TV You Forgot About #6: Struck By Lightning (1979)

 

Hello fine viewer of this blog! Welcome back to my least used blog column! I do hope to post in this one more. Originally it was for random not so well known holiday specials, but I felt that was too little of a range so I changed it to TV you Forgot About where I can talk about weird tv show episodes, weird tv shows, tv shows that didn't last very long, tv shows from my own country that americans wouldn't know diddly fuck about, and yes those obscure holiday specials I started this column out as. It's a much broader brush to paint with and I can discuss all kindsa weird shit that only amuse me. Struck By Lightning is such weird shit.

I must admit that of all the "classic" film and literature monsters that my favorite of them is Frankenstein. He always just looks really damn cool. It's such a fun and unique look. The vast majority of Frankenstein movies are a lot of fun. Nothing against Wolf Men or Vampires but something about Frankenstein is just the coolest to me. For those who don't know Frankenstein was a novel written by a lady named Mary Shelley all the way back in 1816. She was only like 18/19 years old when she wrote that novel. She also apparently according to legend lost her virginity on her mother's grave. No matter what you do you will never be more goth than Mary Shelley, so you might as well give up right now. 

So what exactly is Struck By Lightning you may ask? Well it was a sitcom that lasted 3 whole episodes leaving 8 unaired in the United States of America (apparently the Australians and the British got to enjoy more of this tv show.) Struck by Lightning told the story of a guy named Ted Stein who gets invited to his ancestral home to find a guy named Frank (played by Jack Elam, the doctor guy from the Cannonball Run movies who got the job because they thought his weird appearance was already so perfect that he did not need to wear makeup.) but it turns out that  Frank is actually Frankenstein and he needs Ted to create a serum that will prolong his life. So now it's a wacky team of Frank and Ted getting into wacky adventures.

So now it's the usual time for me to watch the pilot episode, which is the only one that's available online. So I'm gonna talk about what happens in said episode while making some jokes and weird tangents to talk about something completely different. It starts off with the theme song which was "You're So Beautiful" sung by Mr. Joe Cocker. He'll always be known to me as the guy who sung the theme song to the Wonder Years! Then we get into who sponsored this show. I didn't even know sponsored tv shows were still a thing in 1979. It's our good friends at Folgers who really want use to know that the coffee is MOUNTAIN GROWN. Personally I think all coffee tastes like someone took a big meaty shit in the coffee maker so I'm not the one to ask.

Oh hey before we get into anything else we gotta talk about the writers of this episode. Fred Freeman and Lawrence J Cohen. They wrote several pretty amusing movies, Start the Revolution Without Me, Delirious and S*P*Y*S. They also wrote The Big Bus which was the first disaster movie parody out there. I was not a big fan. So I'm wondering are we gonna get The Big Bus or S*P*Y*S. So we are introduced to Ted Stein who now owns this Inn of his grandfathers and Nora. Ted is played by Jeffery Kramer who's claim to fame was being the deputy in Jaws and Jaws 2. Nora is played by Millie Slavin who had a pretty big career for a woman I don't think I've ever seen before in anything. Started in 1969 with a Dick Van Dyke movie and ended said career in 2002 with an Arnold Swartznegger film. Now that's a career! She doesn't like his smoking and tells him his grandfather told her to leave him in this chair. So now he's got an urn in a chair that whenever you move it lightning strikes.

Oh, speaking of lightning, it's a big damn part of the plot. well, it's a reoccurring gag it seems. So it's finally time for Frank and Ted to meet. Frank apparently is the handyman at the Inn. He gets hit by Lightning a lot. You know the stuff that brought him to life in the first place.  He tells him that he's going to Salem to his great great grandfathers grave and that they need to talk when he gets back. We are then treated to a silly but fun scene of the two of them in Ted's room. Ted intends on selling this place but Frank finally reveals HIS identity AND Ted's identity. It takes getting hit by Lightning yet again to prove who he is.

Now we meet the rest of the cast of this show. The kid character that appears in way too many sitcoms just to be cute and silly. An old man who was played by Bill Erwin. He will always be known as the grouchy grandpa that appears in that one episode of Seinfeld but he had one hell of a career. I'm pretty sure there's no way you haven't seen this guy before. He's great and I love him. Anyway we get a scene in the laboratory where Frank tells Ted that he needs to get a serum that he needs every 50 years to stay alive. There's only one problem, Ted's grandfather ate the paper with the serum on it. So Ted's gotta re-create it, except Ted's not a scientist, just a high school science student. Frank is not happy about this so uh he breaks the table. We then go to another scene of Ted trying to escape from the Inn and sell it but Frank literally smashes his hands through the door and then it turns to Ted pretty much looking like he's doing a 180 and pretending to stay, however during a talk between him and the real estate guy Frank overhears and well you know some zany stuff will happen, and by zany I mean psychopathic because Frank breaks down some trees and telephone poles to break a fucking bridge. And destroy cars. 

Frank is down in the laboratory and Ted comes down to tell him he's leaving. Frank tells him all about his life and how it's not been perfect (He hasn't been on a date in 186 years!) Frank even talks about how he could have had an even better brain if that butterfingers Igor hadn't dropped it! He even talks about how he was promised by Gustav Frankenstein that he'd be built a woman but he couldn't even get that! Ted finally gives in and tells him he will stay until they find a serum. It's a pretty fun and actually kinda heartwarming scene. 

FINAL VERDICT: I enjoyed this. I get the feeling if this were made in like the 1960s it would have been more popular. It was a silly goofball 1960s sitcom just put out in 1979 when people wanted sitcoms that tackled issues like All in the Family. Jack Elam and Jeffery Kramer actually work really well together and I really would like to see the other 10 episodes of this show that were filmed. Oh, and with the YouTube upload of this show we also get some classic 1970s commercials, like Zest, which gives you a good lather and really isn't that what life is all about?