Ivan the Terrible

This was one of my favorite TV comedy series' ever, ranking with Newhart and Carol Burnett. At the time I was disappointed that the series ended after so few episodes.

Unlike some reviewers, I found 'Ivan the Terrible' delightful for what it was: mocking Cold War-era satire, ridiculing an obscene communist political system, played entirely for laughs.

Of course it, like Hogan's Heroes, it was not intended to accurately depict the realities of the time and place depicted, nor their spirit. Doubtless life in Moscow was bleak, just as life in a WWII POW camp was grim.

It has been said that the most effective means to destroy an idea is to make it into a joke and lampoon the oh-so-serious pretensions of its adherents.

Just as the Wendy's television commercials themed on a Soviet fashion show delightfully derided the USSR's uncultured clunkiness, so did Ivan the Terrible. (The Soviet Embassy reportedly protested the Wendy's television commercials, so their sting was not lost on the oh-so-serious folks in Moscow. It wouldn't be surprising to learn of similar USSR protests against Lou Jacobi's sitcom.)

One thing nobody has alluded to and which does not appear in that late actor's credits on the internet, is the uncredited cameo appearance at the end of each episode of Harvey Korman as a stern uniformed Soviet bureaucrat.

The echo of unseen Carlton the Doorman from MTM's contemporary Rhoda series in the 'person' of Rasputin the dog was a nice touch, too.

Ivan the Terrible was for me the perfect Cold War comedy. Sadly it was about the only such, unless one counts the Boris and Natasha scenes in the various Rocky and Bullwinkle animations.

I would love to obtain tapes of the few episodes made, almost as much for Korman's walk-ons as for the rest of the show in its own right.

'Ivan the Terrible' was a grossly unfunny comedy which at least featured a highly original central premise. Basically, it was one more 'honey, I'm home' sitcom, with the minor distinction that it took place in pre-glasnost Moscow. Whereas "Hogan's Heroes" tried to convince us that life in a Nazi prison camp was a barrel of laughs, 'Ivan the Terrible' took a similar view towards the side-splitting antics of communist Russia. Both premises were equally tasteless, but "Hogan's Heroes" had the redeeming virtue of being (often) hilarious. 'Ivan the Terrible' was, erm, terrible.

I've never found Lou Jacobi funny. He was a grossly undisciplined performer, of great vulgarity. Jacobi had the annoying habit of playing clean material as if it were dirty. Just occasionally, when kept in hand by a strong director (as in 'Irma La Douce' or 'The Diary of Anne Frank'), Jacobi gave a good performance. In 'Ivan the Terrible', as in most of his career, Jacobi was just cheap and vulgar.

Ivan Petrovsky (plain old 'John Peters' in English) is a put-upon schlub, working as a headwaiter to support a wife, three kids and his mother-in-law. Their walk-up flat in Moscow is also home to Raoul Sanchez, an exchange student from Cuba. As much as I despise communism, I was impressed by the performance of Manuel Martinez (who?) as Sanchez. The various Russian characters in this sitcom are played mostly as buffoons, but Martinez (in Cuban fatigues and beard, costumed and coiffured to look like international thug Che Guevara) gives an absolutely sincere and straightforward performance as a dedicated Marxist guerrilla. In the same way that Chaplin's film 'The Great Dictator' was anchored by Henry Daniell's performance as the only Nazi in the movie who projected any genuine menace, any merit that 'Ivan the Terrible' possesses is down to Martinez's performance. Why hasn't this actor gone on to anything better?

Even granting that this is a comedy, 'Ivan the Terrible' makes no attempt at an accurate depiction of life under a totalitarian regime. I visited Moscow on business at about the time that this show was in production in Hollywood, and I can vouch that the real Soviet Union was much, much worse than this. Telephone directories were nonexistent, typewriters had to be registered with the police, and photocopiers were illegal. Shortages of food (and everything else) were so chronic that Muscovites tended to get into any queue they encountered, without even knowing what they were queuing for, on the assumption that (whatever it was) it had to be worth standing in line for.

As performed by Jacobi, Ivan had a wisecrack for every situation. When a customer in Ivan's hotel restaurant asks why the price of bread has gone up in Moscow, Jacobi smugly explains that it's because the price of wheat has gone up in America. Jacobi's wisecracks are faintly amusing but fatal to the premise of this sitcom. I assure you that citizens of Moscow in the 1970s did *not* make glib wisecracks about Soviet policies or shortages, especially not in the presence of strangers. The KGB are everywhere, comrade.

In a typical episode of 'Ivan the Terrible', an American documentary crew got permission to film a 'typical' Moscow family for US television. Naturally, they pick the Petrovskys. When Ivan's family learn they're going to be on American TV, they all get stage-struck. Ivan's son Nikolai puts on a top-hat and cape, and tries to do conjuror's tricks. Daughter Svetlana dresses up in a swan costume and attempts to do a ballet. (The clumsy and graceless Svetlana is played by Nana Visitor, a very talented dancer indeed... although you'd never know it from this show.)

