Fernwood 2 Night

Other than Monty Python, I can't think of too many shows where I would actually hurt from laughing so hard, but this was one of those shows.

I think there were a lot of elements that made this show so great: all the characters were wonderful, and I like how they were so earnest in the way they went about doing their show in the small town of Fernwood Ohio, the guests who happened along and got their 15 minutes of fame momentarily, the non-PC way Barth and Jerry conversed about pretty much any topic or person, and of course, Happy Kyne and the Merthmakers.

I'd like to see the shows again to see if they were all as good as I remember.

In the fall of 1977, this program became one of the brightest TV memories in my young life. Ranks right up there with Monty Python and SCTV. I too hope it emerges one day on DVD. It once made me laugh so hard, I rolled around on the floor and wet my pants. Not the coolest thing to do in front of your college roommates.

The show wasn't so much a jab at small-town life, as a satire of cheesy small-town TV stations. Channel 6 - WZAZ, could as easily have been Channel 8 - CKNX, Wingham, Canada (the local station I grew up watching). I am sure Kirkland Lake's own Alan Thicke used one of his local stations as F2N's model (Probably CFCL-Timmins, CKSO-Sudbury, or both). One episode, interrupted for a news bulletin about a three-alarm blaze, promised "film at 11 pm tomorrow night". Anyone in North America who had access to these small-but-mighty TV stations could easily relate.

I can still remember the first episode I watched, wondering what the heck I had stumbled onto. To my knowledge, nothing like this had ever been attempted on TV before. What an incredibly well-crafted concept Fernwood 2-Nite was! A testament to Lear, the writers, performers and crew alike. The only projects since that have come close are the Chris Guest/Eugene Levy "mockumentaries" (starring F2N's own Fred Willard). I remark at how some recent Canadian comedy TV series scripted their shows the way Fernwood 2-Nite did: Train 48, Trailer Park Boys, Puppets Who Kill and Liocracy. Some of these shows are quite hilarious, so the formula is clearly versatile.

The brilliant characters on F2N took on lives of their own. To mention only a couple seems unfair to the other talented legions. Therefore, let's take Happy Kyne and the Mirthmakers (...please)! Bandleader/Bun-N-Run proprietor Kyne (Frank De Vol....remember "Music by De Vol?"), and his band of mediocre minstrels. They were so bad, they were great! Remember their renditions of popular disco hits? 'Disco Duck', backed up by the manic drummer was classic. As qualified by host Barth Gimble(Martin Mull), "They give new meaning to the word adequate."

Once the show started having 'real' celebrities as guests, the show began to change direction. Fernwood 2-Nite gave way to America 2-Nite, which remained funny, but had lost all that small-town charm. With the explosion of cable and specialty TV in the 80s and 90s, the era of those wonderful small-town TV stations was also over. Like all good things, we probably didn't really realize how special they were until they were no longer.

I was never a big fan of 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman' but this hilarious spinoff of that show (a local talk show from the 'MH, MH' setting of Fernwood, Ohio) featured Martin Mull as smug host Barth Gimble and Fred Willard as his empty headed sidekick.The show rather mercilessly skewered small town America, its prejudices and foibles. One show for example featured a Jewish man whose car broke down in Fernwood and was featured as a guest in a segment called "Talk to a Jew".(One old lady: "Barth, I can't believe someone as sweet as this young man murdered Our Lord").It only lasted one season and for some bizarre reason the next year, the show moved its setting to Hollywood and became 'Hollywood 2Night" but without the small town setting the show's point was lost.

Extra props to the late, great Frank DeVol(veteran tv/movie composer of the 'My Three Sons" theme) as the eternally basset hound faced show's band leader Happy Kyne and His Mirthmakers, who also owned Fernwood's finest fast food joint the "Bun

'n' Run"

I have been waiting unsuccessfully for many years for the issuance of VHS/DVDs of Fernwood2Nite/America2Nite, an incredibly funny series of "late night" type television shows spoofing Johnny Carson's Tonight Show as well as other similar programs. On TV in the late 70s in its 2 incarnations, the Norman Lear venture had a life of perhaps 60 episodes. It starred Martin Mull as the talk show host, Barth Gimble and Fred Willard as his dim-witted sidekick, Jerry Hubbard. They took pokes at all sorts of people, things and sacred cows. They took on South Park type stereotypes (dullards, racism, religions, and the like) 20 years earlier. The band leader, accomplished songwriter and orchestra leader, Frank DeVol was an unbelievably deadpanned performer, and owner of the "Taco & Run" restaurant. Over the years, I have sent letters to Norman Lear, Martin and Fred, asking what became of the series, will it ever be released to video, etc., without a single reply. It's good to know that there are other viewers who enjoyed this tremendously funny (most of the time) series of late night television shows. It is a shame that this comedy series a

"Fernwood 2-Night", a spinoff of "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", was set in Fernwood, Ohio, and its three stars all had ties to Northeast Ohio--Martin Mull (Barth Gimble) grew up in North Ridgeville, Fred Willard (Jerry Hubbard) was born and raised in Shaker Heights, and Frank DeVol (Happy Kyne) grew up in Canton. So without a doubt, there was a strong tie to Ohio with a show set in Ohio. Oh, BTW, it's funny. I remember seeing it on Nick at Nite around 1990, and during the first half of the decade, it was one of only two sources from which I remembered Martin Mull; the other one, of course, was the Red Roof Inn commercials.

Anyway, it's a funny show, lampooning "The Tonight Show", among others. Both sidekicks had standard opening spiels ("And now, your host and mine, Mr. Barth Gimble!", and "And now, Heeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!"), and they even had still images for the bumpers a la Carson! If you have a chance, check it out. You'll enjoy it, like I did, and you don't have to be an Ohioan to enjoy it!