Frank tales and 'Frank's Place' -- it's all in 'Tim & Tom'
Ask a sunlight-deprived critic for a list of shows that died because they were too good for television, and "Frank's Place" will be on it.
Tim Reid's smart, subtle sitcom about a New Orleans restaurant debuted in 1987 and lasted all of one season. It's still the measuring stick for all other smart, subtle sitcoms, and one of the bonuses of "Tim & Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White" (University of Chicago Press, $24) is that it goes into why the show was canceled.
I'm not going to give that away here, because heck, the authors are trying to sell books. (One hint: Corporate pettiness was involved.) But it's another compelling reason to pick up Reid, Tom Dreesen and Ron Rapoport's book about American's first black and white comedy team.
Reid and Dreesen were the comedians. Rapoport, who I talked to for today's column, is the former Detroiter who did the actual writing.
At 68, he's so Old Detroit that his dad -- now 92 and living in Muskegon -- worked for the Detroit Stove Company.
"I read the manuscript when I finished," Rapoport says, and he was astonished at the depth of the veins Reid and Dreesen had opened. "I thought, 'uh-oh.'" As Reid put it, he'd told his co-author things that he'd never told his wife.
"I was prepared for them to say, 'I just can't go there,' but they never did," Rapoport says -- which is another reason to give the book a look, even if you thought "Frank's Place" was where Beckmann lives.
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Frank's Place
It was my favorite show. One of the best of all time. Witty, funny, and touching by turns, I looked forward to seeing it every week.
The book goes into detail about how "Frank's Place" came about and how it got bounced. If you loved the show, you'll enjoy the book, even though its main focus is on Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen as a comedy team.
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