Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Pursuit Of Happiness: Tom Amandes

The Pursuit of Happiness aired from September until November 1995 on NBC.

Despite its upbeat title, the producers said this sitcom was really about " the little roadblocks" that get between us and nirvana." It must have seen that way to Steve ( Tom Amandes), an idealistic lawyer in his thirties who was forced to accept sleazy clients to help make ends meet. His career-obsessed wife Mac ( Melinda McGraw) had lost her big advertising agency job and now hung around the house; his trouble-prone brother-in-law Larry ( Larry Miller) also lived with them, causing disasters wherever he went; and Grandmother ( Maxine Stuart) was in a nursing home. At the office, Alex ( Brad Garrett) was his big, pushy, gay partner, who had no scruples at all; and Jean ( Meredith Scott Lynn) their surly secretary.

There were of course compensations. Mac wanted to have sex with him whenever she had bad news, and as for Alex's sexual orientation, " Who cares-people hate lawyers a lot more than they hate gays."

A Review from The New York Times

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: September 18, 1995

With some 42 new weekly series tumbling onto the television schedule this season, the sorting-out process takes on awesome dimensions. Among the handier tools is the matter of pedigree. "The Pursuit of Happiness," for instance, which has its premiere tomorrow night at 9:30 on NBC, boasts sturdy sitcom roots.

Dave Hackel, the creator and executive producer, has writing credits for "Wings" and before that, "Dear John." His new series has been developed by David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee, the team that got together on "Cheers" and came into its own with "Wings" and "Frasier." In terms of prime-time credits, that's about as good as it gets.

"The Pursuit of Happiness" could bolster the record. The situation is standard ensemble, rigorously eccentric, but the characters are appealing and the comedy can actually be funny. Tom Amandes, who has such a pronounced James Stewart quality that it is promoted in the show's press kit, plays Steve Rutledge, a lawyer whose relatively stable life suddenly begins disintegrating. It's anxiety time for 30-somethings.

Steve's wife, Mac (Melinda McGraw), loses her great job at an ad agency. His best friend and business partner, Alex (Brad Garrett), suddenly decides to disclose that he's gay. Steve's loony brother-in-law Larry (Larry Miller) moves into his house and gives no indication of ever leaving. Steve's feisty grandmother (Maxine Stuart) lives in a retirement community and is getting suspiciously absent-minded. And his secretary (Meredith Scott Lynn) seems to devote all her waking hours to being acerbic.

O.K., it's a formula. But it's played cleverly and with a degree of charm. There's Alex on the phone after announcing his homosexuality to his family: "Ma, I don't want to see a priest." Pause. "Wait a minute, what does he look like? I'm only joking, only joking." Or there's Grandma describing Steve's "It's a Wonderful Life" face as "open, honest and dumb as a fence post." Bim, bam, boom! "The Pursuit of Happiness" percolates promisingly. It's in the hands of pros. DANNY HOCH Some People HBO, tomorrow night at 9:45. Robert Small, producer; John Fortenberry, director; Danny Hoch, writer; produced by Home Box Office. David Campbell and William McLaughlin, executive producers

A Review from Entertainment Weekly

Television News
IDLE 'PURSUIT'
'HAPPINESS' ELUDES THE TEAM BEHIND 'FRASIER' AND 'WINGS'

By Ken Tucker

In THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (NBC, Tuesdays, 9:30-10 p.m.), Steve (The Untouchables' Tom Amandes) is a lawyer; his wife, the annoyingly spelled Macenzie (The Commish's Melinda McGraw), is unemployed. Tom shares his law offices with his old friend Alex (Brad Garrett, of Casper). Alex has announced recently that he's gay, but other than his revelation, this seems to make no difference in the show one way or the other.

Larry Miller, God bless his soul, plays Macenzie's silly brother, Larry. Miller, a stand-up comic and actor (Pretty Woman), was also the best thing in the pilot episode of The Single Guy (he played the pushy cable guy). Miller has become a top-notch character actor in the grand old manner of William Demarest and Franklin Pangborn, which is to say, he's carved out a persona (in his case, a fussy, stubborn fellow) and plays endlessly funny variations on him.

Happiness was created and developed by talented people: David Hackel, David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee, who've worked on such shows as Cheers, Frasier, and Wings. For pursuing this lame Happiness, I can only lament their big, but probably momentary, lapse. D+

A Review from The New York Daily News

'PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS' COMES UP SHORT
By ERIC MINK Daily News TV Critic

Tuesday, September 19th 1995, 1:12AM

'FRASIER' needs a companion sitcom to round out the 9 to 10 o'clock hour on NBC, but "The Pursuit of Happiness" (premiering tonight at 9:30) doesn't look like a long-term candidate.

