Fernwood 2 Night

One of my favorite features on Fernwood Tonight was the guests. One was a scientist researching the effects of polyester using white rats. He held up a rat dressed in a tiny polyester leisure suit, and a control rat dressed in tweed. He reported that, not only did the rats in tweed get less cancer, they got more girls.

Definitely a show before it's time. I really wish somehow they would do reruns. Of course, the content may not be 'politically correct' but that is what I have always admired about Norman Lear, and Lorne Michaels too. They run on the edge and beyond and that is what makes their comedy so entertaining.

Sometimes some of the best shows don't remain. I was not a fan of Mary Hartman Mary Hartman but loved Fernwood 2nite. I remember the dead pan-ness of Martin Mull and the always over exuberant Fred Willard. This show is probably what put Martin Mull on the map?

Last poster said Norman Lear is deceased.

Norman Lear is very much alive!

Other than Monty Python, I can't think of too many shows where I would actually hurt from laughing so hard, but this was one of those shows.

I think there were a lot of elements that made this show so great: all the characters were wonderful, and I like how they were so earnest in the way they went about doing their show in the small town of Fernwood Ohio, the guests who happened along and got their 15 minutes of fame momentarily, the non-PC way Barth and Jerry conversed about pretty much any topic or person, and of course, Happy Kyne and the Merthmakers.

I'd like to see the shows again to see if they were all as good as I remember.

I absolutely rolled on the floor with laughter at this show. Martin Mull and Fred Willard were the perfect choices to play the hosts of "Fernwood Tonight". During those days, Johnny Carson was so popular and it was hilarious to see the hosts of "Fernwood Tonight" act as if their show was just as popular on a small town scale. I would love to see this series come out on DVD. It's a shame that this type of humorous show is no longer....there is too much nudity,sex and violence on TV these days. I miss just laughing at something silly! It would be so much fun to reminisce and watch this show. After all these years, I've never forgotten it. So many other shows seemed to be released on DVD right away, PLEASE release "Fernwood Tonight" to DVD!

In the fall of 1977, this program became one of the brightest TV memories in my young life. Ranks right up there with Monty Python and SCTV. I too hope it emerges one day on DVD. It once made me laugh so hard, I rolled around on the floor and wet my pants. Not the coolest thing to do in front of your college roommates.

The show wasn't so much a jab at small-town life, as a satire of cheesy small-town TV stations. Channel 6 - WZAZ, could as easily have been Channel 8 - CKNX, Wingham, Canada (the local station I grew up watching). I am sure Kirkland Lake's own Alan Thicke used one of his local stations as F2N's model (Probably CFCL-Timmins, CKSO-Sudbury, or both). One episode, interrupted for a news bulletin about a three-alarm blaze, promised "film at 11 pm tomorrow night". Anyone in North America who had access to these small-but-mighty TV stations could easily relate.

I can still remember the first episode I watched, wondering what the heck I had stumbled onto. To my knowledge, nothing like this had ever been attempted on TV before. What an incredibly well-crafted concept Fernwood 2-Nite was! A testament to Lear, the writers, performers and crew alike. The only projects since that have come close are the Chris Guest/Eugene Levy "mockumentaries" (starring F2N's own Fred Willard). I remark at how some recent Canadian comedy TV series scripted their shows the way Fernwood 2-Nite did: Train 48, Trailer Park Boys, Puppets Who Kill and Liocracy. Some of these shows are quite hilarious, so the formula is clearly versatile.

The brilliant characters on F2N took on lives of their own. To mention only a couple seems unfair to the other talented legions. Therefore, let's take Happy Kyne and the Mirthmakers (...please)! Bandleader/Bun-N-Run proprietor Kyne (Frank De Vol....remember "Music by De Vol?"), and his band of mediocre minstrels. They were so bad, they were great! Remember their renditions of popular disco hits? 'Disco Duck', backed up by the manic drummer was classic. As qualified by host Barth Gimble(Martin Mull), "They give new meaning to the word adequate."

Once the show started having 'real' celebrities as guests, the show began to change direction. Fernwood 2-Nite gave way to America 2-Nite, which remained funny, but had lost all that small-town charm. With the explosion of cable and specialty TV in the 80s and 90s, the era of those wonderful small-town TV stations was also over. Like all good things, we probably didn't really realize how special they were until they were no longer.