TV Time Bonus: The Joey Bishop Show

Hey, remember that ClassicFlix piece I wrote a few months ago about expectant dads?

Well, I had to delete The Joey Bishop Show for space reasons, but let me share a few screencaps with you today. I watched several episodes from season 2, the one season available on official DVD. It's weird because costar Guy Marks had already been 86'ed (for stealing too many scenes from Bishop, from what I heard) and been replaced by Corbett Monica. Monica's character was the head writer on the TV show in which Bishop's "Joey Barnes starred. So the show underwent a radical format change  after season 1 (more on that in a future post), then halfway through the next season, it dumps one of the main supporting characters.

Well, what is another radical way to goose a show? Yep, bring on a baby! So at the end of season 2, a multi-episode arc features the pregnancy of Joey's on-screen wife Ellie (Abby Dalton). Season finale "The Baby Cometh" is one of the more entertaining episodes I have seen. It is not exactly an atypical installment, though; from what I can tell, season 2 features Bishop as a TV personality who bosses everyone around while indulging the morons around him. It's not like, say, Bob Newhart, who is the calm center but often the butt of the joke. Bishop seems more like he's telling the audience, "You see what I have to put up with?"

Still, this is a fun episode, with my favorite bit being one in which Joey organizes all the expectant dads like a military command  (see what I mean about him always being in control)? Of course, all soon-to-be TV fathers pace in a delivery room  because that's just what they do...except for the jaded ones who have already had umpteen kids, and, brother, you better believe this episode gives us one of those, too.

You can do worse than this arc if you want to sample The Joey Bishop Show, but I found an extra feature on the disc much more compelling. I'll touch on that later this week, but for now, here are some shots of Joey in action:

Joey doing one of his favorite things:  yelling

This organizing the fathers thing really is much funnier than I make it sound

I just like breaking the fourth wall...

...especially in close-ups