Herbie The Matchmaker (Episode 1 Review)

Herbie The Love Bug is one of my favorite Disney characters.  The Love Bug was also the first live action film that I reviewed.  However did you know that in the spring of 1982, there was a short lived Herbie sitcom that aired on CBS and by short, it only lasted for five episodes.  Today,  I'll be taking a look at the pilot episode.

Intro

Before we get too far into this, I want to take a look at the theme.  It is just so corny and screams '80s sitcom all over it.   Part of me wants to know why they didn't use the awesome score from the film  for this. Don't get me wrong, I do have a  soft spot for shows where they have actors sing the theme but I don't think Dean Jones should've done that but hey, if Dean returned,  that means more Jim Douglas. Yay!!!   

Episode Title

Herbie The Matchmaker

Pretty simple title here and I don't know if other pilots have done this but to me it seems to make sense to have your first episode title be the title of your series.  

The Plot

When we open, we find out that Jim has retired from racing and now instead teaches  driver's ed at a driving school and at a high school.  He uses Herbie as one of the teaching vehicles.  Now does anyone else think it's a little wrong that he uses Herbie because he could take over driving and well that is brought up in the opening sequence.   Now besides being retired,  one has to assume Jim is divorced  because Jim has a new flame that he runs into after Herbie and Dean stop some bank robbers and there they meet Susan MacLane,   mom of one of Jim's teachers.   Now this is also a problem that arouse in Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo because after The Love Bug,   it seems as though Jim and Carole divorced.   There is a a throwaway line that seems to touch on this when Jim says something along the line of 

Too many races won,  too many girls lost

I think this explains what happens between Jim and Carole but I'm sorry that ruins the ending of The Love Bug.   Now besides this, the first episode felt like a romantic comedy with  a lot of common tropes and cliches including having Jim go to a church to stop the wedding of Susan as you see she is engaged to Randy, who is meant to be a jerk and that does come through but I kind of feel that this hatred of Jim is a little bit warranted as you see Herbie pushes his Mercedes into a set of sprinklers that are turned on.   One complaint I read about this show is that it focused too much on Jim and not enough on Herbie.  Well, I can see where they're coming from but Herbie is in the show plenty but I think it's harder to a sitcom with this character because there are only so many things that you could do before it gets reptitve. Still, this was a somewhat enjoyable first episode.



Characters







Main Characters

Herbie played by Herbie

This is weird to say but if you recall what I said up top bout Herbie, taking a backseat that is somewhat true.  It almost seems as though from this first episode at least that Herbie was more or less a plot device to drive characters to where the story wanted them to end up.  Now that's not a bad thing and Herbie did get to do a lot of fun stunts but still it didn't feel as grandiose as the films and even though I watched this online, I could still feel a noticeable difference between what was done with Herbie here and what they pulled off in the films.

Jim Douglas played by Dean Jones

There is just something about the chemistry between Jim and Herbie that works so well and that is seen here as well.   As I said up top,  this episode felt like a romantic comedy regarding Jim and his new love interest  (okay, isn't this Jim's third love interest?)  As I said above Jim has retired from racing and now teaches driver's ed and it is a nice continuation for his character.    Jim meets his new love interest when saving her from a bank robber and her current boyfriend's mother just happens to own it.   Now this show does some things with Jim that are okay and he does seem toned down compared to the films.  Although I swear there was a race towards the end of the episode that felt like a mini recreation of what Herbie did in the first film. Maybe it's just me, perhaps it was meant to an homage.   I don't know and I have to admit watching Jim trying to woo Susan is what dragged the show down for me. Part of it comes from it just feels cliched and my bigger issue  with this is, when watching I couldn't help but think of the ending of The Love Bug and how Jim and Carole got married.  It has been said that Herbie is meant to help people come together, well if that's the case, he didn't do a very good job with Jim because obviously, his first marriage didn't last.   Now yes,  I could look at this as it's own entity as I did with Tron: Uprising but the problem here is that not only does this show use footage from the films, it also references the past events. Now yes, it never touches upon Carole unless you count that throwaway line I mentioned earlier. 

Susan MacLane played Patricia Harty 

With Susan, there was really nothing special about her.  She was just an ordinary lady and there isn't anything wrong with that but I don't really understand what attracted Jim to her. The big difference between her and the other love interests as seen here is that she has three kids and this is something that Jim brings up and a factor that he considers when thinking about reasons not to go out with her but big surprise,  they end up together. 

Supporting Character

Bo Phillips played by Richard Paul 

Bo,  the best way to describe this character is as saying this he is meant to fill the Buddy Hackett/ Don Knotts role.   He really wasn't in this episode all that much therefore I can't judge him accurately but I must say that at least in this episode, he was rather forgettable. 

Antagonist

Randy by Larry Linville 

Randy was Susan's fiancee but it seems as though they weren't truly in love and it seemed as though Susan was only with m because her husband who also happened to be a racer deserted her and they're kids.  Randy really doesn't care about the kids and at one point jealousy overcomes him after Susan and Jim go out on date and he goes so far as using Susan's daughter to  try and stop Jim and Susan's relationship developing any further. He's okay but certainly no Peter Thorndyke.   

My Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, this is an okay pilot but I will concede that it felt as though Herbie took a backseat and now that's not a bad thing but when I watch something with Herbie, I liked to see Herbie shine.  As I said throughout, this felt like a romantic comedy and is that a bad thing? Well, it's not what I expect with Herbie and  now yes, I know the first film did have  a love  story but it didn't feel cliched compared to this one and of course that brings me to my other problem with this show and the other films in that it ruins the relationship between Jim and Carole.