PASADENA, Calif. — There's a fine line between funny and tasteless, between hilarious parody and outright cruelty. And NBC's "The Rerun Show" bounces from one side of that line to the other.
The bizarre-sounding summer series (which debuts Thursday at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 5 before moving to Mondays at 7:30 p.m. for the rest of August) features a ensemble cast of comics/mimics who, working from the original scripts, parody "classic" sitcoms. And we use the term "classic" rather loosely.
The seven episodes NBC has ordered feature parodies — two per episode — of shows like "Bewitched," "Diff'rent Strokes," "Facts of Life," "Married . . . with Children," "Saved by the Bell," "One Day at a Time," "The Partridge Family," "The Jeffersons" and "What's Happening!"
Familiar shows, for the most part, but not exactly "I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners" or "All In the Family."
"We said, 'Let's take terrific scripts, characters and series that everybody knows and has somewhat of a relationship with and, in kind of a MAD Magazine type of thing of scenes that we'd like to see, let's turn them on their side and add extra layers of comedy, physical gags, play the subtext of the afterlives of the stars, and let's have fun," said executive producer David Salzman. "Let's go for triple the laughs of a normal sitcom."
And, more often than not, it's parodies of "very special episodes."
"Sometimes when sort of average television writers take on serious social issues, there's a lot of hilarity to be mined there," said executive producer John Davies.
(It will be some consolation to those writers that they'll get paid for their scripts again as they air on "The Rerun Show.")
"Everything you see is literally word-for-word to the scripts," said Salzman. "So that, combined with the belief that parody is probably the sincerest form of flattery, is kind of what governs the show."
Which doesn't mean that they don't take huge liberties between the lines in the script, and not particularly tastefully. Thursday's premiere, which includes parodies of both "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Partridge Family," is loaded with sexual references. Straight sex, gay sex, incest, it's all there.
Which sort of makes you wonder what these shows might have been like had they been written today. Certainly a good deal less innocent than they were originally.
And it's not exactly tasteful to make fun of "Diff'rent Strokes" star Dana Plato, who died young after a life filled with bad decisions, drug abuse and brushes with the law.
"The Rerun Show" is certainly very funny at times, and some of the portrayals are dead-on. But it's not exactly programming for the kids.
Script aside, it's not exactly an attempt to re-create the original characters along with the original lines. For example, a school principal on "The Partridge Family" comes out as Charles Nelson Reilly. In an episode of "One Day at a Time," in which teenage Barbara (originally played by Valerie Bertinelli) is pressured by her boyfriend to have sex, is redone with the boyfriend sounding just like Mike Tyson.
And episodes of "Married . . . with Children" use original scripts with the actors imitating the Osbournes and not the fictional Bundys.
"When we first looked at 'Married' we thought this show was already so over the top — how do we go any further with it?" Davies said. "Which is why we decided to do the Osbournes layer on it."
In addition to crossing the bounds of taste, there are some touchy questions of propriety. Is it funny to be mocking the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes," particularly given the legal troubles they encountered after the show ended? And the fact that, after a series of brushes with the law, Dana Plato died young?
"I think a testament to the fact that people take in the spirit that it's intended is that . . . there are 15 or 20 of your favorite stars from sitcomland (in 'The Rerun Show') . . . and they all thought it was cool and they're OK with it," Salzman said.
Danny Bonaduce reprises his role as Danny Partridge in Thursday's premiere. Stars like Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman ("Diff'rent Strokes"); Marla Gibbs ("The Jeffersons"); David Faustino ("Married . . . with Children"); Dustin Diamond and Dennis Haskins ("Saved by the Bell"); and Fred Berry ("What's Happening!") all make appearances.
"I think we tried to parody them in the nicest possible way," said Davies. "We're confined to the script so we can't go too far out. I think that the way we look at it is these actors were comedians themselves, and many of them we've already begun to guest star. They get it, they think we're having fun with it, and we are."
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com