As a concept goes, The Odd Couple is infinitely flexible: It worked in 1965, as a Broadway play by Neil Simon, and it worked in the seventies as a five-season sitcom. In the eighties, it was reconceived so that it starred two women and did another year on Broadway with Sally Struthers and Rita Moreno in the lead roles. And, of course, tonight on CBS, Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon will be reviving the concept as an all-new series.
But stories about two strongly conflicting personalities thrown together through circumstance and forced to learn to accept and even embrace each other’s difficult quirks don’t just work in stories named The Odd Couple, as this video—lovingly assembled by Texas Monthly senior editor Jeff Salamon and Eric Wilson—reminds us. Mashing up the opening narration and credits sequence for the version of The Odd Couple that aired on ABC from 1970 to 1975 with footage from last year’s Matthew McConaughey/Woody Harrelson juggernaut, True Detective, the video is a chance to revisit the eerie saga of Rust Cohle and Marty Hart in a very different context—and to be reminded of how dark Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon will have to go in order to make an impression as the real odd couple of the 2010’s. If you ask me, the light’s winning, Felix.
