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The Odd Couple Together Again

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Wikipedia article




'The Odd Couple: Together Again' is a 1993 made-for-TV film starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman as Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, respectively. It is an extension to the original Odd Couple series in which Felix is once again rooming with Oscar, but only temporarily due to his daughter, Edna, getting married. The film aired on September 24, 1993 on CBS.

Plot



In a ballroom at the Plaza Hotel, the always fussy, neat, and perfectionist Felix Unger is leading the dress rehearsal for his daughter Edna's wedding. The rehearsal has gone on so long that everybody in the wedding is too tired to even stand up straight anymore and the violinist is complaining of how often he has to play Felix's selected song. (Mr. Unger, my fingers are bleeding!) Furthermore, the rehearsal is cutting into the time the hotel has to set up for another convention in that ballroom. This, along with Felix's fatal error of making an ultimatum over something he requested in the ballroom that hadn't been fulfilled, gets their reservation revoked by the assistant manager.

Gloria, Felix's wife (whom he remarried at the end of the series), decides to kick him out of the house for almost two weeks in order for her to plan the wedding without him. Naturally, he returns to the apartment of his former roommate, Oscar Madison. He finds the apartment messy as usual (and with a stored motorcycle in the hallway, of which Oscar is charging the owner half of what storage places in New York would have), but more importantly, Oscar's voice is suddenly raspy and hoarse after having a vocal cord removed due to throat cancer. (Due, actually, to Klugman's real life throat cancer surgery in 1989.)

Felix is so touched by Oscar's cancer situation, he arranges a poker game, but tells all the old buddies to always let him win. Which goes until Speed finally cracks and beats him and spills the beans. (Oscar does forgive them and resumes playing poker with them.) Felix also helps him with voice exercises, which starts to strengthen his vocal cords. Enough so that Felix, who at this point is working producing television commercials, offers Oscar a voice-over job. However, Oscar wasn't too thrilled to find out it was as the voice of a toilet that had been cleaned with the advertised product. Felix, however, gets him his job back with the New York Examiner, but it's as the advice columnist who is similar in nature to Ann Landers or Dear Abby. Oscar reluctantly accepts, but starts to enjoy the job once Myrna transfers over to help him. (Eventually, he resigns and gives the job to her since she's been basically doing all the dirty work anyways.)

Felix holds the engagement dinner at Oscar's apartment when Gloria couldn't do so due to painters still working. All goes well (including Felix bonding with Edna's fiance over many things) until he finds out he's been divorced twice, at which things turn severely sour.

Felix is now on the lam to learn about his previous wives. The first one is a pretty cutthroat photographer who threatens to fire two assistants, and then fires the secretary for letting Oscar and Felix in. This alone causes Edna to come by and ask Oscar to tell Felix to stop, because it's embarrassing. Oscar tries to talk Felix out of it, and Felix initially says he would stop.

However, he goes to find the second wife anyways. As it turned out, she was a nudist whom Felix inadvertently had a photo taken with that got back to Gloria. Gloria, in turn, kicks him out of the wedding permanently and files an injunction against him. Therefore, he asks Oscar to walk Edna down the aisle in his place and also give a speech, of which he agrees.

However, because he knows it isn't the same, Oscar sets things up to have Felix take his place where he belongs by stopping and making an impassioned speech about him and what walking his own daughter down the aisle would mean to him. After so, Felix, who was intentionally pathetically hiding behind shrubbery (his top hat clearly visible), is brought into the wedding to assume the duty and nobody objects.

After a very lively reception, where Edna intentionally tosses the bouquet to Oscar's girlfriend, Jeannie, before entering the limo, Oscar confesses to Felix that he is willing to accept the toilet bowl voiceover job, but Felix informs him the spot was long since taken, then offers him a spot in a potato chip ad as the voice of the deep fryer, which he accepts.

Reception



'Variety' said, "'The Odd Couple' is often mediocre as it wanders through a two-hour slot. But the visit is a walk down memory lane and Klugmans performance should give others in his shoes inspiration and encouragement."

References




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