Shark Bytes

I swear to God the people who made this asinine sitcom either never saw the movie that "inspired" it, or watched it but didn't understand a thing.

In the movie, Alice Hyatt is a recent widow whose insistence on pursuing a "career" as a singer (at around age 40) is obviously self-delusion at its finest. She makes some poor choices that leaves herself and her son more or less stranded in Tucson, AZ (not exactly Opportunity, USA). At the end of the movie, she realizes that the singing was a pipe dream, she'll never be a star, and thus it's pointless to continue on to her original destination of Hollywood. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is poignant, gritty...even depressing.

So what do the TV geniuses do? Turn that premise into a wacky sitcom in front of a life audience, replete with pratfalls and old-school "zinger" humor from the folks behind I Love Lucy, Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh. Alice is a simply FABULOUS singer of show tunes who is destined for success...she's just waitressing in Arizona until she's (inevitably) "discovered."

What the hell. I know showbiz types did tons of drugs in the '70s, but this is ridiculous.

I remember watching it when I was a kid, only because we had three channels, and it was watch that or go to bed. Once Belle showed up ("Mah little voice always calls me Isabelle...") I chose bed. And anyone who wonders why Linda Lavin has been rarely seen since then, and Vera not at all, watch one episode. I was shocked to see it pop up on ION; not so much when it disappeared shortly after.

Alice just seemed to serve to give Linda Lavin a platform to perform her all-sound-the-same-songs. I agree with the previous post about Tommy's hideous puberty transformation. Very disturbing indeed.

It's hard to imagine why this show was a hit. I was a very small child during its production years so don't remember, but was televison THAT bad in the mid '70s - mid '80s? Or was Disco that brain-numbing? Were Americans dazed from the war? Or were people feeling the after effects of chronic LSD use? The "plots" of this show were nightmare-inducing. Flo, Mel, Belle, Henry, and even Vera(in small doses) were excellent characters, but I'm sorry not even those sidekicks justified this catastrophe. This series could've been good- a blue collar Mary Tyler Moore Show while we're on the subject or a feminine Taxi- if it had been a bit more serious, intelligent, and as mentioned titled 'Mel's Diner' or the like and had been an ensemble show, instead revolving around Alice, arguably the most flat, plain, boring title character of all time. I can only imagine how Linda Lavin got this horror to stay on the air for nine entire seasons with all of its stupid plots, bad singing, and off-air cattiness. As soon as she had started complaining about Polly Holliday scene-stealing, CBS should've sent her sub-talented arse to the Yellow Rose. I mean how hard could it be to replace such a forgettable character? Oh yeah, this isn't a shark-jumper, but Tommy's deforming from cute little kid to giant hideous teenager was truly the single most atrocious, disturbing puberty spurt ever captured on film.

Alice was just bad, bad, bad. You know, if you follow the theme songs thru out the years, it gets worse & worse. It started out OK, decent 1st season, but when they put Queen Lavin in charge of changing the opening theme songs every season it went doooowwnhill fast. The last season's theme song was, well, to put nicely, embarrassing. 'Ol Linda wasn't quite the looker either.

Linda Lavin could not sing her way out of a paper bag if she had to! The "jazzy" crap she added to the theme song reminded me of someone saying to her "Yes, you are very, very talented" while crossing their fingers behind there back. I got so I couldn't listen to the theme song cause it sucked.This show jumped when they decided to let her sing more regularly. I heard that it was a contractual agreement - no kidding!

"The Robot That Wore Pink" was TV at its lowest point. This episode purely sucked. The 'actor' that played the robot was nothing more than a street-person wrapped up in tinfoil...OMG what a travesty of a show...I'm not into censorship or anything like that, but can we get this show banned, please?

You know Alice was sooo bad that even ION pulled it after only a month or so. Linda, honey, let's face it...you're not a good singe-and I'm being very, very kind.

Oh...my...God! I can't believe how many of you think this show was great.

I was forced to watch this turd when I was 16 and thought it was inane; I saw it in re-runs two days ago...my opinion remains unchanged.

This show wasn't as good as it was when Flo was on. The other two were good, but did not attain the popularity that Flo had. Another thing. Why was Flo always saying kiss my grits? Because those screw asses at CBS (Colombian Broadcasting Society) did not allow Kiss my ass at that time on TV.

They never should have made this show. The movie that inspired it was a great piece of work and then to have this garbage made out of it was an insult. Linda Lavin's nasally singing was like listening to fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. The only worthwhile characters were Mel, Flo and Vera. This show jumped the shark by not giving Philip McKeon enough airtime. Why was he even there? He was always sent to his room.

Hey "Alice Rocks": Alice was never EVER considered in the same league as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" even at its peak around the 1979/80 season. The MTM Show won scores of Emmy awards (did Alice even win one? I doubt it.) The sophisticated writing of the MTM show versus the "corny jokes" of Alice are no comparison. In fact, any episode after the departure of Flo is reason enough not to bother watching, particularly the godawful finale where Alice is finally discovered by some COUNTRY(?!) music star who apparently has a fetish for 50-year old waitresses that sing show tunes.

Jumped when Flo left. I believe that the season after Flo left was the one when Linda Lavin and Mel's mom belted out "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"....

Jumped back towards the end. I thought that the robot episode and especially the one when the wrecking ball went through the diner were pretty good..I remember Vic Tayback being really funny in those episodes...

Seriously, are you all 10 years old? Apparently, none of you have seen any other the other brilliant shows that aired roughly the same time Alice did, namely Rhonda, Barney Miller, Mary Tyler Moore etc. All of them had the same type of plot lines. Linda Lavin did a fantastic job on that show of representing what it was like to be a single, working mom, struggling to make ends meet while weeding out all the looser men that tried to hit on her. If y'all didn't take that from the show and were only watching it for the corny jokes, then turn it off and go back to watching SouthPark.

i really enjoy this amazingly enjoyable sitcom. me and my boyfriend love al8ice and everyone at mels diner!!!!!