Alice - General Discussion

[prelanov]

The Dukes of Hazzard is a fabulous pick 

[catlover79]

It was great seeing Mel and Boss Hogg in the same scene.

[catlover79]

On 4/24/2017 at 4:21 PM, Maharincess said:

I loved the show but I hated Alice. Or rather,  I didnt care for Linda Lavin.  I always HATED how she over sang the theme songs. It just sounded ridiculous to me. 

I think Linda Lavin is much better suited as a supporting performer than a lead. She was just fine as Detective Janice Wentworth on Barney Miller, which she left to star in Alice.

[Vixenstud]

What the hell?  This was Elliot Novak, Vera's husband!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/14/us/hollywood-actor-charles-levin-found-dead/index.html

[Ubiquitous]

How the heck did this show manage to run for so many years?

[catlover79]

On 7/15/2019 at 9:31 AM, Vixenstud said:

What the hell?  This was Elliot Novak, Vera's husband!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/14/us/hollywood-actor-charles-levin-found-dead/index.html

I knew the name was familiar. How very, very sad. 😢

[sigmaforce86]

Just heard Philip McKeon died.  Only 55, no details except it was "after a long illness".

I remember watching him on Alice as a kid and he hasn't been on TV in a long time so I still think of him as he was on the show.     RIP

Edited December 11, 2019 by sigmaforce86

[libgirl2]

On 12/10/2019 at 11:02 PM, sigmaforce86 said:

Just heard Philip McKeon died.  Only 55, no details except it was "after a long illness".

I remember watching him on Alice as a kid and he hasn't been on TV in a long time so I still think of him as he was on the show.     RIP

My female friends (maybe some male ones too) all had crushes on him. How sad. I had him on my mind a few times over the last year. 

[Jan Spears]

On 7/19/2017 at 12:41 PM, Ubiquitous said:

I always wondered why Linda Lavin sang all the time on this show. Did she used to be a crooner or in musicals? I thought maybe they made her sing b/c that's the premise of the show, but I find it hard to believe they would do that.

Alice being a would-be singer was part of the show's premise but Lavin got her start working in musical theater in New York. She returned to musical theater after Alice ended (i.e. she replaced Tyne Daly in the Broadway revival of Gypsy.)

On 4/13/2018 at 6:56 PM, silverspoons said:

Even with the cheesy fake backgrounds of the outside, the show was "realistic" in the way they lived, small apartments, no cars, the struggles.

I think that was part of the show's appeal and why it lasted so long. In its day, people could relate to the main characters and their various situations.

On 7/27/2018 at 9:56 AM, Vixenstud said:

PH should have taken a page out of Whitman Mayo (Sanford and Son)/Marla Gibbs (The Jeffersons) and put it in her contract that if 'Flo' flops, she could return to Alice.

Flo returning to Alice might not have worked (and not just from a standpoint of Lavin and Holliday's working relationship.) I wonder if Flo having to return to Mel's as a waitress (after owning her own business) would have been a little too downbeat for a sitcom audience.

On 10/14/2018 at 7:00 PM, Irate Panda said:

Couldn’t stand Martha Raye.  Was she supposed to be annoying so we could she why Mel was Mel or was it just her acting in general?  I never saw her in anything else.

That was always her style - dating back to the 1930s and 1940s.

[mmecorday]

I loved this show when I was growing up and I'm almost afraid to watch it again. I remember the episode where Vera overdosed on sleeping pills and Alice and Flo had to keep her awake all night until help arrived. I don't remember why the ambulance was delayed -- maybe a bad storm? Anyway, in the morning Mel arrives and he's pleasantly surprised that Alice and Flo were there before him. They are both exhausted and Flo says, "Mel!" And we're all expecting her to deliver her classic "Kiss my grits!" line but instead she says, "I'm too tired to say it!" 

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 7/5/2023 at 7:05 PM, Jan Spears said:

I wonder if Flo having to return to Mel's as a waitress (after owning her own business) would have been a little too downbeat for a sitcom audience.

 

22 minutes ago, mmecorday said:

I loved this show when I was growing up and I'm almost afraid to watch it again.

 

For a comedy, the show is kind of a downer.  There are laughs for sure, but there is an undercurrent of "This is pretty depressing."

 

[Jan Spears]

6 hours ago, TheLastKidPicked said:

For a comedy, the show is kind of a downer.  There are laughs for sure, but there is an undercurrent of "This is pretty depressing."

I agree. Yes, it was a sitcom. But there was always a strong element to it of the waitresses struggling to make ends meet and, more importantly, feeling like their dreams were forever beyond reach. Even the series finale - while upbeat - didn't have every single character going off to live in affluence.

If Alice was remade as a series now, it probably would be a drama with comedic aspects rather than the reverse. (In other words, it would resemble the original source movie much more than the series did.)

Edited July 7, 2023 by Jan Spears

[Jan Spears]

Given the popularity of Polly Holliday's Flo character, I was curious to see what impact her leaving in Season 4 had. As it turned out, the show lost a little but not that much:

Season - Rank - Rating

Season 4:  #4/25.3 (Holliday leaves in episode 16 and Diane Ladd joins in the next episode.)

Season 5:  #7/22.9 (Ladd leaves by the end of the season and Celia Weston joins.)

Season 6:  #5/22.7

Season 7:  #41/? (Numerous changes to the show's air dates and time slots)

The show survived just fine without Holliday (at least in terms of ratings) and weathered the flux surrounding Ladd and Weston. The real disaster occurred in Season 7 when CBS kept moving the show around on its primetime line-up and the ratings collapsed.

[Egg McMuffin]

Polly Holliday stated at the time that she had no intention of returning even if the spinoff failed and talked about how you don’t return to the nest. The “Flo” show was strangely not produced by any of the “Alice” crew. Holliday did work with the “Alice” producers again when she subbed for Eileen Brennan on the TV version of “Private Benjamin”.

The years without Flo are unwatchable. Polly was that good - she was the comic center of the show. Yeah, even the seasons with Flo can be cheezy. Most of the seasons were produced by Lucille Ball’s old writers, so there were a lot of episodes with special guest stars playing themselves or Alice getting to do a number. But Flo is always good for laughs and she has great chemistry with everyone. I was watching an episode where Flo is going to marry a middle eastern man and finds out that he already has multiple wives. Very funny.

[GATenn]

This was one of my favorite shows growing up. Oy.

Aside from Linda's vocal gymnastics, the theme song(s) was/were weird. She made it sound like she was a bored housewife who took a job to empower herself, when in reality she had no choice because her husband (who was an asshole in the movie) died, followed by her car, which stranded their asses in Phoenix.

She did, however, make it after all when she moved to Nashville. And speaking of that - talk about wrapping the show up in a neat little bow.

How many celebrities showed up, did a number with Alice, and left her ass in Phoenix? Clearly they thought she was terrible.

I could take Vera in small doses, Flo was cool and sassy, and I had to warm up to Mel. 

Word on the street is that Diane Ladd clashed with Linda, which is why Belle was abruptly written off (her last scene is of her on the phone on a separate set a la Chrissy from TC) and never shown in the retrospect. Apparently Polly Holiday clashed with Linda too, so there's that.

IMO, it didn't hold up very well.

Oh, and I just ordered one of these.

Edited October 11, 2023 by GATenn

[Snow Apple]

Antenna TV had a marathon this past Sunday and I still enjoyed the show, except when Mel's mother shows up and I just turn the channel. Like all old shows, it's dated, but it's comforting watching stuff you grew up with.

I'm glad they changed Vera's personality. She became goofy but better than the early episodes.