The Good Life

My buddy and I were at Universal Studios in CA and were recruited to go be in the audience of a TV show. They told us the title of the show was "The Bowmans." They put us in a bus and took us to the studio and then dropped us off back at the park about 3 hours later. It was pretty cool.

What I remember most is Drew Carey. I knew who he was from his stand-up. The warm-up comedian was really stupid and no one was laughing. He had his girlfriend there and seemed to be trying to impress her. So after a bit, Drew Carey took over doing the comedy between takes and was hilarious!! I thought it was a shame the show got canceled.

Absolutely hilarious sitcom! It had a fresh, distinctive comic tone, unlike anything else on the air before or since. The acting was great, the writing was crisp, and the situations and characters were unique. And above all, it wasn't just another sex-sex-sex sitcom, like every OTHER show on TV. So naturally, it was misinterpreted by critics, ignored by audiences, and only lasted a few months.

Caponera and Carey had a fantastic chemistry. If the show had lasted, we'd be talking about them as one of TV's great teams. Eve Gordon was hot(and funny) as Caponera's wife. The whole cast was good. They had a fantastic rapport.

"The Good Life" ran two or three months, tops. It's just another example of NBC squandering a good show while they keep garbage on the air for years. "The Good Life" and a wonderful Al Franken sitcom called "Lateline" got the shaft while junk like "Suddenly Susan" ran for years. What a way to run a railroad!

One fast anecdote: in one episode, Monty Hoffman's character Tommy is playing ping-pong when the boss walks through the office. Instead of scrambling to get back to work, Tommy just shrugs and says "Good thing I'm union!" I still use that line.

Where can we get this gem on tape? I'd buy every episode offered without hesitation.

We absolutely loved this show when it was aired and we were highly disappointed when the show was canceled. It was canceled right before it hit it's prime. I don't think the networks know what they are doing when they cancel shows such as this, even today. You just get used to something and wham! It's gone. The networks need to keep listening to the viewers as we the viewers ultimately make the choices, I believe. It is the viewers who keep the ratings. The Good Life was one of the most hilarious shows around, I never saw my husband laugh so hard in his life. I hope this comes out on DVD/VHS soon as we'd buy without hesitation.

Thanks.

The summer of '94 saw three replacement shows - "The Boys," "The Building," and "The Good Life" - that beat the hell out of the majority of network sanctioned tripe. Of the three, "The Good Life was easily the best. When Drew Carey hit it big, I hoped it might spark some interest in this forgotten gem, like say a run on a certain cable comedy channel. Alas, "The Good Life" remains buried in the annals of TV history, with only Drew's show and Shay Astar's role on "3rd Rock" as pale reminders of what once was. I fondly recall the episode in which those two discovered a mutual love of the Grateful Dead. Drew's tie-dye was a sight to behold. And "Don't forget to Clark the door!" - that should have gone down as one of TV history's classic lines.

I remember watching the show whenever I could. My NBC affiliate kept preempting it for garbage they were airing. I can remember the comment about the CFL teams. "What would you like to name yourselves?" "Rough Riders." "Nah... We've Already got a Rough Riders" "How about.... Rough Riders?" "C'mon, we need the teams..." Thank goodness Drew got his own vehicle, but what a shame that this dissolved away into nothing. The kids were cute, but I remember a guest appearance by one character later on Full House. I know that Drew even had him on his show as a guest once, too, but by then it was WAY too little, too late. It seemed like he was doing a dying man a favor. Or, how about the promo during the Olympics of the three-man Bobsled team. It didn't suffer from lack of promotion, just consistency, and local network support, along with LOW watching.