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REMOTE CONTROL | FALL TV | TV REVIEWS
WB bulks up with a pair of winners
05-Sep-1997 Friday
The Tom Show | Alright Already
It could be that your reaction to "Alright Already" will depend on how the notion of an enormous discount store called Bulk World strikes you.
Bulk World makes me giggle just thinking about it, reminding me of all those
nightmarish warehouse stores where everything from toilet paper to ketchup is
sold in quantities that until now were bought only by hotels and large
restaurants.
Every time somebody in "Alright Already" goes shopping at Bulk World,
I break up. So to me, it's a very funny show.
Better yet, "Alright Already" supplies laughter in bulk quantities,
making it one of the brightest spots in the new fall TV lineup. Joining it
Sunday on WB is a surprisingly enjoyable new sitcom "The Tom Show,"
starring the hitherto merely irritating Tom Arnold.
To take them in order of appearance, in "The Tom Show," Arnold plays a
character not unlike himself.
Arnold's from Iowa, and his career at first rose with his marriage to Roseanne,
then fell after their divorce. He's playing Tom Amross, who returns to St. Paul,
Minn., after his divorce from a talk show hostess; he pithily tells friends he
"went away, got married, got rich, got divorced,
got broke, came back."
This is Arnold's third try at starring in his own sitcom and he may have got it
right. Some of his fidgety nervousness has at last worn off (though he still
licks his lips incessantly) and he's playing it low-key and easygoing, which is
something of a relief.
As Amross, he and his two daughters move into the upstairs apartment of a large,
old house and he goes back to work at the local TV station as producer of a
morning talk show, "Breakfast With Charlie."
Charlie, played with gentle, delightful charm by former Johnny Carson sidekick
Ed McMahon, has been hosting the show for 43 years, reading the morning paper
and chatting, and is much beloved by what remains of his shrinking audience.
McMahon's strongest suit has always been his enthusiastic outlook and it's
put to good use here, as when he tells Tom brightly why he gets up at 3 a.m. for
a cable TV exercise show: "That's when the Hawaiian girls come on!"
Charlie has been given several of the cleverest lines in Sunday's pilot and
McMahon delivers all with blithe aplomb, telling Tom in a dark moment, "If
I were an Aztec emperor, I'd drink a bowl of boiling gold and call it a
day."
Dramatic tension is introduced in the person of Florence Madison (Shawnee
Smith), a young woman Tom recruits to add a female voice to Charlie's
show. Madison, as she prefers to be called, approaches her new job with more
than a bit of attitude, bringing up environmental concerns when Charlie just
wants to talk hunting.
Naturally, Madison will stick around and so, let's hope, will "The Tom
Show."
Carol Leifer, previously a writer and producer for "Seinfeld" and
"The Larry Sanders Show," is creator and star of "Alright
Already," a rather Seinfeldian and extremely funny comedy about a thirtyish
woman and her family and friends in Miami's South Beach.
Leifer plays Carol Lerner, who works with her friend, Renee (Amy Yasbeck), in an
optometry shop, passes time watching young men skate on the boardwalk and
frequently visits her parents at their senior citizens condo complex, Flamingo
Pines Village.
There she also finds her younger sister, Jessica (Stacy Galina), who's recently
moved in with their parents and is quickly becoming a codger in spirit. Hearing
that Carol is headed for Bulk World, she asks her to bring back some dried
peaches: "My system's a little sluggish."
Jessica is dating her parents' elderly neighbors, and skipped looking for an
apartment one night because "Vic Damone was playing at the club house. Very
good! He did a two-hour show."
A sweet, daffy spirit infuses "Alright Already" and, along with the
offbeat wit of many of the lines, makes it an engaging and welcome new addition
to prime time.
All those plugs for Bulk World don't hurt, either.
TV REVIEWS
"The Tom Show"
A new WB comedy starring Tom Arnold, Ed McMahon. Premieres 9 p.m. Sunday,
KSWB/Channel 69.
* * *
"Alright Already"
A new WB comedy starring Carol Leifer. Premieres 9:30 p.m. Sunday,
KSWB/Channel 69.
* * * 1/2
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