Lookwell

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.

This pilot for a tv show is the funniest 30 minutes I have ever seen. Adam West is perfectly cast as a hasbeen actor who used to star on a detective show back in the 70s who now thinks he can fight crime.

If anyone has this on tape let me know. I would love to see this again.

My husband saw a clip from this on the Adam West Bio and

hunted it down on eBay. It was worth every cent, and actually gets

funnier every time I watch it. It's obvious, if you know and

appreciate Conan OBrien's sense of humor, that he had a good

hand in the writing. Adam West is perfectly cast and for those of

you who thought he had no sense of humor about himself...just

watch. Words can't do it justice... down to the last detail, this pilot is

hilarious and if I think for too long about the fact it didn't get picked

up, I wnt to bang my head against the wall (or bette yet, bang some

network exec who makes these genius decisions against a wall).

I defy anyone with a sense of humor to sit through this without

giglling uncontrollably in the first 5 minutes (at least once).

10/10 stars. Hunt it down or wait till it's on Trio again...it's worth it,

trust me.

"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.

A friend and former roommate and I just happened to be sitting around watching TV, not expecting anything special, when this came on. It was a pilot episode and NBC threw it on the air during the dead summer months. We were bowled over by the sense of humor, right in our ballpark. The stamp of O'Brien and Smigel, that we now are quite familiar with from over 10 years of watching them on Late Night, is all over this puppy.

Adam West plays an actor who played a 1970's TV detective, who thinks he's a real detective. That's about all you need to know, but the writing and acting really sell the show. One of the funniest ideas ever. My friend and I still talk about it from time to time. (Okay, fine, we're losers who have nothing else to talk about.)

It is one of the crimes of television history that NBC did not pick this up even for a 6 episode run. I've been thinking about trying to dig up a copy of this masterwork. When I try to describe it to people who haven't seen it, they just shrug and go "whatever," but I assure them that they are missing out on comedy gold.

Okay, maybe I'm overhyping it, but it sure is one of my favorite undeservedly obscure TV nuggets of all time. I put it up there next to "Quark" with Richard Benjamin. At least that one had 6 episodes. Somebody dig this up and put it as a bonus on a DVD of Late Night or something, would ya?

NOTE: As of late 2006, the show is readily available on several different internet video sites for viewing. Apparently the show made an appearance on the late lamented Trio cable network within the past 5 years, and some people recorded it. Catch it if you can.