would say 'Oscar Madison lives here.' I'm messy. I'm not dirty. I shower a lot. Let's say, I like being comfortable."
This was a question that annoyed Tony Randall. In a 1993 Entertainment Weekly interview, he responded, "I've been asked that same stupid question in every single interview I've done since 1970-that's about 25,000 interviews [...] No. I'm nothing like Felix at all." However, he was like Felix in some ways. Some of Tony and Jack's real life interests were incorporated into their characters, such as Tony's love of opera and Jack's love of betting on horses. In a 2005 interview with Larry King, Heather Randall said of her late husband, "[H]e was kind of the Felix character. You know, like when I was pregnant, he had stomach pains. That kind of thing. A little bit of a hypochondriac."
Jack lives in California, where he owns racehorses, with a goal of someday winning the Kentucky Derby. He still performs on stage occasionally. On May 17, 2004, Tony Randall died after a long illness. At the time, he was the artistic director of the National Actors Theater, a not-for-profit company he founded in 1991. He had occasionally performed in some of the company's productions. He lived in New York City with his wife and two children.
Yes, Jack was married to Brett Somers (credited as Brett Somers-Klugman on this show), who played Blanche Madison, Oscar's ex-wife. According to some sources, they were married from 1956 to 1978, but I've heard from some other sources that they were never legally divorced.(Tony Randall was never married to Janis Hansen, who plays Gloria Unger, Felix's ex-wife.)
If you've seen any of Jack Klugman's recent tv or movie appearances, you've probably noticed that he now speaks in a raspy whisper. This is because he was diagnosed with throat cancer and in 1989 he underwent throat surgery, which involved removing one of his vocal chords. After the surgery, he could not speak at all, but after vocal therapy, he improved, and is now able to speak, although his voice obviously doesn't sound like it used to.
Yes! In 1974, Jack Klugman won a Golden Globe award for Best TV Actor in a Musical or Comedy. In 1971 and 1973, he won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Tony Randall won the same Emmy award in 1975.
Also, Jack Klugman won an Emmy in 1964 for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, for his appearance in an episode of "The Defenders."
The Neil Simon play also won three Tony Awards: Best Author (Neil Simon), best director (Mike Nichols), and best Actor in a play (Walter Matthau). It was also nominated for best play. The 1968 movie received Academy Award nominations for best adapted screenplay and best film editing. Both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau received Golden Globe nominations for best motion picture actor in a musical or comedy, and the movie was nominated for best motion picture.
Monica Evans and Carol Shelly, who played the Pigeon Sisters, were the only performers in the movie who reprised their roles for the tv show (they also had originated these roles in the play on Broadway). John Fiedler, who played Vinnie in the movie, appeared in two episodes of the show, playing different characters.
During the first season of the show, many characters from the movie were also in the show: the Pigeon sisters, Vinnie, Roy, Speed, and Murray. After the first season, the powers-that-be decided to trim down the cast and got rid of all the supporting characters except Murray. (Vinnie and Speed later made occasional guest appearances.)
Your guess is as good as mine. Although Vinnie and Speed were eliminated after season 1 in an effort to trim the cast, Roy disappeared midway through season 1 without an explanation. And unlike Vinnie and Speed, he never made any guest appearances in later seasons. The likeliest explanation is probably that Ryan MacDonald, who played Roy, simply wanted to leave the show.
There's no definitive answer to this. Oscar and Nancy started dating in the first season (episode #16, "Lovers Don't Make House Calls), but by the end of the second season, she was gone. There was never any scene showing (or mentioning) that they had broken up. She was last mentioned in episode #39, "Security Arms," where Oscar speaks to her on the phone. (He calls her "honey," so we can assume that they were still dating.) After that episode, she was never heard from again, without explanation, and Oscar later went on to date other women. One explanation for the character's disappearance could be that the writers thought there would be more plot possibilities if Oscar dated lots of different women, instead of having one steady girlfriend. It's also possible that Joan Hotchkis, who played Nancy, wanted to leave the show. Nobody seems to know for sure.
Janis got her own question in the FAQ since so many people have been asking about her. You can find a list of most of her movie/tv show roles on her page at the Internet Movie Database. It appears that she has not done any acting in tv or movies since 1980. She currently runs a company for coaching actors.
You are probably thinking of Richard Stahl, who appeared in 8 episodes of the Odd Couple, always playing a different character. Following is a list of his episodes and characters:
The opening was spoken by William Woodson, who acted as narrator/announcer for several shows during the 1970s and 1980s.
Unfortunately, the Odd Couple is not currently on the air nationally in the United States. However, the show does air on some local stations throughout the country in syndicated reruns. You can check for the show in your area by going to http://www.zap2it.com/. Enter your zip code to get your local listings, click "see listings," and then click "search" at the top.
The 1968 movie also airs on tv occasionally, usually on Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics.
I don't have a real answer for this. It could be that the license for the show expired and TV Land simply chose not to renew it so that they could make room for other programs. On TV Land's Frequently Asked Questions page, they write:
Most of the shows on TV Land and Nick at Nite are acquired programs. These programs are owned by various distributors who license them to us for a limited amount of time. Once a show's license expires, TV Land and Nick at Nite are no longer permitted to air that program.
