CBS revives a classic franchise tonight with the series premiere of The Odd Couple, based on the classic Neil Simon play that inspired movies and multiple television series.
The series premiere is sandwiched between The Big Bang Theory and the series finale of Two and a Half Men, so it’ll surely be sampled. Starring in the show are Matthew Perry as Oscar Madison and Thomas Lennon as Felix Unger.
The cast and producers talked about the show earlier this year at the Television Critics Association press tour, highlighting why they feel now is the time for a new Odd Couple.
“I think it’s such an elastic concept. I mean, the DNA of those two characters has seeped into television for the last four decades,” showrunner Bob Daily explained. “I spent five years writing on Frasier, and Frasier was basically The Odd Couple with one Oscar and two Felixes. Bert and Ernie are The Odd Couple. The Odd Couple has been repeated so many times. We’re going back to the brilliant original Neil Simon source material. Those two characters, Oscar and Felix, are so iconic and they’re so timeless, and, it’s been 45 years, so I think it’s time for a reinterpretation and for a new generation that’s not familiar with the The Odd Couple,” he said.
Executive Consultant Garry Marshall, a TV legend who was there for the classic Jack Klugman-Tony Randall series, called the casting “tremendous” and said that Matthew Perry was his “favorite” from Friends. Thomas Lennon he “didn’t know from Adam,” yet now he’s trying to get him into his next movie.
Considering what people know from Matthew Perry in his role as Chandler Bing on Friends, one might expect him to be a better Felix. “It’s funny, when we started this project, a lot of people thought that I would be a better Felix, and I think it’s because Chandler was a little bit more like Felix. But in real life, I’m much more of an Oscar,” he said.
For Felix, the show got actor Thomas Lennon, who wasn’t even sure that anything close to what Tony Randall had done with the character could happen. “I thought long and hard whether it was even attemptable because Tony Randall is a hero ‑‑ a major hero of mine. And I was worried that I might be doing an impression of Tony Randall or something. But then when I remembered that he was really the third Felix Unger and I might be something like about the fifth, I felt like maybe there was something new to bring to it. So I did bring my cello and my yoga skills,” he laughed.
The press tour also gave the opportunity for Yvette Nicole Brown to explain why she is able to do The Odd Couple yet wasn’t free to do the sixth season of Community for Yahoo! “I started out in multi‑cam. That was the first thing I ever did, and it’s like what I like the most because it feels like theater and I understand the idea of a script changing every day, and it feels like a race to me. Also, the hours for what I’m dealing with with my dad, these hours are better for me,” she explained. “And then when you get a call that says, ‘Would you like to work with Matthew Perry and Lindsay Sloane and Thomas Lennon and Wendell Pierce?’ that’s kind of an easy ‘yes’ to say,” she continued.
“The Odd Couple came my way after I had asked to be released from Community. This is not something that I did instead of Community. I couldn’t do Community because of the hours. You guys know how single camera is. It’s an 80‑hour week, and my dad has dementia, so it’s not conducive to someone that needs daily care. So when I got the release from Sony and Dan Harmon, which was a wonderful gift, The Odd Couple was like a gift from God that came after. So I want to make sure that’s clear because there’s been some confusion about why I left, when I left,” she explained. “This experience with these people has been a godsend ‑‑ lovely work hours, funny, lovely people. And it’s a family in the same way Community was a family, and the only thing that’s different is the hours. The love and the camaraderie is still the same, I think, as you can see. So this has been just a gift from God, all these people,” Brown said.
Matthew Perry, had an even simpler explanation for doing the show. “I’m doing The Odd Couple because my attempt at being a movie star failed,” he joked.
The Odd Couple premieres at 8:30 tonight (February 19) on CBS.
