What Happened on the Final Episode of ‘The Odd Couple’?
The Odd Couple has taken countless permutations through the years: a stage play, three different TV series, a cartoon, a made-for-TV special and two Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau movies filmed 30 years apart. But the odd couple that most of us logged the most time with was Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, who spent five seasons portraying the uptight Felix Unger and the slovenly Oscar Madison from 1970 to 1975.
You might remember the fights, the mixups and the earworm theme song (if it’s now stuck in your head for the rest of the day, my apologies). But do you remember what happened in the final episode? Why did Felix and Oscar finally stop sharing an apartment (and driving each other crazy)?
Broadway bound
The original seeds of the The Odd Couple were planted when writer Neil Simon observed various men in his life who got divorced and entered into less-than-perfect roommate situations. Some accounts hold that Simon was inspired by watching his then-recently divorced friend Mel Brooks annoy his roommate, while others maintain that the story was inspired by the post-divorce life of Simon’s brother, Danny (who is sometimes said to have written a first draft of the play).
Regardless of the inspiration, The Odd Couple became Simon’s third play. Though his previous plays, Come Blow Your Horn and Barefoot in the Park, had been successful, The Odd Couple — which hit Broadway in 1965, starring Matthau as Oscar and Art Carney as Felix — was a hit on a whole other level. It won Tonys for Simon, Matthau and director Mike Nichols, and ran for 964 performances. Among the actors who passed through the two roles through the years? Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison.
A film version hit cinemas in 1968, with Matthau reprising his Broadway role and Jack Lemmon subbing in for Art Carney (Carney had suffered from personal and health issues that caused him to leave the Broadway production early). Klugman was supposedly at one point in the mix to play Oscar on the big screen, while Tony Randall was considered for the film Felix. With Lemmon and Matthau in the starring roles, the film was a phenomenal success, earning over $44 million dollars on a $1.2 million budget(!). Simon was nominated for a screenwriting Academy Award, and Lemmon and Matthau were both Golden Globe Best Actor nominees.
The Odd Couple on TV
After a hit that big, producers were naturally eager to adapt the show to the small screen — including Garry Marshall; the show was his first TV hit as a creator/producer. But while it’s tough to imagine any other pair of mismatched roommates onscreen, Tony Randall was cast first, and he initially pushed for an even odder couple — he wanted Oscar to be played by Mickey Rooney. Marshall eventually succeeded in getting Klugman hired for the role instead.
The show premiered on Sept. 24, 1970, with episodes initially shot on the same set used for the film. Though the first season used canned laughter, future seasons were shot before a studio audience and gained a theater-like rhythm. Though Klugman and Randall both won Emmys for the show while it was on, The Odd Couple was never a ratings juggernaut like Marshall’s Happy Days, and each season bore the distinct possibility of being the last. Finally, in 1975, ABC decided that Felix and Oscar would have their final household misunderstanding (during his 1975 Emmy acceptance speech, Randall remarked that he wished he had a job at the moment).
What happened on the final episode?
If you recall the opening credits well, you might remember that the voiceover begins, “On Nov. 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence; that request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right, but he also knew that some day he would return to her.” Throughout the series, Felix was frequently preoccupied with plans to win back his ex, Gloria.
And in the final episode, he succeeded! In “Felix Remarries,” Felix has finally convinced Gloria to take him back, and the two wed once again (you may or may not recall that Leif Garrett portrayed Felix’s son Leonard Unger toward the end of the series, after replacing Willie Aames).
After the wedding, in the show’s final scene, Gloria waits outside as Felix prepares to leave Oscar’s apartment for the last time. After letting him know that his dinner is cooking, Felix declares, “Five years ago, you took me in; a broken man on the verge of mental collapse. I leave here a cured human being. I owe it all to you.” In a “salute” to Oscar, he empties a trash can on the floor. Oscar replies, “Felix, you know how I’m gonna salute you? I’m gonna clean that up.”
After Felix leaves, Oscar changes his mind and leaves the mess; Felix sneaks back in, declaring, “I knew he wouldn’t clean it up,” fixing the trash can himself.
Felix and Oscar return
Unger and Randall were ready to move on after the series wrapped — Klugman went on to star in seven seasons of Quincy, M.E., while Randall starred in two seasons each of The Tony Randall Show and Love, Sidney. But the pair reunited in live productions of the play in the ’80s and ’90s, as well as series of ads for Eagle brand potato chips.
And in 1993, they had a proper reunion, in the made-for-TV film The Odd Couple: Together Again. In the movie, Felix has been kicked out of his family home for several weeks for acting too prissy and uptight while planning his daughter Edna’s wedding. Where does he land? Back at the apartment of his old pal Felix.
The film reunites some of the old gang from the series — including Garry Walberg as Speed and Penny Marshall as Oscar’s secretary, Myrna — but also updated things by writing in Klugman’s real-life throat cancer struggles. Oscar is depicted as a recent cancer survivor trying to get his professional life back on track, while Felix is so controlling that he almost gets banned from his own daughter’s wedding.
But in the end, the two men who constantly drive each other crazy turn out to be, once again, the only people who can truly help each other.
Though the two didn’t formally reprise their roles on TV again, they did still sometimes appear together — like on a 1997 episode of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, promoting their appearance in a Broadway production of The Sunshine Boys, another Neil Simon comedy about a pair of bickering men.
Randall passed in 2004, and Klugman followed in 2012. The Odd Couple survived them both — most recently, in the form of a short-lived 2015 reboot, as well as in reruns of the original show, and in the hearts of fans, who will always carry a torch for the two men who couldn’t always quite figure out how to get along, but still ultimately need each other to survive.
Remind
1970s Fall TV
September 2023
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