BOSOM BUDDIES: THE SECOND SEASON

I used to stop playing to come in and watch this?

Lately I've been very impressed with how well some of my favorite 80's TV shows have held up. Gimme a Break, Family Ties, and Who's The Boss are all just as lovable and relevant as ever, so I had high hopes for Bosom Buddies. I was only four when the show began its run, and I referred to it simply as "Kip and Henry". I tried to watch it every week, and when it went into syndication, I would drop everything at 5:00 to be on time for my daily rerun. It was truly a staple of my childhood, and my memories of the show couldn't be fonder. I thought it was just about the funniest thing ever, and why not?

Kip (Tom Hanks) and Henry (Peter Scolari) have been best friends since the third grade. They went to college together, they work together, and they even share an apartment. Sadly, they find themselves homeless after their low-rent building is demolished. Their friend Amy (the late Wendie Jo Sperber) says the rent in her building is really reasonable—the only trouble is that she lives in the Susan B. Anthony Hotel for women, and no men are allowed beyond the lobby. What are Kip and Henry to do? Well, naturally they dress up like girls and move into the Susan B. Anthony as Kip and Henry's sisters, Buffy and Hildy. I smell comedy!

Indeed, hijinks ensue as Buffy and Hildy struggle to keep their real identity a secret from the other girls. Kip falls head over heels in love with Sonny (the beautiful Donna Dixon), and Henry does his best to avoid Amy's amorous advances. Telma Hopkins stars as Isabelle, the acerbic aspiring singer who takes on management duties at the hotel, and the bitingly funny and always elegant Holland Taylor plays Ruth Dunbar, the boys' boss. It's a great cast and a goofy situation, so why does Season 2 seem so flat?

The obvious reason is that I was five when I thought Bosom Buddies was the height of hilarity, and twenty-five years later, my sense of humor is a bit more evolved. So many of the situations strike me as slapsticky, and with the boys mugging for the camera and carrying on loudly, I can't help wincing a little and wishing they would just tone it down. It doesn't help that the whole Buffy and Hildy gig is pretty much up. By now all the girls are in on the scheme, and Kip and Henry are generally free to be Kip and Henry. They open their own commercial production house with Ruth, employ Isabelle, Sonny, and Amy, and as the season wears on, the jokes grow increasingly flat. I just kept thinking, "I used to stop playing to come in and watch this?"

Worst of all, the original theme song, Billy Joel's "My Life", has been replaced with some hokey little jingle that absolutely makes me cringe. I kind of knew what I was in for, because I bought a few episodes on VHS about ten years ago, but I had hoped they would acquire the rights to the song for the DVD release. Words can barely express how I loved the original opening to the show. The good-natured yet rebellious song set against Kip and Henry's shenanigans—playing Frisbee, getting caught in the sprinklers at the park, feeding money into a parking meter so they can sun themselves in the street—was perfect. It's still one of the cutest montages you'll ever see, but the song stinks it up so badly that I'm tempted to put the TV on mute, drag out a boombox and my Billy Joel CD and do it right.

I'm glad the show is out on DVD, and it serves as a funny little time capsule. I just wish I hadn't built it up so much in my mind. Fans with a more realistic view of what they're getting will undoubtedly have more fun.

DVD NOTES

The sole bonus feature is a peculiar sales presentation seemingly aimed at industry bigwigs in the 80's.