Art Metrano, R.I.P.

I couldn't find a good online video of Art Metrano doing his "Amazing Metrano" routine to the tune of "Fine and Dandy."  That's odd because there was a period there when you almost couldn't turn on your TV without seeing it.  He did it on Carson, he did it on Laugh-In…I think he was the entire house "orchestra" on one of Tim Conway's many shows…

He was also a darn good comic actor as he proved in most everything he did, including a couple of the Police Academy movies.  I met him once in the NBC commissary.  It was crowded and a friend of mine and I were wandering around with our trays full of alleged lunch, looking for a table with two empty seats.  There were two at a table Chuck McCann was sharing with Art and Chuck waved us over and did the introductions.  I do not remember a thing that was said other than that Mr. Metrano seemed like a real nice guy and he was pleased that I thought he was funny.

He would have been funny in a lot more TV shows and movies had he not taken an awful fall off a ladder one day and fractured his first, second and seventh vertebrae.  What an awful thing to happen to such a friendly, funny man.  What an awful thing to happen to anybody.

You can read a good obit of him here and I was especially interested in one thing that was mentioned in it…

Managed by Wally Amos of Famous Amos cookie fame, Metrano and a friend, future Mel Brooks collaborator Rudy De Luca, were hired as writer-performers on a variety show starring Al Lohman and Roger Barkley that played on California stations after the local 11 o'clock news on Sunday nights. (Also working on the program: Craig T. Nelson, John Amos, McLean Stevenson and Barry Levinson.)

I remember that series. It was called different things in the TV Guide listings but on-air, they referred to it as The Lohman & Barkley. No "show." Just "The Lohman and Barkley." It was not on Sunday nights after the news, at least in Los Angeles. It was on Saturday nights at 11:30 after the news and it bumped the previous occupant of that time slot — The Saturday Tonight Show featuring Johnny Carson reruns — to Sunday nights. They had Ed McMahon record a new into renaming it The Sunday Tonight Show.

It was a brilliant, hilarious, "break all the rules" show that my friends and I loved…about as close to Monty Python as I've seen any American series come. Or at least, that's how I remember it. I am not ruling out the possibility that if I saw them today, I'd have the same remembrance…but I can't see them today because those shows seem to have disappeared off the face of this planet.

It was very funny and also important. While it did not bring in the proper revenues to allow it to continue, something about the reaction to it seems to have led NBC to decide that in lieu of Johnny's reruns, the network should be programming a comedy show there and to make sure affiliates couldn't bump it to Sunday, they'd do it live and put "Saturday Night" in its name.

If anyone ever comes across any tapes of The Lohman & Barkley, I'd love to see if it's even close to as good as I remember. It seems to be where Art Metrano got his big break.

And getting back to the (now, sadly) late Mr. Metrano, there is much more to his story. He told a lot of it to my buddy Kliph Nesteroff in an interview. Here's a link to Part One and here's a link to Part Two. Like I said…a funny man.