Joe's TV List Synchronizes Its Swatch

#39: Parker Lewis Can't Lose
(FOX, 1990-1993)

One of the earlier FOX comedies, this ripoff of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off far outlasted NBC’s actual, sanctioned Ferris Bueller spinoff. But while both featured a cocky hero, a meddlesome sister, a loyal friend or two, and a principal-as-nemesis, Parker Lewis was the superior product partly because of its conceptual hook, which was to cast a broadly surrealistic sheen over the world of Santo Domingo High School – hence, Ms. Musso’s ever-shattering door and the very existence of Larry Kubiak, a walking cartoon (played by a young Abraham Benrubi) always on the prowl for his next meal. A bunch of us at college used to cross the street for Taco Bell takeout on Sunday nights before crashing in front of FOX for Parker Lewis (followed by In Living Color and The Simpsons); our pal Ken, who never liked to miss a meal and was always knocking on our doors to gather us to the cafeteria, eventually appropriated a guttural, Kubiakesque “fooood” or “eat now” when summoning his dinner companions. Almost two decades later, that’s what still goes through my mind whenever I watch Men in Trees. Well, that and “Krycek’s a pastor?”