It has two things going for it. First, it has been developed by the same Paramount-based team David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee responsible for "Frasier." Second, it boasts a couple of hilarious supporting characters, one played by actor-comedian Larry Miller and the other by Meredith Scott Lynn.

Miller plays Larry, the unthinkingly obnoxious live-in brother-in-law of the show's lead character, Steve Rutledge (Tom Amandes). Lynn is Jean Mathias, the fiercely wisecracking receptionist of the small-time law firm headed by Rutledge and his unscrupulous partner, Alex Chosek (Brad Garrett).

What the show lacks, alas, is much of anything else. Amandes, who played a bland Eliot Ness in the syndicated version of "The Untouchables," is bland and forgettable as Rutledge, a lawyer going through some vague version of a midlife crisis.

Melinda McGraw plays his unintentionally unemployed wife, Macenzie, who seems to be mainly an excuse for Larry's presence.

Garrett has some decent comic moves as Alex, who surprises his partner with a personal revelation, but Amandes is so miscast that the moment is wasted.

Watching tonight's pilot episode, I kept waiting and hoping for something impressive or even memorable to happen on screen. By the end of the show, I was still waiting.

An Article from The New York Times

TELEVISION REVIEW; Coffins and Wedding Cake: Four Sitcoms Tie the Knot

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: October 10, 1995

In real estate, it's location, location, location. Increasingly in television, it's packaging, packaging, packaging. That encompasses stunts like having the star of one sitcom show up in another, much to the delight of the laugh track. Or then you get tonight's stretch on NBC in a two-hour sitcom linkup that has been advertised as "Three Funerals and a Wedding." They could also be called "Three Goofy Farewells and a Gay Caper."

The funerals come first, beginning on "Wings" at 8 when Joe (Tim Daly) and his brother Brian (Steven Weber) are hired by a wealthy Nantucket matron to fly to Miami and bring back the body of her deceased father. When the two charming incompetents return with the wrong body, Joe ends up in the coffin impersonating the corpse. Nothing is impossible in sitcom land.

Then at 9 on "News Radio," the dizzy gang at WNYX find themselves attending several funeral services for a rat, literally, a rodent who, thanks to environmental mania, was the office pet. Dave (Dave Foley), the skeptical station manager, wonders, "Does anyone here remember something called the Black Plague?" But his fretting is dismissed as a symptom of a cold heart. Bill (Phil Hartman) witheringly suggests that Dave go and recharge his robot power pack.

On "Frasier" at 9, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and his brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce), are put in the delicate position of overseeing the ash-scattering and memorial service of their Aunt Louise, whom they unreservedly loathed. Meanwhile, their father, Martin (John Mahoney), reveals that he once composed songs specifically for Frank Sinatra. Needless to say, Frasier manages to spike the funeral service with a hilariously ambivalent eulogy and a rousing choral version of dad's "She's Such a Groovy Lady."

The gears shift screechingly in "The Pursuit of Happiness" at 9:30 as prime time veers into a gay comedy routine that would have been unthinkable for a network only five years ago. Alex (Brad Garrett), the enormous but attractive law partner of Steve (Tom Amandes), has lost his boyfriend to a 22-year-old male model. The problem: Alex has no date for a wedding reception that everyone is attending, including his former companion. When one possibility fails to materialize, Steve's wife, Mac (Melinda McGraw), insists he go as Alex's date while she has her loony brother Larry (Larry Miller) impersonate Steve.

The ensuing confusion of identities builds steadily into an engaging farce, especially when the grateful bridegroom, a client of the law firm, bestows on Alex and his date the honor of the first dance. Steve is acutely embarrassed but still notices that "Alex, you're really a wonderful dancer." As usual, the episode ends with Steve visiting his spunky grandmother (Maxine Stuart) in a retirement home. She spots a newspaper photo of Steve dancing with Alex. Not to worry. "When you're old, you don't care what anybody thinks," she tells him. "It's a rush." So, in a sense, is "The Pursuit of Happiness."

For a Website dedicated to Tom Amandes go to http://www.tomamandes.com/

For a Website dedicated to Melinda McGraw go to http://www.melinda-mcgraw.com/

For a Website dedicated to Melinda McGraw go to http://www.geocities.com/dacipher2002/melindamcgraw/