The Practice

I'm sure that if you asked a TV Historian about a series called "The Practice," they would first think of a David E. Kelley dramatic series, set in Boston, about a group of lawyers trying difficult cases, including one that crossed over with another Kelley series, also set in Beantown, "Ally McBeal."

That has nothing to do with this.

Predating Kelley's identically titled law show by twenty years, this program was a sitcom about a New York Doctor named Jules Bedford, played by Danny Thomas, and the people that populated his work and home life.

Jules was the sort of "gruff but loveable" character every show of the era wanted. He was knowledgeable, temperamental, witty and continually chomped a cigar, but only sometimes smoked it. His signature style was based on Mr. Thomas' own Catskills club, Borscht Belt stand up rhythm. Example:

Nate: (head waiter in the hospital cafeteria): My thumb. (Nate flexes his thumb in front of Jules' face) It hurts every time I do that.

Jules: Then, don't do that.

The only thing missing was a drum riff after a joke. Ba-dum-ting!

The work squad was comprised of Dr. Bedford's nurse, Molly, played by long time great character actress, Dena Dietrich, and his receptionist Helen, played with Gracie Allen style bubbleheadedness, by soon-to-be beauty school drop out from the motion picture "Grease," Didi Conn. Also helping out was Lenny, an intern at The Practice, played by the better known of the two Lionel Jeffersons from that Norman Lear series, Mike Evans.

Also practicing medicine was Dr. David Bedford, Jules' son, played by David Spielberg, who had a fancy Park Avenue shingle. The two Bedford doctors would share stories about their cases and commiserate about the patients they had to deal with over lunch in the cafeteria where Dad worked, but would also be derisive about their practices, as the younger Bedford catered to a wealthy clientele and the elder Bedford treated "regular people." There definitely were some value judgments when it came to that. Also, the son and the father provided further fodder for funny, as Jules still treated his kid like a child, and David sulkily reminded Dad that he was a full grown adult.

David's wife Jenny was played by Shelley Fabares, who of course grew up on television as the daughter on the long running "The Donna Reed Show." David and Jenny provided Jules with his two grandsons, Paul and Tony, played by Allen Price and Damon Bradley Raskin.

New York played a part because there are a lot of sick people in this town (though some of them are hypochondriacs), and with Dr. Jules still making house calls, there were plenty of places for him to go to check up on patients.

Let's also note this show was created by Steve Gordon who, several years later, would also write and direct "Arthur," the film starring Dudley Moore (who made this NYC 400 list at #377 with "Dudley").

There was an interesting blending of that old style comedy that Mr. Thomas was used to (and likely personally injected into the scripts), and the more modern elements that were starting to happen for sitcoms as we approached the 1980s.

And from the Old School, Danny's friends dropped in for guest shots, people like Lucille Ball, Jayne Meadows, his own daughter Marlo Thomas and Bill Dana (though not playing José Jiménez, as Dana did on "The Danny Thomas Show").

And we can't talk about Danny Thomas and medicine without noting his philanthropy work and how he founded the St. Jude Children's Medical Research Center, which is inarguably his biggest legacy, still going strong today. The concept of helping out families of kids who were going through some devastating medical issues and making sure those families didn't have to pay the costs of treatment and rehabilitation was both genius and needed.

"The Practice" (1976) maybe would have worked better as a brief sketch on a variety series, because it had that sort of off-kilter, cheap joke, go for the laugh sensibility, that had been seen on shows like "Sonny and Cher" and "The Carol Burnett Show" where the premise mattered less than the funny. If they had pulled out all the stops and made it into a complete farce, it definitely would have been a more memorable sitcom.

I don't remember that many specific details about this program. It's been a while since I've seen it, and to the best of my knowledge, it's been a while since it's been available to be seen. However, I do remember that this was a funny, meaningful and intriguing program, right up there with the best intelligent classic television comedies of the seventies.

Certain actors were meant to play gruff old men, and absolutely thrived when they did. Danny Thomas was one of them. Walter Matthau, of course, was another. Even when these performers were young, their successful characters generally had the personalities of jaded, sardonic, crotchety seniors. Walter, of course, peaked as old geezers like KOTCH and as Willy Clark of THE SUNSHINE BOYS, twenty years before he ever became a genuine GRUMPY OLD MAN. And as the old grumpy doctor in THE PRACTICE, genuine senior citizen Danny Thomas was at his best. Showbiz folklore is that Danny also felt that this was a masterpiece of a program, and that he never forgave NBC for canceling it.

What's most significant about THE PRACTICE, and what's not even mentioned here in IMDb, is that a good amount of the episodes were written by the absolutely brilliant Steve Gordon. Steve, of course, made his mark by writing and directing one of the truly great comedies of the last quarter century, ARTHUR. Unfortunately, Steve died shortly after that, and never had the chance to leave us with more of his true genius. If Steve had lived another few years, his name might be in the film history books, next to Preston Sturgess. For that reason alone, this small bit of his creativity needs to be shared with the world. I can't imagine why this program has not been released on DVD. Maybe it's because Steve and Danny aren't around to make it happen.