Lookwell

I saw this show today and was highly entertained! The writing is excellent (I wasn't surprised, knowing O'Brien and Smigel were involved) and Adam West was as great as ever. The type of storytelling here isn't exactly new, but with the writing and the ever-likable West, it really worked. Too bad the networks didn't agree.

So, how about now? Would this show work now if they did it again? I'm sure Mr. West would be willing to give it another go, and if it was on NBC, well, they need all the help they can get right now and this is the kind of show that could help them get out of their 4th place rut, if only to a small degree. I know I would love to see this cult hit resurrected!

Random thought: if The Max Weinberg 7 played the Lookwell theme as Conan went to his desk and he didn't know about it, I wonder if he'd recognize it?

I have seen Lookwell (the television show) which was canceled years ago without it been given a chance by NBC. Let me tell you that this show would have been bigger than Seinfeld, Married With Children, ER, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Super Bowl VI, The Larry Sanders Show, Live With Regis and Kelly, Dallas, and Live With Emeril Lagasse COMBINED. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating, but Lookwell was the funniest thing I've ever seen. To my pleasant surprise I found out, right on this web site, who wrote the script for Lookwell. It was a young Conan O'Brien AND the guy who does the voice for Triumph The Insult Dog (Robert Smigel). I just pray that that show, the little of it that was recorded, becomes available on video so that I can buy it. People this was FUNNY with a capitol T. Americans should be making long lines in Macys department stores all across America to kiss Conan O'Brien's, Robert Smigel's, and Adam West's ass. No animals were hurt during the making of this memo. Enough of this, let me go make a sandwich. Sincerely kneeling FrankPenab@AOL.com

This show is really about Adam West. His deadpan delivery and obliviousness to his own shortcomings (or maybe it's denial, tough to tell from just one episode) is really what fuels the comedy here. It's campy and hilarious, but it's mostly a specific type of humor and while there are some jokes that deviate from this basic strategy, the show is not a conventional sitcom (which relies heavily on one-liners). The show is about characterization, specifically that of Lookwell. If you see him interacting with someone for 30 seconds and don't find it funny, it's not for you. If you like West's portrayal as Mayor West on Family Guy, you'll probably find this pilot hilarious and I'd recommend trying to find it online.

Of course every one knows him as the campyist Batman ever. But this is 1,000 better than Batman. West plays a retired T.V. detective who, 20 years after his show is cancelled, decides to enter the Private Investigator business for real.( he uses a honorary crimefighter badge he got in 1972). He goes on these zainy escapades trying to solve mysteries. You got to watch it to appriciate it. The executive Producer was Conan O'Brian.

"Lookwell" is the thinking man's "Police Squad," a fiercely funny sendup of the TV detective genre. It's a national tragedy that NBC execs pulled the plug. Adam West's deadpan delivery is so slyly self parodying that at times you wonder if he was in on the joke.

O'Brien and Smigel manage to drop in references to nearly every Quinn Martin 70s police drama while at the same time weaving a bitterly hilarious ode to the chew-em-up, spit-em-out world of Hollywood TV actors who go from being essential pop-culture icons to unemployable has-beens in what seems like weeks.

Often overlooked in glowing tributes to "Lookwell" is the work of longtime television director E. W. Swackhamer, a veteran of the very shows "Lookwell" parodies, who imbues every frame with the dead-serious crime-fighting authenticity of "Tenspeed and Brownshoe" and "S.W.A.T." One imagines the mighty O'Brien could feasibly get "Lookwell" back in production, and he should do so at once. An essential piece of television.