Nachtschicht mit John

From the start "The John Larroquette Show", was bright, literate, willing to touch on sensitive issues, and hilarious to boot. But its audience was marginal by network standards, and each year it received a makeover in hopes of boosting the ratings. Season launching episodes were not at all subtlety titled "Changes", "More Changes", and "Even More Changes" as fair warning to long time viewers. By the beginning of the fourth and final season "The John Larroquette Show" had in many ways become indistinguishable from the rest of prime time television. Still quite funny thanks to a very talented collection of actors and writers, but its rough edge was gone.

Unique, funny and pure genius. This show was the perfect forum for Larroquette's abilities and he played extremely well off of the other actors. I still hold a grudge against NBC for changing, then changing, then changing, then cancelling the show. If it had not been constantly tinkered-with and toned down, it might still be running. I mean, how many comedic programs deal with a recovering alcoholic and have a prostitute as a character? With the recent explosion of television programs dealing with darker content, it's easy to see that this show was ahead of its time. I'd love to get the DVDs, though NBC may not release them.

Season 1 was superb: gritty, realistic characters who behaved like they lived gritty, realistic lives...unapologetic hookers, transvestites, bums, and alcoholics who were hilarious. Almost like watching a play...like "Hot L Baltimore" in the 70s. As the sign on John Laroquette's wall said, "This (was) a Dark Ride." Weird, fun, occasionally disturbing because it was a lot more lifelike than the usual sitcom.

Season 2? Blatantly obvious that the network got nervous about all those hookers, transvestites, bums, and alcoholics not being apologetic...the fix was in, they cleaned it up, and the show became just another basic sitcom about a bus station. I was sad to watch it go.

I have such fond memories of this show. I don't know if I would find it as funny now, but when it was out my brother and I never missed an episode. It's nice to see that just about all of the lead cast is still working today too. I would love to see at least the first season out on DVD sometime. I would recommend this show to everyone that likes John Larouquette. This role was made for him and it played very well with the occasional drama but mostly the great hearty laughs. My favorite characters were John of course and the two cops that barely ever worked. They ate lots of food and donut's and the two played off each other wonderfully. I don't even know if there are re-runs of this anywhere. It got the required four years but I have never seen it in syndication, which IMO is a total shame.

As has been mentioned before, this show had the potential to become another one of the big hits that NBC had in its stable. Everything about this show in the first season made it worth tuning in without fail every week. The problem came when in the second season, NBC decided to tone down the show, changing the entire storyline, and really trashing a great show. Cleaning up not only the rough and gritty setting, but changing the characters; what a shame. Basically, the end result is what would have happened to the film Heavy Metal if it were re-shot and re-cut, and edited by Disney. If Larroquette ever comes out on DVD, I'll buy just the first season. As I'm sure many others would as well.