Series Run : 1983-1987
150 episodes
Network: ABC
Series Premise (as far as I can tell):
Newlyweds George & Katherine adopt their black god child, Webster
Episode Watched: Don’t Jump George (Season 1)
Episode Summary: Katherine needs to go on a game show to investigate a claim of harassment, George and Webster tag along.
My Thoughts: Most of you reading this probably remember this show. It starred a diminutive kid, Emmanuel Lewis, who was seen on a Burger King commercial, and some ABC executive loved him so much, forced Alex Karras and wife to put him on their show. The result was a show that epitomizes everything bad in a sitcom. Now, before I go to far I will tell you as a 8-year-old kid, I loved this show, Webster was awesome! However, watching this as an adult, this show is horribly unwatchable. The forced close-ups on Websters face, wreaks of a director saying, ‘just put the camera on the kid and tell him to act cute’. Alex Karras, the former football character, isn’t a bad actor, but man it seems most of the episodes he somberly trudges along until the inevitable guilt-laden speech he gives to either Katherine or Webster, depending on who disappoints him in that particular episode. Katherine, or M’am as Webster calls her, engages George in these ridiculous exchanges where each of them calls each other some pet name. Seriously, they have 2 such exchanges in this entry, consisting of at least 12 pet names- quality writing folks. The game show host is overly obnoxious, the laugh track is constant, almost begging you to laugh, and the plot line to get the family on the game show is dropped half way through the show. If you can imagine the parody sitcom in the Robocop movie, where the tag line is “I’d buy that for a dollar”, now replace it with this show and the tag line would be the close up of Emmanuel Lewis doing his signature giggle/laugh. Some say Lewis was this network’s Gary Coleman, a smaller that normal black kid that can be cute, but dear God this show is awful. I would say, that I have a celebrity claim to fame from this show, as a child I recognized Henry Polic II as he was getting on a plane when I was in an airport. I leave you with this analysis from my friend Angry_Jake, this is a show that made an 18-year-old, playing a 10-year-old, do a very special episode about bed wetting. I rest my case.
Memorable Quotes:
“Jerry Silver did not spend 4 years in law school to dress as a chicken on a game show”-Jerry
“Has anyone ever called you ‘Webster- Not so Long’?”- Game Show Host
“Katherine, Super Bowls are won by teams, that’s what you seem to be forgetting”– George
Acting Notables:
Alex Karras- George
Emmanuel Lewis- Webster
Susan Clark- Katherine
Henry Polic II- Jerry
Tomorrow: Obscure show from 1952
365 Days of Sitcoms 