Trying Times

This is SO obscure; I doubt anyone will ever read it. I watched a PBS or ABC after school special show episode before I had cable ('88) just because the TV guide listed David Byrne. He played the nerdy (don't recall him speaking 10 words) BF/fiancé of a daughter home for a family Xmas. He was a minor player. The star was a girl brought/sent home by a younger brother(?) I could swear she was played by Maddie Corman (Eric Stoltz's younger sister in "Some Kind of Wonderful".) She was the TOTAL jinx. Minor mishaps degenerated to "let me turn the light switch on while you fish the wedding ring out of the garbage disposer" and eventually the house burning down. I might be in error. Can anyone help me? This secondary email is checked weekly or so. Thanks in advance.

Here's another television series that cries out for home-video rediscovery, or at least revival by public-broadcasting syndicates or Comedy Central, but instead languishes in obscurity. The standard of writing, performance and production on this anthology was very high, indeed, and it's a pity that the PBS network of stations weren't more supportive (of this production of LA's KCET), or didn't properly get the word out (perhaps it was feared that this was too much like commercial television offerings...although it handily outclassed most situation comedy on the other US networks, with even its weakest episodes worth the viewing). The Spalding Gray episode would seem particularly poignant as well as funny today, after his suicide; Catherine O'Hara, Steven Wright, and Teri Garr's episodes were all highlights.

It's sort of a cross between "Seinfeld" and ""Annie Hall." Like "Seinfeld" (which debuted the same year), it places characters in crazy social situations, while like "Annie Hall," it uses the device of having the characters deliver monologs to the camera.

Really, though, you don't need any description of what happens on the show to be interested in it. You need only to look at a list of all the many talents involved.

Christopher Durang's contribution to this anthology series, 'Wanda's Visit' is a comic gem that really should be more widely seen. I taped it in its original run and virtually everyone I've shown it to screams with laughter. It really is hysterically funny. Swoosie Kurtz gives a wonderful performance as the ex-girlfriend from hell. Durang himself appears in a small cameo. Julie Haggarty and Jeff Daniels are equally strong. Although Durang subsequently adapted it for the stage, the original is a masterpiece of comic writing and acting. I really don't remember and didn't tape any of the other segments, but from the people involved and the descriptions, it seems like this would be a winner. Whoever owns the rights (PBS?) really should dig through the vaults and release this.

Even as a High School student I knew this series was something special. I have no idea how many episodes they ran. The three (perhaps 4) I managed to catch featured, 1. Spaulding Gray, 2. Rosanna Arquette & David Byrne, 3. Steven Wright.

I would love to own these on DVD. Smart, funny, ironic, biting...as if Kurt Vonnegutt had written a TV show!

They ran on the local PBS station and as a result never had a regular time spot. I've tried searching for more information on the program but have turned up very little.

I'll try to write a few more details in regard to the individual episodes soon.