Best of the West

I can't name another sitcom set in the old west. This show was better than many 80s sitcoms, and many of the episodes had laugh-out-loud moments, both lines and sight gags. Three of the "best" guest-starred Christopher Lloyd as The Calico Kid.

Tracy Walter, as Frog, was funny every time he hit the screen. Tom Ewell, more famous for movies like The Seven Year Itch, did a great job as the often inebriated town doctor.

Unfortunately, this series is almost impossible to find. I had to find someone who taped it on VHS when it originally ran to recently watch it again. For sitcom lovers, it's certainly worth a look.

This show was surprisingly good for the time period that it was on. The cast was more than acceptable and the premise was cute (essentially, it was a PC Blazing Saddles for the prime-time set). Tracey Walters was great as Frog (I'm Frooag... my mother still says that sometimes).

My only disappointment is that shows like this (and maybe Quark) do not seem to have caught the eye of either Nick at Nite or TV Land. Now I know for a fact that they were playing My Mother the Car at some point on those channels (I saw it), but they seem to ignore some of the truly fine quality shows of the '70s. Oh well, it is worth seeing if you get a chance.

Who could forget dialogue like this?

"What's your name?"

"...People call me 'Frog' "

"What's you're real name?"

"...Frog. That's why people call me it."

In the late '70s the proliferation of Westerns and Old-West shows came to a grinding halt as "Rawhide", "The Virginian", "Bonanza" and even "Wild, Wild West" (to name a few) lost popularity as the new generation of viewers could no longer remember the Law of the West, let alone identify with the themes.

"Best of the West" was a worthy attempt at assimilating good clean sitcom humor with glimpses of a close, but bygone era. Alas there are only so many ways to keep fresh such a plot summary before being outscripted by more modern themes (Greatest American Hero), classic "good guys always beat bad guys" shows to come like A-team, good American style fun of "Cheers", or your atypical family sitcom with a twist like "Different Strokes" and Joel Higgins' migration to "Silver Spoons".

This was every bit as good as "Cheers" and "Taxi" from the same writers. Pity it wasn't as successful.

Every western show cliché you can think of was here. And they surrounded it with as many gags and puns as possible. Like Monty Python or the 'Airplane' movies, you had to be careful. Jokes came so fast sometimes, you might have missed a few.

Joel Higgins' deep bass and OTT 'white hat' acting was perfect. And the late Leonard Frey as the sleazy business man was just as great. And of course who could forget Frog.

Best line? Best: "Mayor if it was your wife you'd pay the ransom right?" Mayor: "They gonna kill her or just torture her a little." A DVD release is deserved.

I was about ten years old when this show was on and that was probably the primary demographic. As I learned later in broadcasting school, the time period this show was produced in was the era of a Reagan administration mandate that there be "family programming" in the 7:00PM-9:00PM block on all networks. This is what resulted in the low-grade but "fun" programming like Spencer, Different Strokes and Best of the West. I'm not saying that this was bad, but if was definitely not the best programming. For a six to ten year old this would have been acceptable entertainment and would have made them feel "grown up" for watching something after 8:00PM.

The show has many glaring misrepresentations of the old west, but what do you expect from a family friendly sitcom? Family friendly often equates to sanitized of most truth. The most memorable character from the show is without a doubt, Frog. Something about the actor reminds me of William Sanderson who played the Larry character in Newhart (I'm Larry, this is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl). They both had the same kind of bumpkin delivery in their roles with a pinch of weirdness. Tracy (the actor who played Frog) also appears in the classic film Repo Man as a possible alien. Playing up on his strangeness.

It is quite unfair that this program is not on DVD for those who wish to see it as all the episodes could fit on one or two DVDs and wouldn't really need any special features. Also surprising that it isn't on TV Land, Nick at Night or even AOL's In2TV.