no thread for tv's "night court"?!?!?!

man Bull was the shit

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Night_Court_title_screen.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjiWblC_iG8

http://blu.stb.s-msn.com/i/BF/B03E771B305050C8946367F480A988.jpg

Night Court at one time held the Guinness World Record for tallest sitcom cast.

--quoted with no attribution at TVTropes.org

193 episodes;

Reinhold Weege

Reinhold Weege (December 23, 1949 - December 1, 2012) was an American television writer, producer and director. He was born in Chicago, Illinois.[1]

Weege wrote for several television series, including Barney Miller and M*A*S*H. In 1981, he created the series Park Place. In 1984, he created the hit sitcom Night Court which ran for nine seasons on the NBC broadcast television network.[1] Weege owned Starry Night Productions, which produced Night Court until 1989, when Weege left the series after six seasons. He also produced the short-lived sitcom Nikki and Alexander in 1989.[2] He was nominated for four Emmy Awards during his career, one for Barney Miller and three for Night Court.[3]

Weege died at age 62 in La Jolla, California of natural causes.[4][3]

man Bull was the shit

― your face comes with coleslaw (Neanderthal), Friday, November 1, 2013 10:08 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

This whole show otm

what beat it??

Watched it all the time as a kid. Probably not a very good show in retrospect.

I enjoy watching the first 5 minutes of each episode that lead into the (all-time classic) opening credits. After that the show is hit or miss at best.

Wikipedia is full of wonders. Bull's real first name is Nostradamus and Ellen Foley, aka Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" foil and much more besides, was on the first two seasons before Markie Post arrived, though I only remember the latter.

I just went and watched a youtube clip with Ellen Foley in it, and I do remember her now but I'd totally forgotten she was on it. I had a big crush on Markie Post when I was in high school. I think the writing on the show was pretty spotty, but it was a good cast.

I remember Marsha Warfield's (brief) solo show run.

I watched "Night Court" all the time but it wasn't very good.

A little hasty on my part: Ellen was only season two. Even so!

man i watched every single episode of Night Court at least twice when i was a kid, love that show. jaymc's opening post is super weird, though, what's up with that.

And yeah I'm kinda with Alfred here -- the show is this weird combination of forced 80s sitcom execution and the kind of whimsy that seems more stock in trade for the present, but said whimsy is completely shackled to the former's approach. A single camera version of the show without a laugh track and less reliance on the punchline/pause for laughter set up COULD work...

growing up i watched so much Cheers and Taxi and Night Court that i felt like all sitcoms took place primarily at night and there was this nocturnal adult world where the funny things happened.

the show is still leagues better than the Dave Barry show.

Selma Diamond!

Brent Spiner!

Whenever I think of this show and try to remember specific scenes, this one always comes to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A78DhtH544

A great man named Mel Tormé exists.

This was staged and acted as traditional farce. It could have been written by Plautus, except the love interest in most episodes was not a strong plot point. The sets were palpably cheap. The lighting was basic and harsh. But the writers and actors understood farce, so it succeeded on its own terms.

some dude otm

john laroquette otm

http://pdxretro.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/richard_moll_bull_night_court_.jpg

NBC Thursdays from 1984-86 or so were insane: Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court, in that order.

nbc otm

in the 80s

not now obv.

jaymc's opening post is super weird, though, what's up with that.

lol I was not exactly sober when I started this thread

now we know: keep jaymc away from the space bar

loved this show. and yeah this was part of this whole world of sitcoms (going back into the early '70s) which felt like they were populated with genuine weirdos, sometimes veering close to the type of character you might find in a Tom Waits song. Barney miller, all in the family, etc. also, markie post. and teri hatcher in her most memorable role aside from her Seinfeld guest turn. and John Astin and Torme were great in this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxoPPR_V5uw

i thought this was the best show ever when i was 8

i loved the hell out of this at the time, although the last year or two were terrible (loads of serious jokeless scenes for some reason). looking at it now i'm not sure what i loved about it.

I have often wondered - are there actual cities with courts open at night? Cuz every time anybody I know has been arrested at night, they had to spend a night in jail and wait to be arraigned in the morning. And nobody serves on night jury...

Houston (and probably other big cities) conduct night courts for traffic cases.

Police are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year dealing with minor traffic offences at night court, chiefs with the RCMP and Halifax Regional Police say.

"In fiscal year 2012-13, we expended a little under $285,000 in overtime for court," said RCMP Chief Superintendent Roland Wells.

Officers have to attend court to testify in matters like speeding tickets and failure to provide proof of insurance.

For the RCMP:

60% of officers in court are paid double time
77% of the time they aren't called to give evidence
Police are trying to lower the costs of paying police to attend night court.

"To me that's wasted money," Wells said. "There's much more things I'd like to do within HRM. I could spend the money fighting violent crime."

Halifax police spend even more
Halifax Regional Police spend even more: up to $600,000 a year.

