Madame's Place

Though I was quit young when this series originally aired I waited up each night to watch it and got a great kick out of it. Sadly I had none of the episodes recorded and have been searching for them for years. Then the bulk of the series was uploaded to YouTube a few years back and I could not have been more pleased.

Many of the jokes that were over my head as a child made sense to me as an adult. The series has an 80's feel to it but at the same time was ahead of its time. There was nothing out there quite like it. And even today it still stands alone. The cast was enjoyable to watch and they even got big name guest stars like Debbie Reynolds & Betty White.

Madame herself was truly outrageous with great one liners dripping with sexual innuendo. Waylon Flowers as the Man Behind the Woman had a great wit.

Thanks to TAV TV the bulk of these episodes can be found. Though the final 20 episodes of so still seem to be missing. I'd love to come across these somewhere so I can revisit this ageless wonder in full glory once again.

Though Madame's Place was a only one-season series (and for a good reason), the first 5 or 6 shows were the funniest TV shows since Spike Jones and Groucho Marx in the 50s. The show had a "host" corner (ala early Johnny Carson) that once had Phyllis Diller as the celebrity guest in an incredible rapid-exchange of dubious cumpliments with her host that culminate when Phyllis reminds Madame that "...and your vanity table is a Decker & Decker!!" On another show Madame had Tab Hunter as the guest and she kept confusing him with other teeny boppers' hearthrobs of 50s ( Madame: "I always like you with Annette (Funicello) in all those beach movies!! Tab: "Madame!, that was Frankie Avalon.."). The show had other corners that sometimes (and increasingly) did not work so well. Only the portions over which Wayland Flowers had complete control (namely Madame) were always on target. I still enjoy my old video tapes from the original broadcast, but the are getting a little washed down, so hopefully whoever owns the rights knows what a treasure these shows are.

A plush mansion, an aged ex-boxer/butler, a nerdy walking day planner, a beautiful IQ-challenged southern belle, and a nosy kid neighbor. This would have been the perfect equation for an 80s sitcom, but Madame's Place took it a step further with its star... a puppet masquerading as a bawdy old movie star with a naughty sense of humor.

Wayland Flowers was the premiere puppet comedian for adults in the late 70s/early 80s and became one of the first victims in a long chain of comedian-turned-sitcom-star. Fortunately his brand of humor was dumbed down only by removing Madame's foul-mouthing nature; many of the show's jokes were naughty but subtle enough. Unfortunately Flowers wasn't given complete control over the course of his show like comedians demand in advance today (for all the good it does most of them). A multitude of writers, a handful of comedian guest stars, and no shortage of scripts centered around the home life and talk show of an old movie star couldn't keep Madame's Place open for more than one season, but its failure is more likely attributed to offering golden age era comedy to a modern age crowd.

Madame's Place covered all of the bases from an abandoned baby on the doorstep to an outrageous fortune teller (played by a much thinner Edie McClurg... quite a striking difference from her typecast characters on "Small Wonder" and "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie"), to almost marrying a con man, to a sleazy tabloid TV producer tarnishing Madame's image for his ratings. It fought valiantly against the has-been mentality with guests like Debbie Reynolds and Foster Brooks, all of whom engaged in their classic routines, but alas, only die-hard Flowers fans kept it going as long as it did. Its greatest crime, however, probably was causing Corey Feldman to hit puberty several years early. His kid neighbor character was almost always on screen drooling over a scantily-clad Judy Landers, but I could think of few other beauties of the 80s more worth the honor. Nevertheless, I was 4 when this show first aired and watched it simply because I was a puppet fanatic. I couldn't appreciate it for its full value until I saw it later.

Despite its flaws with one too many segues to unknown (and often unfunny) comedian guests on Madame's talk show as well as a few too many stories that took more than one episode to pan out while fighting to keep the audience's attention, Madame's Place was more than a few good laughs for a sitcom of its time and went as far as it could with what the censors would allow (which was a lot more than is allowed today). If you can appreciate the nostalgic roots of comedy from the early 20th century, then you are guaranteed to appreciate Madame's Place, and any chance you get to see it for yourself should be taken.

I can't believe this show has been forgotten. It had (it still has - on the shelf) a sublime, unique brand of humor - ribald and gentle, never insulting. So many people could learn about TRUE humor from it. It also had a great optimism. Memory fades. I don't remember anything specific, except the great style, good cheer and camp, and my never missing an episode and being in awe of it. Why must great things always be relegated to oblivion? Kent Skov's "Mad Movies" also met with public indifference.