The Associates -- Television Series

A few episodes from THE ASSOCIATES are on YouTube. The 1979-1980 series from the illustrious team behind TAXI is set at a Wall Street law firm. The ensemble cast includes a young Martin Short. Despite the thirteen-episode order, only nine ever aired.

Despite the constant parade of legal drams on television, there haven't been many law office-set series. I co-wrote a comedy pilot and we opted to set it in a low rent, one-horse law firm because... write what you know.

Back to THE ASSOCIATES. Martin Short is one of our great sketch comedians and has created some iconic characters. However, playing a normal town "real world" person he seems ill at ease. Here he plays Tucker Kerwin a fresh out of Harvard Law associate. Several other great comedians struggled in this manner: Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters. Short gets better as the episodes go on but he's a bit 'hot' in the cool medium of television.

Jim Brooks, Stan Daniels, Ed. Weinberger, and Charlie Hauck are credited as creators. James Burrows directed the pilot. David Lloyd, perhaps the greatest of all sitcom writers, wrote seven of the thirteen episodes. Two episodes received Emmy nominations and the complete 13 ran on the BBC and Comedy Central in the 1990s. (Thanks Wiki.) B.B. King performed the theme, "Wall Street Blues" and it gives you a hint of the problem to come, "You're young. You've got money..." Not the blues and not indicative of comedy.

Why doesn't the show work? Making the lead character (Short) a Harvard-grad at a prestigious Wall Street firm was an error. The average American hates lawyers and hates Wall Street and a rich, well-heeled firm servicing the 1%-ers creates instant hostility. Why are we rooting for these people? It'd be like setting MTMS in a top-dollar Los Angeles market with a super-competent news staff. It doesn't work. We root for underdogs; these are overdogs.

One of the series creators was John Jay Osborn, Jr. author of THE PAPERCHASE. Likely how we started with Harvard and Wall Street. That's the world the writer knew.

Characters on the show include:

Shelly Smith as Sara James. A fellow associate with supermodel looks. Indeed, the actress had earlier appeared on national magazine covers as part of her modeling career. Short's character strikes out with her in the second episode.

Alley Mills as Leslie Dunn. A fellow associate who plays the smart girl the boys ignore. She'd later play the mom on WONDER YEARS.

Wilfrid Hyde-White (to movie fans: Colonel Pickering from MY FAIR LADY) as Emerson Marshall. Elderly law firm founder who has some funny moments in the episodes.

Joe Regalbuto as Eliot Streeter a young partner in the firm. Joe would later win an Emmy for a recurring role on MURPHY BROWN.

Tim Thomerson as Johnny Danko the mailroom guy clueless male model-type.

Who is the center of the series? The formula as old as THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW is to have a normal dude or dudette and surround them with crazies. This works on TAXI with Alex Reiger who gets the occasional laugh but is the reasonable (audience) entry into the world of zanies. The zanies (Jim and Latka) took over that series as it went on providing the best episodes.

There's no true center in THE ASSOCIATES. There's no Alex. They can't do humor from the incompetence of the lawyers as these are the highest paid in the country from the most prestigious schools. Had it been a play the show would have closed in Philadelphia. Despite the all-star team behind THE ASSOCIATES it was dead in the water from the pilot.

NIGHT COURT was a low-rent legal series that was amusing and lasted for years. It had Harry Anderson as the center. John Laroquette won many Emmys for his supporting role. Markie Post played a memorable public defender. Richard Moll and Selma Diamond as bailiffs. Low rent, late night zany cases and defendants, and a talented cast. This was far from Wall Street and it worked.

Following cancellation, THE ASSOCIATES was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Comedy Series of 1980. Must've been an off year.

Footnote: Decades ago we did laugh at young rich people in the amusing world of Screwball Comedies. See, for example, THE LADY EVE. Submit your paper as to why we don't do so now.

Second Footnote: A joke from my co-penned though never produced legal set pilot (which I'll resurrect one day perhaps): "Yes, your word is good enough for me. I just want your word in writing."