"From a financial perspective, the numbers are large," said Deputy Chief Bill Moore. "We've spent as much over the last five years as almost $600,000 in a year. And we're around $350,000 per year now in the night court."

Night court HRP/RCMP costs
Year Number of tickets issued Total cost to police
2009-2010 46,202 $588,881.35
2010 - 11 44,295 $376,790.78
2011-12 49,445 $342,525.64
2012-13 45,107 $385,131.77
Those costs negate revenue earned from traffic tickets.

"The reason we write tickets for motor vehicle is for traffic safety," Moore said. "If one was looking at it from a financial perspective, it's really not a make-money deal."

Halifax police have managed to cut costs by reducing the number of officers who go to court. "For instance if there's two officers in a car and they both witness the offence, do we necessarily have to have both officers going to court?" Moore said.

Wells has a working group studying how the RCMP handles night court.

"It's not just all fiscal," he said. "But we have to look at our officer safety and our officer work-life balance as well. When you finish a long shift, the very last thing you want to do is turn around and go to court and sit in court for a couple of hours when you may not be required."

Both police forces now have full-time court liaison officers who try to anticipate when police will have to attend night court.

Wells said cutting court costs should lead to more effective policing.

Fighting crime, not waiting in court
"I think where we'll end up is being in a better position fiscally, being able to spend that money in dealing with serious violence and crime and things that people want us to do," Wells said.

"That's wasted resource and we have to do better than that."

Starting Nov. 1, police will handle some minor traffic tickets at police headquarters. The provincial court used to do that.

"We're not cancelling tickets," Moore said. "We will take that information and the ticket, we turn that over to the city prosecutor and they actually go into court and formally withdraw the charge."

Wells is giving the RCMP working group six months to come up with ways to streamline the system. After that, he says, it may be time to try something else.

Roland Wells played by William Atherton imo, hope harry and the gang can stop him before he shuts it down.

loved night court, i'm kinda like 'let's not get carried away' at seeing it mentioned in the same breath as cheers and taxi and barney miller but it was pretty great and definitely falls in that adult nighttime world, plus it was on after cheers and before hill st blues so it worked as an effective bridge. definitely had a thing for markie post, i can remember having this dream once in jr high where i got the new issue of playboy and markie post was on the cover and it said something like 'now you're gonna see markie post's jugs!' and then i woke up and no such playboy existed. sometimes i wonder if that dream was a glimpse of another universe, a better universe than ours. markie post still looked good in that night court semi-reunion 30 rock had.

someone should start a thread on yr weirdest tv crushes. and by someone i mean some dude.

Man, that fucking theme song kills.

i can remember having this dream once in jr high where i got the new issue of playboy and markie post was on the cover and it said something like 'now you're gonna see markie post's jugs!' and then i woke up and no such playboy existed. sometimes i wonder if that dream was a glimpse of another universe, a better universe than ours.

dying

burned into my memory are the tv ads for the TV film version of Elmore Leonard's novel "glitz", only because the ads featured markie post and the promises of more markie post than you've ever seen before. I never did see it unfortch.

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/17/57/1757a45f0f1fee19a0041301cbc1ca5b.jpg?itok=oqvVH4rO

I remember the first dozen or so episodes of this show had a character played by another actress who was the court clerk and almost seemed to act as an audience surrogate into this crazy world of "the night court" but she made little impression and they cut her quickly.

they cut her quickly

Sadly, no one dreamed about her jugs.

Mac's cardigans
Yakov Smirnov
Harry's fedora
Roz's deadpan sass

Laroquette's double-breasted suits

one of my favorite Night Court episodes was the one where they were trying to save someone's property or something, but it was at the very end of a stack of cases and they had to hear it by midnight or the bank retained the property or some shit.

the scene with John Laroquette speed reading through the minutes in order to get through one of the cases faster is all-time hilarious.

delightful that Jaymc started a night court thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvqWA04wMo0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvqWA04wMo0

horrible quality but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6iTfWBy-sA

i kinda feel like that, Roc, early Roseanne, etc. were kinda the last vestiges of the era of sitcoms that were about blue collar down on their luck types, before Friends came along.

Yup. I'd also add Dear John, which taps into the formula of Taxi: Judd Hirsch as a sensible, somewhat disillusioned guy surrounded by lonely New York City eccentrics.

haha i watched every episode of Dear John too. i watched all these shows while visiting my recently divorced and bankrupted father, so the world of these kinds of shows felt a little familiar to me.

every time i see Jere Burns show up in stuff like Justified and Breaking Bad to this day i'm still like "hey it's dude from Dear John!"

Ha, me too.

the only episode of Dear John I remember is the one where Ricky Fortune was trying to resurrect his fledging musical career.

and that the song went "Ooooh-ooooh-ooooh...you know I love you".

and that Kirk came in and asked where he was at the end and asked "Where's Ricky" and John says "He's gone", and Kirk starts wailing "OH GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM", thinking he is dead, and John quietly saying "Kirk - he LEFT".