I can't say with certainty, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that TV Land will bring the show back someday. TV Land seems to change its lineup quite regularly, and it frequently brings back shows that were formerly on Nick at Nite or TV Land. Take Bewitched, for example. Bewitched aired on Nick in the early 1990s, then was taken off the show's schedule. It came back to Nick in the late 1990s, then was taken off again a few years later. TV Land began airing the show again in 2003.
As for what fans can do, I don't really know how much influence we could have on television stations, but if you want to write to Nick at Nite/TV Land, here is their address:
TV Land and Nick at Nite
Viewer Services
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
Don't be put off by the fact that they don't have an e-mail address. Regular postal mail can be more effective than e-mail in situations like this, because it shows that you feel strongly enough to go to the trouble of writing a letter.
Because such a list would be impossible to keep up-to-date, considering the number of cities in the U.S. and the frequency with which local channels change their lineups. If you'd like to know if The Odd Couple is airing in your city, try searching Zap2It, as described in question C1.
As of July 10, the new answer is that, yes, the Odd Couple will be available on DVD. The season 1 set is going to be released on August 14th, and can be pre-ordered from Time-Life's website.
In 2000, Columbia House released the show on home video in a series of 10 tapes, each with 3 episodes, but it is no longer being sold. The episodes on the tapes were:
Columbia House also sold the show on home video during the early 1990s. Click here to see the video cover. This was also a 10 tape set, which is listed below:
The 1968 movie starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon is currently available on home video from Columbia House.
The best way is to try searching eBay or other auction websites to see if anyone is auctioning their set of tapes.
Note: Please do not e-mail me with requests for video tapes. I do not have any for sale.
The answer to this question is simple: The tv show is inconsistent.
To elaborate, the producers/writers/whoever didn't keep track of the facts used in every episode to make sure that everything was consistent - they just used whatever facts they felt were necessary for the particular episode they were writing (it would have been especially hard to keep things consistent when many episodes were written by different people). There is no real way to explain the various stories about how Felix and Oscar knew each other, except to say that it's just a tv show. ;)
For complete information on all the inconsistencies in the show (there are over a dozen of them) see the Inconsistencies page.
Starting midway through the first season, through season three, this monologue opened the show:
On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right, but he also knew that someday he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Madison. Sometime earlier, Madison's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving eachother crazy?
Some of the later show openings eliminated the word "childhood", and changed "sometime earlier" to "several years earlier."
Since there is conflicting information about where Oscar and Felix live, this question is also addressed on the inconsistencies page:
In the show opening, the number of Oscar and Felix's apartment building is shown to be 1049, and a few episodes mention them living at 1049 Park Avenue. But in "The New Car" (76) Felix says that he and Oscar live at 74th and Central Park West.
This saying was used by Felix in the episode "My Strife in Court" (66). While Felix was trying to give away an extra Broadway ticket for a musical, a woman offered him money for it, and he was arrested for scalping. While cross-examining the woman in court, Felix asks the woman if he said that he had been selling the ticket. The woman responded that she had just assumed that he was, and Felix interrupted her with the "assume" line. You can hear a sound file of it at the Sounds page.
This line was not written for the show. Writer/Executive Producer Jerry Belson heard it from a teacher in a typewriter repair class. He later remembered the quote while working on the show and decided to include it in an episode.
True, Oscar didn't have any kids in the show, but he did in the 1968 movie. There are lots of differences between the movie and the show, and this is just one of them. For more information on the differences, check out The Show vs. the Movie.
When the show first started, ABC did not want either Oscar or Felix to have kids, because according to their standards, divorced people didn't have children. Later, for whatever reason, they decided to let children be written into the script for Felix.
Yes, and complete information is available at the merchandise page.
The play is in the book The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Volume 1. The female version is in The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Volume 3.
I don't know of any websites that provide the text of any scripts from the show, but you can buy scripts from Script City.
The theme song, originally used in the 1968 Odd Couple movie, was composed by Neal Hefti, who also composed the theme for "Batman."
Check out the merchandise page for a list of cds that have the theme song on them.
To answer this question, I checked the book, "The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Vol. 1." The beginning of the book states:
Caution: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Vol. 1 and the individual plays published therein are fully protected under the Universal Copyright Convention, Berne Convention and Pan-American Copyright Convention and are subject to royalty. All rights are strictly preserved, including professional, amateur, motion picture, television, radio, recitation, lecturing, public reading and foreign translation, and none of such rights can be exercised or used without written permission from the copyright owner.
All inquiries for licenses and permissions for stock and amateur uses should be addressed to:
Samuel French, Inc.
45 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10010-2751
Phone (212) 206-8990
Fax (212) 206-1429
All other inquiries for licenses and permissions should be addressed to:
Albert Da Silva
502 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10022
(The book actually listed a different address, but based on what I've found on the web, this seems to be the current address.)
The song is "Malaguena," written by Ernesto Lecuona in 1927. The song appears on two of Roy Clark's albums: The Roy Clark Guitar Spectacular! and Urban Suburban.
If you have a question about "The Odd Couple" that is not listed here, e-mail me, and I'll do my best to answer it.
