Do I still love “Perfect Strangers”? Well of course I do, don’t be ridikulos

I’m the first one to admit when I’m wrong. If I keep going on about something, saying it’s so great while others merely scoff, and then I’m confronted with evidence to the contrary, I’ll own up to my mistake. But I’m not wrong about “Perfect Strangers.” That show freakin’ rocked, and continues to rock to this day.

I picked up the DVD box set of the first and second seasons last week — the day after it came out — after much bullying and harassment from one Mr. Tom “I Heart ‘Saved By The Bell’” Rozwadowski. I trembled slightly as I inserted the first disc, worried that I was viewing memories of my love for the series through the rose-shaded prism of nostalgia. I was, after all, only 6 years old when the show debuted, and hadn’t seen these episodes for decades. How could a catch-phrase heavy, slapstick-based sitcom from the 80s still entertain me in this age of whip-smart, laugh-track-free comedies like “The Office” and “30 Rock”?

But then I saw the smiling mugs of Mark Linn-Baker (“Coursin” Larry Appleton), and Bronson Pinchot (Balki Bartokomous) beaming up at me from the DVD case, and I took a deep breath, and I hit play.

And I’m here to tell you, friends, that watching "Perfect Strangers," I laughed a hearty laugh. I laughed the laugh of the victorious. Because these were no mere laughs of recognition; a chuckle derived from recalling something you laughed at in years past. No, a lot of this was as new to me as if I had never seen it. What I found funny was likely what attracted audiences to the show way back before the fall of Communism: These two guys were a classic comedy pairing, a case of perfect casting that makes a sitcom great.

OK, let me backpedal. “Perfect Strangers” is not a great sitcom. Let’s reserve that title for shows like “I Love Lucy,” “All in the Family,” and “Seinfeld,” shows that really transformed the genre. But “Perfect Strangers” holds up remarkably well in the 20-plus years since it aired, and for a few very simple reasons.

1) Physical comedy. The history of physical comedy in sitcoms is both proud (“The Dick Van Dyke Show”) and not-so (“Three’s Company”). Pinchot and Linn-Baker were both skilled physical actors, and from the silly — Balki picks up a fleeing Larry, and Larry’s legs continue to pump furiously — to the devine — The Dance of Joy, which culminates in Larry voluntarily leaping into his cousin’s arms — the pair pulled off the stunts like trained acrobats.

2) Chemistry. Television shows sink or swim on chemistry between lead characters. During development, Pinchot was the first to be cast in a show originally called “The Greenhorn,” which focused on an wide-eyed sheep herder from Mypos and his misadventures in America. Comedian Louie Anderson was cast as the cousin, and a pilot produced, but ultimately Anderson was pulled from the part. In walks Mark Linn-Baker, who establishes an immediate rapport with Pinchot. Look closely during some of their exchanges in those early episodes, and you’ll see the actors come within a hair of cracking each other up. Larry and Balki had the timing and chemistry of the great (there’s that word again) comedy teams, most similarly to Laurel and Hardy. (It was Balki, after all, who kept getting Larry into one fine mess after another.)

3) Heart. As good as some of the sitcoms have been the last few years, you can’t deny they lack a certain amount of sentimentality that existed, for better or worse, in shows of the 80s. Back then you couldn’t go half an hour without learning some moral set to cheesy synthesized strings, when all the problems of the past 30 minutes would be tied up in a nice bow. This trend died a bloody death at the hands of “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons,” but when it was handled as well as “Perfect Strangers” handled it, I find myself missing it. The end of every episode had the requisite strings and words of wisdom, but was always undercut with an almost self-conscious joke or other such gag. What’s more, the emotion was earned, because the main characters were written as such that you believed they truly cared for each other. Indeed, this is probably one of the best shows about friendship that has ever been produced. Larry and Balki would often be at each others’ throats, but at the end of the day they were dancing that Dance of Joy, and all was well.

So was “Perfect Strangers” a perfect sitcom? Of course not — don’t be ridikulos. It suffered from strained gags, trite storylines and spots of poor writing (and I do remember it getting much, much dumber as the series wore on) the same as many shows of that era, as well as some modern shows. But heck, even “The Office” and “30 Rock” aren’t perfect. At least Larry never drove his car into a lake because his GPS told him to, and the cousins never broke into a painful rendition of “Midnight Train to Georgia” out of nowhere. All shows have their high and low points. I’m just glad to see that, after all these years, "Perfect Strangers" is just as enjoyable as I remember.

-- Adam Reinhard, lifeisfunnybutnothahafunny@gmail.com