I loved john laroquette on this (and his later sitcom which was totally dark)

I feel like parts of my psyche were sculpted by my enjoyment of Laroquette's character at a young age

I have often wondered - are there actual cities with courts open at night? Cuz every time anybody I know has been arrested at night, they had to spend a night in jail and wait to be arraigned in the morning. And nobody serves on night jury...

Yeah, one time I got a ticket on the hiway loop that goes around Atlanta and coincidentally the area I was driving in had just become a city, and I ended up with two court dates for this one ticket, one in Atlanta and one in Dunwoody (or something simliar). It was for an expired tag and the Atlanta date was first so I went and showed that I had renewed the tag and they said ok you are free to go and you don't own any fees but OH you still have to go to that second court date. Second court date was held in an office building cos the city was so new they didn't have a court house and was at like 5pm. It took me 3 hours and I was the absolutely LAST person called and the judge took at a look at my paperwork and said oh yeah you can go, no fines, etc. Thanks a lot dudes.

I step outside and it is dark and I think "Oh, cool, I was at Night Court". And it was the only glimmer of goodness that came out of the whole ordeal.

They've cycled back to the first season on LAFF. Michael J. Fox & Olivia Barash play teenage shoplifters in the second ep!

We did a poll: NIGHT CORUT

This show was on when I was like 7 yrs old and I really have no distinct memory of it other than the theme song and "bald man funny"

caught a good one surfing around the other week. a lady's husband died, supposedly because of some special sex move she did. dan, of course, was DYING to experience this special move. finally, she invited him into the elevator to experience it for himself. he came out quite disheveled, let me tell you! but he survived.

if i had to venture a WILD guess, i'd say it involved pegging.

sounding imo

Why Not Both?

https://media2.giphy.com/media/26n6Wn0Qngsqwi1s4/giphy.gif

at work or i'd look up sounding. i'm just a bit naive i guess.

I am surprised I haven't posted I LOVED THIS SHOW SO MUCH on this thread before now

They just got into the first Ellen Foley ep today, which came after a one-off introducing Markie Post as Christine, who of course would return and replace Foley the next season.

It's kind of interesting that the recognized 'Classic Cast' wasn't cemented until the fourth season. Charles Robinson joined in the second, Post in the third, and Marsha Warfield came aboard in the fourth. Can't think of many other long-running shows you can say the same of.

So there's a reboot in the works with Laroquette, and the just-announced Melissa Rauch as Harry's judge daughter...

a whole lotta talent would need to come together to make a reboot more than a mediocre curiosity.

You may have missed it but “Laroquette” above is referring to John Laroquette, of Night Court fame…

The amount of talent you describe resides in his pinky finger.

Yep. For me, a reboot with Markie Post, Richard Moll, Roz and everyone still alive they could rope into but, no Laroquette? I'd probably pass, though honestly I'd check it out of morbid curiosity.

But a reboot with Laroquette as the only returning cast member? Good enough for me!

both OTM

Hope his son does a guest spot

John Larroquette is really good at playing a jerk, that was pretty much his thing.

They needed to make a movie with John Larroquette vs. Charles Grodin.

Would you believe that one of his post-Larroqutte Show gigs was in an American adaptation of Fawlty Towers w/JoBeth Williams & Julie Benz?

📺DEBUT: ‘Payne’ starring JoBeth Williams & John Larroquette premiered 20 years ago tonight, March 15, 1999, on CBS pic.twitter.com/UJwaXpYiBR

— RetroNewsNow (@RetroNewsNow) March 16, 2019

Was yesterday years old when I learned that Charlie Robinson was (A) from Houston, and (B) a member of (a possibly counterfeit version of) Archie Bell & The Dress.

DRELLS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xBq06udsNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrPZFioRjn8

RIP Markie Post

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/markie-post-night-court-fall-guy-actor-dies-70-n1276299

https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/254785351242_/TV-Guide-Magazine-June-20-26-1987-Markie-Post.jpg

Rowr

It's Happening

https://deadline.com/2021/09/night-court-sequel-melissa-rauch-john-larroquette-series-order-nbc-1234843950/

Up with insomnia, Night Court theme music in my head

(Put THAT to the melody of Lou Reed’s “Gimmie Some Good Times”)

The whole series is streaming on IMDBTV now.

Quality Chat: But Is It on Netflix? - Streaming Video Service Thread: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube TV, AT+T Watch, Philo, Playstation Vue, HBO Max, HBO Now, Facebook Live and many more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEOeJEFKs0E

Looks like another run of Emmys for Laroquette.

Night Court is almost inseparable in my mind from its mid-'80s Thursday night counterparts. So I hope they're working on a Cheers reboot to air immediately before it.

i watched the first 2 eps of the reboot and i genuinely laughed at many lines, most of them Larroquette but still - it’s kinda charming somehow still so far

some nice nods to harry as well

RIP KING

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/cf/9a/2dcf9a310f1c98b784545344ef4b97d4.jpg

😭

NO I WONT ALLOW IT