Fish

Fish was a spin-off of the Barney Miller TV series, with Abe Vigoda as the star. His incredibly whiny and annoying nag wife was played by Florence Stanley.

The kids were played by a repulsive cast of odd characters. The only exception was Todd Bridges as Loomis. Eventually he would be traded to the Different Strokes TV series, where he teamed up with Gary Coleman and made TV history.

John Cassissi, who played Victor, the big obnoxious kid, was later convicted of fraud and sentenced to 2-6 years in prison. When I saw this show as a kid, I thought Victor was a mentally handicapped character. He was always bouncing around and putting his face into people.

Len Bari and Sarah Natoli both disappeared from the acting profession by 1981, never to be seen again. This was one of those shows which had no young stars except for Todd Bridges. The rest of them are in the witness protection program.

I found this show on Crackle app, and tried to watch the first episode, and it reminded me of how incredibly lame this show was. I could not get past when all the annoying kids arrive and start yelling at Fish and his wife. The fact that Victor (Cassisi) and Len Bari are much older than the other kids is very creepy. Len Bari was 22 in 1977, and he looked it. Cassisi was a big fat 15 and he looked 25.

I thought this was a great show, and one of the few comedies that has successfully crossed the Atlantic to the UK. Good casting.

Sure it's a lot of kids doing mildly bad things, but the difference is having a cop for a foster parent. He could have got rid of them at any time, but the kids opened his eyes, and he put morals across in a mild way. Abe's performance was superb.

His reactions every time there was a new problem were truly great, his expressions, and mannerisms. Perhaps a little moralistic, but it gave a good account of accommodating differences, and seeing things from a different point of view.

Ok, I liked "Barney Miller" back in the '70s (its pretty dated now though). And the character Fish was an amusing grumpy old man, played by Abe Vigoda. But this spinoff may be the WORST SITCOM EVER! Imagine a '70s era sitcom with all bad clothing, lame jokes and canned laughter and just add in five extremely annoying smart-aleck kids: you get this show. If you ever do see it on TV (although I don't know if any station would broadcast reruns of this show), you are bound to be amazed that such an awful train-wreck of a sitcom not only made it on the air, but lasted for over a year! Avoid unless morbid curiosity draws you to it - in that case just be amazed.

First of all, this wasn't a bad series and it had potential. It wasn't "Ethnic Mismatch #644" as one review said, but it proves that people of different races can live together under the same roof. Abe Vigoda is an excellent actor and sadly, he hasn't had nearly enough exposure.

Fish was not perfect, but two of the characters: Fish, who had comical mannerisms and hilarious facial expressions that made me laugh out loud, and his lovely and sweet mannered wife made the show watchable.

The kids were kind of annoying, and it was so hard to actually like them. They could have been written better as characters on the show. The show needed more time to develop. It was certainly better than "Different Strokes", which for me is unwatchable. I have the one season of Fish on DVD and love watching the show, which is amazing in itself. I am quite sure the series would have been a classic it it had a few series under it's belt. It deserved more than just one year. I am not quite sure why it was cancelled in the first year. It just needed a chance to grow.