Ivan the Terrible

I remember this series as a "summer replacement" in what was probably about August of 1976 -- I was 11 then and it was manifestly unfunny to me even at that immature age. It belongs to a genre of mid-1970s "comedies" that were shot on what seemed like small sets -- as I recall the whole thing seemed to the viewer like it was taped in a room the size of the average garage. AS with most of these, it consisted largely of a bunch of one-joke characters standing in a row while they traded one-liners with the main character. As I recall (and I haven't seen it in that many years) just as the punch line of every joke in Hogan's Heroes was "the Russian Front," so the punchline in Ivan was something about the KGB.

As I recall, this show was off the air in about four weeks.

I do miss one thing though. Back then there were three major networks in the US, and even in NY and LA there were maybe three local stations with largely syndicated programming and locally produced shows in addition to the three network affiliates -- that's a total of six channels (seven, if you count PBS) in the largest of large markets, not the 300 channels we have now. Summer was a time when dirt-cheap "summer replacement series" and slightly larger-budget one-time pilots were on the air, and there was something more "real" about the amateurish, fly-by-night feel of them, as awful as they were (it was like watching ED Wood movies made for TV). Now, everything is so slick, so test-marketed, so computerized and hyped that they've lost all their charm.

This was one of my favorite TV comedy series' ever, ranking with Newhart and Carol Burnett. At the time I was disappointed that the series ended after so few episodes.

Unlike some reviewers, I found 'Ivan the Terrible' delightful for what it was: mocking Cold War-era satire, ridiculing an obscene communist political system, played entirely for laughs.

Of course it, like Hogan's Heroes, it was not intended to accurately depict the realities of the time and place depicted, nor their spirit. Doubtless life in Moscow was bleak, just as life in a WWII POW camp was grim.

It has been said that the most effective means to destroy an idea is to make it into a joke and lampoon the oh-so-serious pretensions of its adherents.

Just as the Wendy's television commercials themed on a Soviet fashion show delightfully derided the USSR's uncultured clunkiness, so did Ivan the Terrible. (The Soviet Embassy reportedly protested the Wendy's television commercials, so their sting was not lost on the oh-so-serious folks in Moscow. It wouldn't be surprising to learn of similar USSR protests against Lou Jacobi's sitcom.)

One thing nobody has alluded to and which does not appear in that late actor's credits on the internet, is the uncredited cameo appearance at the end of each episode of Harvey Korman as a stern uniformed Soviet bureaucrat.

The echo of unseen Carlton the Doorman from MTM's contemporary Rhoda series in the 'person' of Rasputin the dog was a nice touch, too.

Ivan the Terrible was for me the perfect Cold War comedy. Sadly it was about the only such, unless one counts the Boris and Natasha scenes in the various Rocky and Bullwinkle animations.

I would love to obtain tapes of the few episodes made, almost as much for Korman's walk-ons as for the rest of the show in its own right.

I disagree with the majority: I enjoyed this series. I was also young when it aired. Two episodes stand out in my mind. In one, the government had chosen a family as a "model" to show off to some Western visitors. To this end, the familiar "KGB guy" showed up to move all sorts of fancy-shmancy furniture into the apartment--which was taken away as soon as the Westerners had completed their nickel tour. In another, the KGB investigated because Sasha scored a 99 on the state exam--something about science, math, transportation, etc. Re transportation in particular, he aced that section because his aunt--who lived with them--worked for the government train administration bureau or what-have-you. Oh, yeah, Ivan also had a dog that lived in the closet, and he kept kicking the closet door every now and then to shut the beast up.

I can't vote on the quality of this show, save that I remember the opening lines of the theme song:

"Life's getting better/Spring's coming soon/Nine feet of snow/And it's only June".

I am glad others remember so many details about this show; I recall that they tried to make a catchphrase out of Ivan calling someone a "yutz" or a "yotz".

There were several shows that I watched as a child that I tried to make "my shows", which was to say, shows that I alone watched and found funny. "Big Eddie" was one I used to watch and this one. Apparently, my attempts at maturity outstripped my memory!

To add to the recollection of the opening theme: "Life's getting better; spring's coming soon Nine feet of snow - and it's only June.

Look @ our ........, look at our luck, Papa's a head waiter - and Mama drives a truck!

Chorus: ......... Living in Moscow; living in Moscow gets better every day - hey!

Plenty of friends here: vodka and wine, Such a big family - some of which is mine.

Shoulder to shoulder, close as can be, There's 9 in my apartment - and there's no room for me!

Chorus (reprise)"

This was a CBS limited run series that ran during the year of the Bicentennial late summer/early fall. I don't recall how many episodes were taped but a mere 5 episodes of this parody of Soviet life aired. Although it was popular, the State Department apparently ordered CBS to discontinue the series under political pressure of the then Soviet Union. It featured the most unusual family unit - at least for 1976: the father Ivan Petrovsky worked as a head waiter in a major Moscow hotel, his wife Olga drove a truck. Also in the 1 bedroom apartment were: their son Nikolai who was an astronaut, Nikolai's wife Sonya, their daughter Svetlana who was a ballerina, their younger son Sascha who appeared to be in grade school, Olga's former husband Vladimir who appeared to do zip but give opinions, Olga's mother Tatiana who drove subway trains and Raoul Sanchez - a Cuban exchange student who boarded there - plus a never seen but sometime heard dog named Rasputin that appeared confined to a room behind closed doors.

I also remember the late great Lou Jacobi's Ivan character frequently calling someone a "yutz" - which probably was a catchphrase meaning fool. A decade later the late great Estelle Getty used it in her Sophia character on "The Golden Girls". I've used that word myself to this day. To me the funniest were Lou Jacobi (Ivan) and Phil Leeds (Vladimir - his "husband-in-law" - the former husband of Ivan's wife Olga) - the two actors and characters complimented each other well in their comedy, closely followed by Christopher Hewitt, the Federov character that appeared in each episode as a different KGB buttinsky type official (one episode he was an unemployment agency official, another episode he oversaw the Petrovsky family's being interviewed by American TV reporter Tom Skyler - an obvious take off on real life Tom Snyder - as a typical Russian family to make sure the family were portrayed as upper middle class, lending them appliances for the broadcast that they were obviously unfamiliar with [(e.g. Olga putting dishes in what she & Ivan thought was a dishwasher but was actually a washing machine!]).

The series gave American typical sitcom plots what they felt would be a Soviet twist - possibly cutting too close for comfort to the Soviets who in turn pressured the US State Department to have the plug pulled on the series - a shame - wish the episodes could be found some place.