TT 510: Adam West is LOOKWELL
"I don't think you understand, officer, but I used to play a detective on TV"
This was a surprise. July 28, 1991. An NBC pilot that never went anywhere. 22 minutes of comedy gold.
Lookwell is perhaps a bit like Police Squad! starring Leslie Nielsen. The writers are Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel; Smigel wrote the legendary SNL skit where William Shatner tells Star Trek fans to “get a life.” Shatner is a cue here, for Lookwell’s Adam West was also typecast from a hit ‘60s TV show, Batman, although West had far fewer opportunities to break out of his mold than Shatner.
I can’t say I command the Adam West filmography, but he gives it his all here. An incredible performance.
I learned about Lookwell yesterday from Jeff Maurer’s hilarious Substack, I Might Be Wrong. Maurer writes, “This is really a 2011 sitcom that accidentally aired 20 years too early.”
O'Brien and Smigel were "Batman" fans and recognized what Adam West could do. Lookwell is the quintessential vehicle for West's comedic talent. It's easy to imagine a weekly series wearing out its welcome fairly quickly (as Batman did), but that pilot episode is a gem for the ages.
Transitional Technology is fast becoming a Catalog of Cool for our times. Does anyone else remember as fondly as I do, Gene Sculatti's Catalog of Cool that was published in 1982?