Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’m continuing my bi-monthly series on overlooked pre-2010s sitcoms, featuring shows that I’ve heretofore missed — like this curio…
CUTTERS (June – July 1993, CBS)
Premise: A barbershop in need of a boost merges with the booming beauty salon next door.
Cast: Robert Hays, Dakin Matthews, Margaret Whitton, Julia Campbell, Julius Carry, Robin Tunney, Ray Buktenica
Writers: Allan Burns, Howard Michael Gould, Lindsay Harrison, Burt Metcalfe, John J. Sakmar & Kerry Lenhart, Bill Levinson
Thoughts: An ensemble workplace/hangout multi-cam co-created by Mary Tyler Moore’s Allan Burns, Cutters is a classically designed post-Cheers sitcom. It’s got a textbook setup for comedic conflict, all established in its purposeful premise-pilot, where a struggling male-run Buffalo barbershop proposes tearing down a wall and merging with the female-led beauty salon next door. The primary hurdle? The barber’s son (played by FM’s Robert Hays) had a one-night-stand with the salon keeper’s step-daughter and never called her back. Cue a battle of the sexes, personified not only by the two business owners and their “this is how we do it over here” spats, but also via the lovers, whose Sam/Diane “will-they?-won’t-they?” dynamic aims to yield long-term emotional investment. The primary hurdle? It’s just so predictable – the “will-they?-won’t-they?” is really a matter of “When?” And the premise is a little too textbook – the conflicts within the ensemble are too overbearingly implanted by the expositional merger that it all feels clichéd and not actually earned by the characters in relation. That is, it’s simple but try-hard, and certainly not as natural or easy as most low-concept workplace/hangout shows should be. Perhaps it would have refined over time, but right away, both the character work and the casting are uneven. On the good side: mildly cranky barber Dakin Matthews has charm, Ray Buktenica stands out as a nerdy regular, and Julius Carry is individualized as a gay black hairdresser who once was an Olympic track star. In fact, Carry’s role has kept Cutters a footnote in sitcom studies. Yet that trivia speaks to specialness and personalization – something of which this show needed to cultivate more in order to survive its surrounding inartfulness (i.e., everything else on the “not-so-good” side). I wish I liked it better – it’s got a fine pedigree and a straightforward take on the genre that looks accurate, but just isn’t fully unique or thus effective in practice.
Episode Count: Five episodes were produced and broadcast. | Episodes Seen: The first four.
Key Episode (of Seen): “Pilot” (06/11/93)
Why: The pilot most plainly reveals the strengths and weaknesses that were discussed above.
Come back next week for a new Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more Modern Family!