PASADENA, Calif. — Who made a better "Odd Couple" — Tony Randall and Jack Klugman or Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau? Depends on whether you're talking play, movie or TV show, and on whom you're asking.
"The play is a masterpiece," said Randall, who co-starred with Klugman in the 1970-75 sitcom. "It's the finest comedy written in America.
"I did not think the (1968) movie was a masterpiece. I thought the movie was a mess. Didn't care for it at all. And the fault was Neil Simon's. He mangled his own script. I didn't like the performances, either. Walter Matthau had played it too long. He was stale in it. And I thought we did it better."
A considerably more circumspect Jack Klugman didn't completely back up his old TV co-star.
"Well, I replaced Walter in New York, and on stage then he was kind of fresh and wonderful," Klugman said. "But the play is so wonderful that if you tell the truth and show up, you're going to make it work."
Like Randall and Klugman, Simon himself thinks the original play was superior to the movie. And, he added, to the TV show.
"To me, it was the play that was the original thing that I liked," Simon said.
But, not surprisingly, the playwright disagrees with Randall's assessment of the movie.
"I thought the film was fine. So, Tony, you're wrong," he said with a laugh. "There were differences in that I opened it up. But I thought Walter and Jack Lemmon were brilliant in it, as Tony and Jack Klugman were. . . . They were quite different."
Simon said that it took him a while to warm up to the TV sitcom version of his play but added that he eventually became a big fan.
"You know, when the television series went on, I didn't watch it the first three years because it was like opening up your family album and not seeing your family there — there was someone else," he said. "I had to adjust to Jack and Tony, as good as they were . . . and then I really liked it."
As it turned out, "The Odd Couple" was the ultimate example of a TV show that wasn't appreciated in its own time. It lasted for five seasons, but it was never a ratings success — it hovered near cancellation throughout its run.
"I've never been in a TV success, as a matter of fact. Never," Randall said candidly. "I've only done good shows."
(Well, sort of. His other series include 1976-78 "Tony Randall Show" and the 1981-83 series "Love, Sidney.")
But, ratings or not, they knew they were working on a show that people would remember.
"Jack was the one who said from the beginning, 'Someday we'll come back in reruns, and they'll discover us. We know we're good,' " Randall said.
"It's just that they hadn't discovered us," Klugman said. "I just knew it had to be a good show. I didn't know it was that good, but I loved it and I loved doing it. So it had to be worthwhile, and it was. And it was proven later to be that way."
"It's kept my family in French provincial furniture for 25 years," Randall quipped.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com