Fridays

The late night sketch-comedy FRIDAYS began when SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE was transitioning from the original cast, and while not every skit is drop dead hilarious, and both were an Americanized MONTY PYTHON with far-out silliness pushed to deliberately insane, conceptual limits, it was a pretty cool show...

While SNL had become a kind of faded classic rock ashtray, FRIDAYS felt like one of those new wave/punk rock music store buttons with random shapes swimming in hip colors and brisk design...

Featuring Melanie Chartoff, the straight-woman liken to Jane Curtain only extremely sexy, and she could also play offbeat, wild-haired like Gilda Radner... not only terrific with improv but the primary newscaster, making the satirical stories all too real: a comedic performer and character-actress both...

But what made FRIDAYS really shine, other than Andy Kaufman's fake-yet-seemingly-convincing bout with future SEINFELD star Michael Richards, were those awesome live bands...

Ranging from THE CLASH to KISS with performances that sounded clearer, looser and more open/less constrained than SNL, the bands were even more important than sporadic celebrity hosts...

Making FRIDAYS a rare glimpse into that relatively neglected, limbo era when the 1970's had morphed into the 1980's before losing its sparse, exploitative edge and gaining that bright neon, arcade aesthetic... when The Clash fit best.

Created in early 1980s by ABC as an imitation of "Saturday Night Live," it was more extreme, crazier and funnier than "SNL." Besides Andy Kauffman, it featured Larry David and Michael Richards (both later of "Seinfeld").

Richard's violent, war-mongering and ultimately self-destructive boy in the sandbox was a brilliant creation. It broke the rules of physical comedy, going far beyond the predictable smart-alek jokes of "SNL." Richards was the genius of the show, not Kauffman, who by then was sadly running out of ideas.

By the way, the Kauffman episode of "Fridays" depicted in the movie "Man in the Moon" was not a spontaneous outburst. It was planned ahead of time, according to B.K. Momchilov, who runs the Andy Kauffman Home Page.

The Comedy Channel should play "Fridays" re-runs to offset "SNL's" stale re-runs.

Friday's was one of the best shows I have ever watched. It was well written and superbly performed. I would love to see the show re-runs so they could be enjoyed by a whole new generation of people. The character development was superior to anything on television today. I was trying to tell my 21-year old about this show but words can't describe the superior comedic performances that appeared week after week. I still don't understand how lesser-quality comedy shows survived while this one didn't. The pharmacist and the angry little kid (played by Michael Richards) was side-splitting comedy at its best. I still chuckle when I think of some of those crazy skits. Any ideas out there on how to revive the shows for syndication?

Fridays was a great show! Everything that everyone wrote is the absolute truth. I would also love to see re-runs on Comedy Central! I found this web site by trying to find Fridays on video because no one at work has ever heard of the show. How sad for them that they never got to experience this great show on a Friday night. My favorite was Michael Richards acting as the deranged boy picking on his sisters dolls while blowing up his soldiers. It reminded me so much of my brother and how he picked on us girls, lol. Of course the pharmacist pulling and twisting his hair and saying, "I can handle it" keeps popping in front of my mind. I really wish someone would show re-runs or at least put the episodes on video/DVD for purchase!

"Fridays", which ran for two seasons on ABC, was a live sketch comedy show with a celebrity guest host & famous guest band. It aired at 11:30ET on, duh, Friday nights. So yes, it was ABC's version of Saturday Night Live. But more importantly, it was done from Los Angeles, so it was a West Coast version of SNL. And it showed.

Too many of the sketches were simple, 'one-joke' bits. The Rhasta-man for example, consisted of nothing more than the audience waiting for the jamaican guy to finally say, "ganja!" so they could hoot & holler (picture Married with Children's or Arsenio's audience). The same thing would happen during the Weekend Update-style newscast. Melanie Chartoff, who was the show's sex kitten, served as news anchor and the audience would howl at her thru most of the bit. Mark Blankfield's "I can handle it" pill-popping pharmacist was also little more than that, him acting whacked-out on speed and trying to deal with customers.

The show did have some bright spots:

Michael Richards 'Battle Boy' for instance. He was this psychotic kid who did terrible things to his army men (set them on fire & scream horribly). Plus he had a white trash mother who would just yell at him all the time. Richards also did a great 'Record Critic Guy' where he basically trashed everything (and early 80s music deserved some serious trashing!)

John Roarke was a very good impressionist, though his characters were too sterile and robotic. He had great technique but little flair for personal nuance.

Bruce Mahler not only did the memorable & weird 'dancing chickens' bit but also several good news skits opposite Chartoff such as having removed his brain and holding it in his hands still connected to his spine via a cable. And a simply yet funny bit with the two of them inhaling helium.

Also Rich Hall started out on this show (great trivia question: Who's the only person to be a regular cast member of both Fridays & SNL? Him!)

And I did indeed see the Kaufman show. And it was disappointing to find out the next day that the whole fight thing had been fake.

I also saw one of the last shows on March 5th, 1982 (John Belushi had died earlier that day).

Howard E. Rollins from the "In the Heat of the Night" TV series hosted and did a very funny bit about an insane morgue attendant who made the corpses act out little sketches with him.

And William Shatner, some 5 years before his infamous 'Get a life' bit on SNL, showed his gift for wacky comedy for the first time hosting Fridays.

Overall it was a funny show. Not groundbreaking in the least, and a complete ripoff of SNL, but still funny and worthy of more than just two seasons (I don't remember hearing about its cancellation, it just wasn't on anymore).