If you're wondering why I watched a show that was so awful, full disclosure is in order. I was a friend (and occasional business associate) of actor George S. Irving and his wife Maria Karnilova, fondly known to her wide circle of friends as 'Marouschka'. A talented actress and brilliant dancer, Marouschka Karnilova (accent on the surname's second syllable) made almost no attempt to draw upon her own Russian family's heritage in her performance as Ivan's overworked wife Olga. I guess she knew this series wasn't worth the effort. Also, Peter H. Hunt directed one of my all-time favourite films (the musical '1776'), so I had high hopes for his directorial efforts on this series. He disappointed me. Meanwhile, Lou Jacobi and Phil Leeds (as Ivan's sidekick) perform their roles as if they were a couple of Yiddish tummlers in the Borscht Belt of the Catskills. Not for one instant did I believe they were Russians living in Moscow. 'Ivan the Terrible' is so terribly unfunny, I can barely rate it one point out of 10. Vladimir Lenin will jump out of his coffin in Red Square and whistle 'Hava Nagila' before this show becomes funny. Nyet, comrade!

I disagree with the majority: I enjoyed this series. I was also young when it aired. Two episodes stand out in my mind. In one, the government had chosen a family as a "model" to show off to some Western visitors. To this end, the familiar "KGB guy" showed up to move all sorts of fancy-shmancy furniture into the apartment--which was taken away as soon as the Westerners had completed their nickel tour. In another, the KGB investigated because Sasha scored a 99 on the state exam--something about science, math, transportation, etc. Re transportation in particular, he aced that section because his aunt--who lived with them--worked for the government train administration bureau or what-have-you. Oh, yeah, Ivan also had a dog that lived in the closet, and he kept kicking the closet door every now and then to shut the beast up.

To add to the recollection of the opening theme: "Life's getting better; spring's coming soon Nine feet of snow - and it's only June.

Look @ our ........, look at our luck, Papa's a head waiter - and Mama drives a truck!

Chorus: ......... Living in Moscow; living in Moscow gets better every day - hey!

Plenty of friends here: vodka and wine, Such a big family - some of which is mine.

Shoulder to shoulder, close as can be, There's 9 in my apartment - and there's no room for me!

Chorus (reprise)"

This was a CBS limited run series that ran during the year of the Bicentennial late summer/early fall. I don't recall how many episodes were taped but a mere 5 episodes of this parody of Soviet life aired. Although it was popular, the State Department apparently ordered CBS to discontinue the series under political pressure of the then Soviet Union. It featured the most unusual family unit - at least for 1976: the father Ivan Petrovsky worked as a head waiter in a major Moscow hotel, his wife Olga drove a truck. Also in the 1 bedroom apartment were: their son Nikolai who was an astronaut, Nikolai's wife Sonya, their daughter Svetlana who was a ballerina, their younger son Sascha who appeared to be in grade school, Olga's former husband Vladimir who appeared to do zip but give opinions, Olga's mother Tatiana who drove subway trains and Raoul Sanchez - a Cuban exchange student who boarded there - plus a never seen but sometime heard dog named Rasputin that appeared confined to a room behind closed doors.

I also remember the late great Lou Jacobi's Ivan character frequently calling someone a "yutz" - which probably was a catchphrase meaning fool. A decade later the late great Estelle Getty used it in her Sophia character on "The Golden Girls". I've used that word myself to this day. To me the funniest were Lou Jacobi (Ivan) and Phil Leeds (Vladimir - his "husband-in-law" - the former husband of Ivan's wife Olga) - the two actors and characters complimented each other well in their comedy, closely followed by Christopher Hewitt, the Federov character that appeared in each episode as a different KGB buttinsky type official (one episode he was an unemployment agency official, another episode he oversaw the Petrovsky family's being interviewed by American TV reporter Tom Skyler - an obvious take off on real life Tom Snyder - as a typical Russian family to make sure the family were portrayed as upper middle class, lending them appliances for the broadcast that they were obviously unfamiliar with [(e.g. Olga putting dishes in what she & Ivan thought was a dishwasher but was actually a washing machine!]).

The series gave American typical sitcom plots what they felt would be a Soviet twist - possibly cutting too close for comfort to the Soviets who in turn pressured the US State Department to have the plug pulled on the series - a shame - wish the episodes could be found some place.

I can't vote on the quality of this show, save that I remember the opening lines of the theme song:

"Life's getting better/Spring's coming soon/Nine feet of snow/And it's only June".

I am glad others remember so many details about this show; I recall that they tried to make a catchphrase out of Ivan calling someone a "yutz" or a "yotz".

There were several shows that I watched as a child that I tried to make "my shows", which was to say, shows that I alone watched and found funny. "Big Eddie" was one I used to watch and this one. Apparently, my attempts at maturity outstripped my memory!