Fifty Years of “The Odd Couple” on TV (Part I)
“How do you write a play funnier than The Odd Couple? I wouldn’t dare try to.” — Neil Simon, 1982
Brace yourself, baby-boomers: As difficult as it may be to believe, it has been 50 years since the premiere of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple sitcom on ABC — on September 24, 1970, to be exact. The series’ 114 episodes have been kept alive via reruns on various local TV stations around the country, and on nostalgia cable networks, ever since the show’s cancellation five years after its opening episode. The stars, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, were…