Jack Klugman

Jack Klugman plays Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple, the 1970s catalog slob opposite Tony Randall’s Felix. Neat-freak-versus-mess as a New York apartment religion: Klugman is the cigar and the sports page. He makes Simon’s marriage of opposites feel like a man who will never hang a towel.

The 1970s tag on The Odd Couple is weather, not a sticker Klugman can peel off. Play 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. Oscar Madison is the human fact inside that sentence.

Quincy, M.E. later put the yell in a lab until procedure became a crusade — the coroner as a civic pest, not furniture. On TV Flash Klugman is 1970s craft — Oscar as the named weather, the slab as the encore, still the reason a poker table and an autopsy can share a growl.

NBC later used Klugman on Quincy, M.E. as Dr. Quincy. Start that title at s01e01 — Go Fight City Hall -- To the Death! is the brief in the title. Klugman already treats the coroner as crusader, not lab furniture; bureaucracy as a. Klugman does not visit this floor; he works it. s01e12 on The Odd Couple remains a useful hour: 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. s06e01 on Quincy, M.E. remains a useful hour: Last Rights is the season-open as civic last rites. Quincy still yelling until the district attorney blinks — crusader procedural, not a quiet lab.