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Andy Barker (Andy Barker, P.I.)

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Conan O’Brien & Jonathan Groff

“Andy Barker. Accountant by day, private eye by accident.”

THE BEST P.I. show in years?

Probably not, but it says a lot about the shaky state and even shakier confidence of modern American television (and the growing pervasiveness of technology) in 2007 that NBC only produced six episodes of the now almost-forgotten Andy Barker P.I., and didn’t even air all of them, opting to stream them on their website instead, while offering individual episodes for purchase on iTunes.

Nothing like a vote of confidence, huh?

Looks like a column I did a few months earlier in the Winter 2007 issue of Mystery Scene entitled “The Private iPod” was only about three minutes ahead of the curve.

But beyond NBC’s oh-so-tentative release tactics, I truly liked the show. Sure, like almost every other stab at a private detective show, it had to have a gimmick. In this case, it was the old “clueless nebbish is mistaken for a private eye and gets thrown into a case where he must prove his mettle” gimmick.

Andy Richter, late night comedian Conan O’Brien‘s old sidekick, was flat-out perfect as ANDY BARKER, an earnest, wide-eyed, genuine nice guy, a married-with-children CPA who decides it’s time to hang out his own shingle. He sets up shop in a struggling strip-mall in the fictitious Los Angeles neighborhood of Fair Oaks — grandiously called “The Fair Oaks Plaza.” The problem is that the office’s former tenant was Lew Staziak, an elderly, bitter and mentally unstable P.I. who was forced to retire — rather suddenly — because of “health” problems. But Andy knows nothing of this. He buys himself plenty of office supplies and sits down at his desk to wait for his first customer.

And waits.

And waits.

Until trouble walks in. On high heels, of course.

And insists that Andy help her, completely unaware he isn’t a private detective. And naturally, flummoxed, tongue-tied Andy steps up to bat.

Yeah, it’s an old gag, one we’ve seen before in everything from My Favorite Brunette to Tenspeed and Brownshoe, but it came off as far fresher than it probably had any right to be, thanks to an affable cast and some sharp writing.

Particularly worthy of note was the relationship between Andy and Jen, his equally mild-mannered, relentlessy peppy homemaker wife. It turned out to be not so much sticky sweet and intentionally cloying but genuinely sweet and irony-free — a rarity in a medium where married couples are almost universally portrayed as bickering stand-up comics, firing non-stop zingers 24/7. Andy and Jen liked each other.

That was a big reason it worked. Andy Barker P.I. dared to be sweet. Charming. Cute, even. Like when Andy and Jen are in bed, each with their own lap top, and text-message each other.

And that pragmatic approach to the then-current technology helped. Neither overblown nor downplayed, but simply aware. When Andy needs to find out something, he hits Google, and there are plenty of shots of Andy at his computer to reassure us all that this was indeed a current show — not some “brilliant but cancelled” treasure left in the vaults decades past its expiration date.

Adding greatly to the fun were Andy’s oddball fellow tenants in the struggling mall. Simon was the screwy, movie trivia-spouting operator of Video Riot with way too much time on his hands. He declares himself Andy’s partner for his “detective work,” boldly going where no one asked him to go, while restaurant owner Wally, a recent immigrant from Afghanistan (he “traveled here in the wheel well of a jumbo jet”) has gone overboard with patriotism “since 9/11.”

And underneath it all lies a shrewd, subversive and knowing wit. Not surprising, perhaps, given that Mr. Late Night O’Brien himself co-created it. O’Brien, of course, cut his teeth writing for The Simpsons, another show that managed to balance a certain domestic sweetness (No! Really!) with some razor-sharp satire.

Another bonus?  The show just looked good. It was well-filmed and well-lighted — a nice change from the skinflint production values of some of the crank-em-out reality shows and cut-rate sitcoms that seemed to be all the rage at the time.

Sweet, smart, and sly, Andy Barker P.I. was everything most network sitcoms weren’t. And still aren’t.

It may not have been totally brilliant, but it was cancelled, and it deserved better.

THE EVIDENCE

UNDER OATH

TELEVISION

FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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