Driving Miss Daisy

In 1988, "Driving Miss Daisy" was a huge hit on Broadway...so much so that it was made into a top film the following year. Oddly, the networks considered making a weekly series out of it...three years later. I am not sure why there was such a gap, but after seeing this failed pilot, I can see why it failed. Imagine watching "Driving Miss Daisy"...only to have a laugh track and guffaws!! It seemed very out of place and it never was originally a comedy....and after seeing the pilot, it was a comedy in name only. The show just wasn't written as a comedy...yet they stuck a laugh track on it!!

It's really a shame, as Robert Guillaume, Joan Plowright and Saul Rubinek are ALL talented folks and played their parts well. Sure, it wasn't Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy nor Dan Aykroyd...but the three TV pilot actors were most accomplished and up to the task...providing the writing and laugh track were reconsidered.

This pilot for a proposed 30 minute sitcom based on Driving Miss Daisy had much going for it and several questionable decisions. First the good. The casting is spot on. Robert Guillaume shines as a more assertive Hoke Colburn than was presented in the film. Joan Plowright, Saul Rubinek, and Theresa Merritt are all fine choices and lend an air of dignity and grace to the material. The pilot takes several scenes from the movie and strings them together as plot exposition. This is common in pilots and makes for awkward dialogue at times, but it does not slow the story too much. Now for the bad. This is shot as a standard three camera sitcom and it is simply a wrong choice for the material. It looks cheap and flat. A single camera setup would have been the correct choice. The show is presented as a standard comedy, which it is not, and a very loud, very annoying laugh track is employed far too much. Having said all that, I wish the show had gotten a chance to grow and find an audience. Over the course of a full season it might have found its footing.

I remember seeing the pilot on TV and was very excited about it. They pushed the racial issue while tastefully done as a reminder of what, sadly times were like when the show was set, but they just pushed to hard too soon in what could have been a series. Viewers were still very sensitive when this came out.

I feel, had the issue not been brought up and/or handled the way it was in the pilot, it might have done better. While All in the Family certainly pushed the limits. Things are different from the 70's as there were in the 90's. I give them an E for effort on trying to convert this from play to movie to TV script as a weekly.

Great casting, but the laugh track should not have been.