Needles and Pins

'Needles and Pins' is an American sitcom that never aired in Britain, and that's no loss. In the late 1960s and early 70s, I worked for a producer in Britain who occasionally bought syndication rights to U.S. tv shows; consequently, I got to see sample episodes of American programmes which he was considering ... including this one.

'Needles and Pins' took place amid the garment district in Seventh Avenue, New York City. In Britain, there was already a very funny sitcom with a garment industry setting: 'The Rag Trade', which emphasised jokes over plot or character development. 'Needles and Pins' wasn't very funny, because the series' creators were more interested in depicting realistic characters in a plausible workplace. But this show was DULL. We see a few stock shots of Seventh Avenue, but the action takes place almost entirely within a few claustrophobic sets. The characters keep talking about getting the material to the cutters, or getting the samples to the buyers ... but we never SEE the garment industry at work. No textile mills, no steam presses, no sweatshops.

The cast of 'Needles and Pins' included a few veteran character actors: Norman Fell, Bernie Kopell, Milton Selzer, Louis Nye. I'm not a fan of Nye, because I tend to associate him with the simpering 'Hi-ho, Steverino' character he played on Steve Allen's show. Bernie Kopell is an underrated actor, who spent much of his career chasing an easy salary in fluff like 'The Love Boat' instead of stretching his talents. Unfortunately, none of the members of this show's talented cast were given much to do in 'Needles and Pins'. Every so often, the scriptwriters would throw a couple of Yiddish words into the dialogue, in a desperate attempt to convince us that these bland characters onscreen were 'real' people.

I viewed several episodes of 'Needles and Pins' at a screening in London, when the American producer was hoping to persuade a British producer to pick up the foreign syndication rights. Before the screening a press kit was handed out, touting the actress Deirdre Lenihan. In 'Needles and Pins', she played a naive but idealistic young woman who had come to New York City to work in the garment industry, hoping to make it as a fashion designer but determined to learn every aspect of the business. The press kit for this series assured me that Deirdre Lenihan was going to be a big tv star any minute now. I'm still waiting. In 'Needles and Pins' she wore a really awful hairstyle, with her mousy-brown hair cropped extremely short. Apparently this was meant to make her look like a French gamine or something, but it made her look more like one of those French peasant girls who had their heads shaved as punishment for collaborating with the Nazis. Her character in 'Needles and Pins' is supposed to be spunky and determined, but I found her merely annoying.

Now that there are twenty million cable channels, all of them thirsty for content, practically every show in the history of television has been revived for cable syndication ... but not 'Needles and Pins'. There's a reason for that. This show stank.

Fashion is a mainstay in NYC and we have shows related to that topic from every era. This one had potential, with some serious comic star power.

What we have with "Needles and Pins" is a mixed bag of elements from various TV tropes. There's the demanding but kind-hearted boss, Nathan, played by Norman Fell. He runs the Lorelei Fashion House. There's the buttinski family member, Harry, that's Louis Nye in a flamboyant role as Fell's brother. And our fish out of water is Deirdre Lenihan, she's Wendy, a young designer fresh from the Midwest, determined to make it in NYC because she thinks she's that good.

Most of the comedy in this series comes from mistakes, as Wendy is mistaken for a fashion model when she walks in and gets hired because she did such a good job wearing the clothes, nobody bothered to find out she designs them. Or someone ordered the wrong textiles from the factory and then there was a need to figure out what to do with them once they were on hand.

Bernie Kopell is the brand label's main salesman, and his role provided a stabilizing force within the cast, something he would do in nearly all of the roles in his long and illustrious career. Yes, he got some funny lines, but much of the time, he was there to give some credibility to some wild circumstances.

In many episodes, the plots of the series seemed like just an excuse for Mr. Nye to dress up in fancy frocks and emote, which he originally did as part of the cast of "The Steve Allen Show" (where we also first met Bill Dana's character, José Jiménez, from 396's "The Bill Dana Show"). And also it gave Norman Fell an opportunity to either yell about or do a slow burn over the screw ups that befell the company.

And, of course, there had to be an archrival, and that was long-time character actor Milton Seltzer who played Julius, owner of a competitor fashion house who Nathan was sure was stealing his ideas and plans. You might even say that this was a leftover from the Cold War, as the "spy activity" presented here was very similar to the programs of the mid 1960s, less so, the current programs of 1973.

New York plays a part because it's all about fashion, selling garments to the local department stores, the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood and the various characters involved in producing a line, including union workers, pattern cutters, and the label's bookkeeper, Sonia, played by Sandra Deel, who tried her best to keep the company out of the red. Oh, and there was that one episode where a blizzard hits NYC, stranding the Lorelei employees with the despised Julius.

Honestly, nobody learned anything about how a fashion label actually worked from this show, and they didn't even use the hit song of the same name as the theme, or at least call the show "Needles and Pinzah!" Now, THAT would have been funny!

I think the lack of trust coming from the boss man, Nathan, made this somewhat exhausting, if not very predictable. And they didn't make enough use of Wendy's fish out of water tale when it came to plots.

On the other hand, perhaps the show's title was accurate, as all of the needling the castmates did with each other formed the basis for everything, and eventually led to the show's cancellation.