Still the ‘Odd’ Men In

“I think we’ve found a home,” says Jack Klugman, who has reasons to be excited that the Nickelodeon cable network has just added reruns of “The Odd Couple” to its lineup. “We belong on Nick at Nite.”

If ever a marriage were made in rerun heaven, it was the cohabitation of Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, otherwise known as “The Odd Couple.” In 1970, the mismatched pair hit America at a radically volatile moment in television history, the same season that let Mary Richards and Archie Bunker loose; it was an era when a new level of reality in adult sitcoms emerged.

But Felix and Oscar were the black sheep of the ABC-TV family, evicted from television more than once. “The Odd Couple” shifted time slots half a dozen times in five years, never even puncturing the top 25. It was finally canceled once and for all in 1975 and has been roaming the dials all these years.

Tony Randall and Jack Klugman couldn’t be happier. Why?

The everlasting “Odd Couple” residuals. Both men had extraordinary contracts at the time, enabling them to share in the profits. “A big chunk,” Randall says. Success of the series didn’t arrive until reruns, years later, when the program gathered a cult status and made these two Emmy-winning TV veterans very wealthy men.

Neil Simon, who wrote the play on which the TV show is based, sold his rights to the TV show long ago, so he doesn’t care much to comment these days. Simon had virtually no involvement in the series and thought it had wobbly legs from the beginning. Videophiles who stay tuned in to Nick can spot him, however, making a brief cameo appearance shot on location in New York in an episode titled “Two on the Aisle.” Simon is reportedly now a faithful fan of the show.

The formula Simon created is based partially on his brother, television writer Danny Simon. The premise is perfect material for a play. For a movie. For a TV series. For a cartoon series starring a cat and a dog. And every bit of that materialized since the original, a Broadway blockbuster, starring Walter Matthau and Art Carney, opened in 1965.

Apparently there’s just something about these two pathetic, divorced characters and their own miserable idiosyncrasies that rings true.

Randall plays Felix, a hypochondriac with an obsessive-compulsive personality and a well-developed fetish for neatness, order and gourmet food. (“Anyone like shredded coconut on their rumaki?”)

Randall, 76, declines the neatnik label and swears that “I’m very little like him. Yes, I can act.”

Klugman, 74, on the other hand, says he is “pretty close” to his slovenly counterpart. “I gamble a lot, I was a womanizer, but I’ve got a lovely lady now. I’m messy. I mean, I’m clean, I take showers, but I leave things around. Twenty minutes in a hotel room and you’d think I lived there for six years.”

Just as Nick at Nite kicks them into nighttime, the Odd men are out--and abroad--opening a three-month run of “The Odd Couple” onstage in London.

Both Randall and Klugman portrayed Felix and Oscar in the theater before duking it out in the television arena. Klugman replaced Matthau in the original Broadway production, and later Randall played opposite Mickey Rooney in a Las Vegas production. (Randall wanted Rooney for the TV show as well, but producer Garry Marshall held out for Klugman.)

Randall, who recently married an actress 50 years his junior, continues to work on television and raise money for his not-for-profit National Actors Theatre in New York City. Klugman occasionally makes film appearances and last fall he directed a play written by his son at the Jewel Box Theatre in North Hollywood.

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Yet, 25 years after they vacated prime time, neither star has any wish to dispose of their typecast characters. Klugman and Randall reside on separate coasts, but reunite occasionally to bicker before sell-out audiences around the country.

These days, after a bout with cancer of the larynx, Klugman speaks in a gravelly voice without his right vocal chord. “My voice now is not pretty, but it’s strong. It doesn’t break as much. It’s a miracle, really,” he says emphatically.

“What I really want to do now is theater. The audience, after three minutes, gets used to my voice. I feel privileged to get on the stage again. I’m ready to come back to work after 7 1/2 years. I’m off all medications and feel great. I go swimming, work out. I feel reborn.”

He chomps an unlit cigar now, so the poker scenes have lost some billow. Like the days of the television series, Klugman still dons some of the most convincing toupees ever tailor-made. It all makes one think: Have Felix and Oscar become the old couple?

“You know what,” Klugman admits with a tinge of hesitation, “we’re basically a little old for these parts. I’m proud to reach my age. And my toupee is necessary with the two English girls in the show and all. I don’t want to look like an old lech.”

Randall quickly interrupts. “Oh, I don’t agree at all,” he says. “These are ageless roles.”

It was perfect timing for one of Felix’s didactic temperamental speeches. . . . Oscar. Oscar. Oscar.

“I don’t think either of us looks like an old man yet,” Randall says.

“The roles require almost superhuman energy to play eight times a week. You have to be strong as an ox. I know this: When I was a young man it tired me and it still tires me. There’s a tremendous amount of yelling and screaming and running around the stage.

“The day comes when I don’t have the energy--then I’ll be too old for the part.”

* “The Odd Couple” airs at 11 p.m. weeknights on Nick at Nite.