Al Molinaro

The Odd Couple splits a New York apartment and turns mismatch into a premise that does not need garnish. Molinaro’s Murray Greshler is the officer in the poker orbit — a badge who comes over, not a chase. He plays the cop as a friend of the house. Watch it as 1970s ABC chemistry: Randall, Klugman, Pigeon-sister weather, the game night as a Greek chorus.

Start the The Odd Couple stack (ABC, 1970–1975) when you want Officer Murray Greshler without a clip-farm tour. s01e12 is a useful mid-run tab — Scrooge Gets an Oscar is holiday farce named for the slob. Poker-night ensemble weather around a Dickens gag: roommate mismatch still the only plot the series needs. The handshake remains s01e01: The Laundry Orgy opens Neil Simon's neat-freak-versus-slob math on ABC. Randall and Klugman already split the apartment; chemistry as premise, not garnish, from the first pile of clothes. Keep the tab. The Odd Couple remains the room.

Chemistry is the architecture; Murray is one of the load-bearing jokes. On TV Flash Molinaro is catalog ensemble craft. Stay for the knock at the door. The neat freak and the slob are the marriage. The series is the apartment. He made a policeman look like a regular, which is why the hour still feels like a building instead of a two-hander with extras.

1970–1975 on ABC: The Odd Couple as the room, Officer Murray Greshler as Molinaro's job, 1970s as the tag. s01e01 is the door — The Laundry Orgy opens Neil Simon's neat-freak-versus-slob math on ABC. Randall and Klugman already split the apartment; chemistry as premise, not garnish, from the first pile of clothes. s01e12 keeps the climate: Scrooge Gets an Oscar is holiday farce named for the slob. Poker-night ensemble weather around a Dickens gag: roommate mismatch still the only plot the series needs. Molinaro photographs as a person, which is how a 1970s hour still works.