Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.
If some of your formative years were in the 1970s, you remember The Odd Couple on television. When I was a kid, it ran in syndication on WGN out of Chicago in the early evening, and over the course of however many years, I saw every episode as far as I know. I can’t say that I’ve resisted watching the movie version of The Odd Couple based on Neil Simon’s play, but I also haven’t really sought it out. My worry—and it’s a worry that seems to have come true in some respects—was that I already knew the characters well enough that the movie wouldn’t have anywhere to take me.
And that’s the problem with The Odd Couple. It’s not that we’ve got different people playing the main roles than I’m used to. Sure, I grew up on this being Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, but both of them were essentially doing versions of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau from this movie. It’s more that I knew where the characters got to in the show, and the movie is more or less the origin story. Origin stories don’t always interest me that much. Nevertheless, The Odd Couple leaves streaming soon enough, and so I figured I might as well get it watched.
