In today's climate of politically correct and inoffensive characters, and shows where they are 'advertised' as cutting edge or controversial one show dared to defy all of that, and make fun of society and television. Night Stand with Dick Dietrich was one of the funniest shows of the mid nineties, I loved this show. Timothy Stack, who played Dick Dietrich played the role to the hilt. He was the reason this show was so good, his silly demeanor, off the cuff comments and all around knack for putting the sleaziest of guests into exploitive situations had me rolling on the floor routinely in this show.
This show was brilliant, the plot was simple, a satire of talk shows most notably the king of white trash Jerry Springer, who Dietrich always proclaimed as his rival. This show is the cream of the crop as comedies go, when you thought the show couldn't get any funnier it would. The show went all over the place, talking about all kinds of crazy events and nutty people on the show, it was one of the truly unpredictable shows of it's time. Part of the charm of the show were all of the occasional guest stars, like hypnotist the Astounding Andy, plastic surgeon Dr. Hamilton George, but the best guest of all was warped psychiatrist Dr. Lonnie Lanier, whose quiet demeanor and naive grin were just too much to handle sometime.
I wish there were more shows like this today, unfortunately with all of the networks owned by the same group of corporations it's kind of hard for a show that so easily makes fun of itself. And that's exactly what this show did, it made fun of modern day TV in all of it's glory, or lack thereof. This show made fun of the Friends demographic, the young rich age group that television has increasingly been catering to. (Dick Dietrich once told a guest who said there was no white entertainment television "Oh really? I thought that was NBC) And the show talked about serious issues but of course made nothing but fun of them too. There were episodes about racism, homosexuality, faulty corporations, you name it they had it.
In the second season the show became more of having a girl in a tight dress come out in the first minute, but then again so did television, and it was always a different girl with a different problem, and would generally turn out to be a nut job. Overall this show is a forgotten treasure that could still be on today. I am sad that TV has so little ability to make fun of itself as this show did. In an era when entertainment takes itself so seriously it is rare television makes fun of itself like this, and although the show as only on for two season they were two priceless seasons, I loved this show, I wish it was still on, and maybe sometime in the near future there will be a show like it, but I doubt it.
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