YouTub has the theme song right here and yeah, it's Mel all the way. There's even a Teri Garralike.
Only one episode exists on YouTube (the kids call it The Y.T.) in two parts: A-One and A-Two. The episode is directed by Jerry Paris, who has a sitcom pedigree a mile wide. He played Dr. Jerry Helper on The Dick Van Dyke Show and directed tons of stuff. Go look him up.
And in case you were concerned, and I know you can be so very concerned sometimes, the very first scene is a bunch of crowd response gags. That's our Mel.
I discovered the theme on a 9-minute compilation of intros to one-season wonders from the 1970s. It features Quark, of which I have the series run because you can never have too much Richard Benjamin, but most are mysterious surprises to me. I think that's mostly because these failures didn't quite make for cheap syndication fodder in the 80s, when I would've picked them up from any number of independent UHF stations in the area. Gotta miss those stations. WTXX and WSBK represent.
Among the finds in this compilation there's a 1979 Burrows (James) and Brooks (James L.) sitcom starring Wilfrid Hyde-White and Martin Short whose intro would have fit right in with the Murphy Brown era. There's also Dom DeLuise channeling a little Jackie Gleason in a 1974 times-are-tough sitcom called, and this is where I firmly began to believe that the clip fell from an alternate universe, "Lotsa Luck!"
I do so enjoy combing YouTube for old TV stuff. I'm glad I found this stuff to share because other than that, I've been taking comfort in the fact that in these uncertain times, one can watch a full hour of local candlepin bowling from 1982, commercials included, thanks to some obsessive on the Internet.
Insomnia is a terrible thing.
