Nov 24 2008
Uncle Buck - on Film and Screen
I don’t know how it originally came up in conversation, or what train of thought led to 
me remembering the conversation… but I recently recalled an episode where I was relating to my husband how I had watched the Uncle Buck sitcom (spin-off of the film Uncle Buck) when I was a child. Mr. Hall, in his inimitable fashion, claimed that I was making it up and that no such sitcom existed (especially after I related that the concept of the show was that the parents of the children in the film were killed in a car accident, hence Uncle Buck moving in as their full-time caretaker).
I seem to have a habit of having watched shows that no one else in the world remembers. However, I know this show existed, so (inspired by whatever train of thought had recalled the conversation to me in the first place) the other evening I did a search on YouTube for the opening credits of the show.
I found them.
(Please note, after the opening of Uncle Buck are the opening credits for several other shows as well: apparently the gentleman who posted this posted the opening credits for all the “1990 TV Show openings” that he could find… enough to fill up ten parts. Thank you, sir, whoever you are! You have provided me with hours of nostalgic entertainment - and also reminded me of “back in the day” when there was actually an entire night of television every week that I looked forward to watching.)
Anyway, the Uncle Buck TV show existed, and I am vindicated and glad. Well, kind of glad. I recalled the show rather fondly, yet this opening looks incredibly, horribly, cheesy.
Not to mention that the premise of the show (that the children’s parents have died in a car accident) is rather horrible, and even the opening of the show presumes that none of the main characters learned any lessons from the incidents of the film.
The film? Well, in case you haven’t seen that, Uncle Buck is a classic John Hughes film, and a tour-de-force for John Candy. In it, the parents of a dysfunctional (but stuck-up) family are called away for an emergency, and their low-class brother (Uncle Buck) comes to watch the kids. The teenage daughter is going through a “difficult” phase and they give each other hell; it’s a painful and yet hilarious movie, and very heartfelt. Mr. Hall and I re-watched it last night and enjoyed it thoroughly.
The TV show, however, looks as though it was a rather poor imitation of the latter. I was rather surprised to read the Wikipedia entry and discover that, no, it was not canceled because it was awful; it was canceled because it lost viewers after being moved from Monday nights to Friday. Oh well! I can’t really slam it because I watched (and, as I recall, enjoyed it) at the time. However, I was about eleven then, and can’t speak for my then sense of taste. (If it ever comes out on DVD I’ll have to pick it up and tell you how it fares nowadays…)
