Danny review

 The more I think about it, Joe Pesci was lucky in the long run.

Daniel Stern will forever be known as that Wet Bandit from the Home Alone movies.... and the adult Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years... and those two City Slickers movies. Okay, he had some decent luck. Hell, I wish he would've tried more voice acting, he killed it as Dilbert and it's a pity that and one small role in Hey Arnold! are all he ever did.

While he is capable in any acting role, he really has no true set personality, something that is a necessity in something like a dedicated sitcom, which even Pauly Shore managed to get down as it captured the personality he was known for. The only reason you even know about this sitcom is probably the fact you read me talking about it.

Background

Danny was a sitcom vehicle Stern took part in in 2001 for CBS. It was initially promoted under the titles Community Center (which only works if you take out one of the two words), and American Wreck. They took on the always generic (name)y approach, as if they knew people would use American Wreck for a number of scathing jokes in negative reviews.

The show aired on Fridays, and if you know television you'd know that slot is a death trap and is notable.... for being one of the first shows of its season to get cancelled. It wasn't over anything controversial, it was all just ratings.

Along with Stern, the show was co-produced by Mindy Schultheis. She is perhaps best known for creating Reba, which debuted eight days after Danny first hit the scene, and if When Women Kill is anything to go by, she had been going strong since.

Among the stars I recognize and feel like bringing up, co-staring along with Danny is Julia McIlvaine, who you may recognize as June from KaBlam!

Premise

The key to a sitcom with a clear node to its star comedian is an established personality. Stern in terms of character is perhaps best identified for his Marv character, to the extent Bushwhacked was meant to be a standalone film based on said character, though in spite of that being abandoned, we still got more of the same.

Danny is a community center director who puts up with his family and life.... that's really it. It's a basic sitcom formula, something that is usually saved by the personality of the leads, but we got nothing of it. We have the basic conventions of a CBS sitcom, the dad lives with the main family (though Robert Prosky here is a bit more grounded than Peter Boyle or Jerry Stiller for the sake of distinction), those mostly snarky kids, anything else different is sorta like The Loud House, it's expected and even a cliche in itself in most cases.

At this point, this was the prime era for Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Yes Dear and That's Life, if CBS wasn't the old people's network, it was the middle American sitcom network (plus Survivor), and this was no exception to the rule. Zaniness was a big part of Stern's acting, but even that is a sitcom cliche in its own right. 

I think the only thing that I kinda liked was a gag where the typical uppity financial manager brought a packed lunch in his briefcase. I was close to assuming that guy was played by Jon Polito, since he and Stern both appeared in Bushwhacked, but it was actually Ian Gomez, first I heard of him.

Any conflict between the characters is typically the point of a plot, otherwise it's non-existent. Things manage to go well enough to not be entirely disturbed, all is hunky-dory in the world of Daniel Stern. Best thing I could say is that it's a less obnoxiously campy Full House, which is a pretty big compliment if you want to believe it or not.

As bad as Baby Bob was considered (basically a sitcom adaptation of old Free Internet commercials), that was actually more unique by default compared to other CBS sitcoms. It seems those viewed lowly managed to do something to stand out, even if it's just a gimmick.

This, I mean, they execute the cliched elements well enough, at best the biggest strike against this show is a lack of real innovation. This felt like a sitcom thought up on the spot in order to fill the schedule. CBS' best shows from this time were still on the air, so they could afford a dent like this. It wasn't even a career killer for anyone, as mentioned before at least one producer went on to find success with Reba and continued with even more to this day.

Overall

There're two separate accounts for how long this show lasted, with the final guesses being between two and five, out of a nine episode order. Only the first episode had ever surfaced, but descriptions for all of them can be found in an entry on Forgotten Laughs: An Episode Guide to 150 TV Sitcoms You Probably Never Saw if you're curious.

Danny is one of the more generic sitcoms in a gradually growing fold, but surprisingly it was actually pretty easy to sit through. It managed to get the crop of cliches done just right, it's actually kind of a plus that they didn't just make Danny do Marv again (and if The Wonder Years is anything to go by he was able to fit into the family sitcom fold pretty well) and the characters did play well enough off of each other.

The biggest draw is that Daniel Stern has no true identity beyond Marv and hardly did much to break that mold (and by that I mean make something entirely new), and the show really had no staying power, all things considered.

This is far from the worst sitcom I've ever seen, if anything, each CBS sitcom I've seen were the better offerings I got. The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer did nothing with a controversial premise, DiResta tried to be different but was a generic sitcom through and through (being the lowest rated show of the year is a hell of a lot worse than being the first show to be cancelled in a certain season)

UPN had worse sitcoms, but it was UPN were Daniel Stern managed to get another better known role to his name. Which is better in that regard... is nothing I have to answer because UPN was where Dan Schneider got his start as a sitcom creator. No joke.