bugsmoran29 Review of Car 54, Where Are You?

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961–1963)

One Irish cop plus one Jewish cop equals a lot of laughs

[29 March 2017]

Officers Francis Muldoon and Gunther Toody as played by Fred Gywnne and Joe E. Ross are still as funny in 2017 as they were back in 1962 when I watched them as a child. It's funny in a way to see the Irish cop being the smart one and the Jewish cop being the dumb one. The other day I saw an episode where Gunther disguised himself as a guitar-carrying beatnik and I don't believe I have laughed so hard in years. Al Lewis, who later was Grandpa to Fred Gywnne's Herman on The Munster, is always a scream on this program as Leo. Car 54 Where Are You? humanizes the Bronx's men in blue in a way that wasn't to be matched until Barney Miller a decade later. In a way it is sad to see the New York through Damon Runyon's eyes in the early Sixties before the Big Apple became rotten to core.