The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer

I liked this show but it was cancelled so quickly. I found it to be rather funny and gave a humorous look at a historical period in time. The show seemed clever to me. While I liked it, it really is not much of a surprise it did not lastl. To my knowledge, the last episode to air was the Halloween episode. To bad it did not last.

Not only was this show stupid and insulting to everyone involved, it was a dreadful concept for a comedy. One could make a fascinating story about the black slaves and free servants that worked in the Executive mansion, a kind of "West Wing" mixed with "Upstairs Downstairs," but rather than doing that, the producers decided to go with a low brow yuk fest that was both historically inaccurate and not at all funny. Given that it was set at one of the most stressful times in American history, a period in which decisions were made that set the course for everything that came afterward in the USA, one could do a satire of contemporary morals and cultural beliefs that would be both enlightening and humorous; but that was not what we got in this show. What the producers delivered was leering juvenile jokes about horny wives, stupid politicians and funny slavery. The show lasted less than a season, and that was still too long.

"The Secret Diaries of Desmond Pfieffer" was a television show that, sadly, only lasted for four weeks, during which the show and its premise was constantly derided and mocked by the media and largely ignored by the television viewing public.

True, a sitcom about Abraham Lincoln's sarcastic black butler sounds silly, and it is, but luckily the show carried a sense of self-awareness. Despite one atrocious episode (in which the drunken Ulysses S. Grant faces down his bowling demons) the show 's remaining three were not pitifully stupid, as some folks would have you believe.

The cast was top notch: Chi MacBride (who was Cyrus in Peter Jackson's under-rated "The Frighteners") is simply superb as the title character: A dignified and intelligent overwieght black man, truly a rarity among prime-time role models. Max Baker was the image of perfection as Nibblet, the inbred indentured servant, and Dan Florik was suitable as the Bill Clinton-meets-Gerald Ford Lincoln.

The show isn't perfect, though. Many jokes fall flat, and the woman playing Mrs. Lincoln is quite annoying.

But the show had its moments, as evidenced in the episode in which Desmond, Nibblet, and Lincoln are stranded behind Confederate Lines. Desmond has convinced the Southern soldiers that he is, in fact, a white Confederate spy disguised as a black Northern free slave. One Southerner inquirers, "It must be awfully hard on you to even temporarily go through life as a Negro."

To which Desmond replies "Oh, it hasn't been that bad. I have been able to get a lot more white women!"

It will be missed.

I only saw one or two episodes of this short-lived series, but based on what I saw, I must wonder if the producers intended an American version of the British series "Black Adder". Certainly there seem to be some parallels, especially with the third Black Adder series, set during the reign of Mad King George. The conniving and scheming Mr. Pfeiffer seems awfully much like Mr. Blackadder, while Pfeiffer's man Nibblet and Blackadder's man Baldric share much in common.

What they did not share, unfortunately, was a deeply embedded sense of wit. The buffoonery surrounding Pfeiffer was played far too broadly to remain funny for very long. The most effective clowns are generally those who do not seem to realize their own clownishness. Dann Florek (much better known for roles like that he played in Law and Order) seems to be playing buffoon to a mirror.

Now, since I haven't seen every show that ever aired on network T.V., I won't say its the worst show ever, but its one of the worst I ever saw. I was eating dinner at my mothers house the night this show had its debut and quickly ate my dinner so I could go in her living room and see if it was as bad as the reviewer in the New York Post said it was. Well it was. The shows humor was crude, crass, and childish. Set during the civil war the show depicts president Lincon and his generals and staff as bunch of lunatics more obsessed with sex than carrying on with the important nations business at hand. Only during the Clinton administration could anyone come up with an idea as vulgar as this. The shows portrayal of Mary Todd Lincon as a neurotic nymphomaniac demonstrates the levels the creators of this show could sink to.

The fact that this show only lasted a few episodes shows the American viewing public still has some taste.