Joey and The Don in TV Land

They make an odd couple.

It started with a note. A beautiful note. Just four pictures of two men in their golden years enjoying life’s simple pleasures: the majesty of nature, the taste of a homecooked meal, the company of a good friend. Pictures filled with love, laughter, and hope for a brighter future.

Perhaps that future wasn’t Orwellian after all, but rather Rockwellian, with these photos serving as our guide forward… back to the halcyon days of yesteryear. I’m not privy to how Alexander Semenyuk ended up taking these charmingly candid photographs for Joey and The Don on their recent, heart-warming escapades across the rural, rustic New England countryside, but I do know that his gracious posting of these images has given us all a window into the humility and humanity of these two great men, and brought a smile to all of our faces in the process.¹

Quietly reflecting on the images from the comfort of my hard, plastic pod, snacking on my WEF-sourced bug bars, my mind was spurred to delightful flights of fancy, chief amongst them: “Wow, this would make an amazing sitcom.”

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One need not go all the way back to Norman Rockwell’s era of Americana to recall the glory days of the American sitcom. Throughout the generations, the genre has continuously provided both laughs and a cultural looking glass. It confounds and consternates me that we are living through the most ludicrous timeline with historically hilarious characters stammering and stumbling across our screens daily, and yet comedy has been banished from the public sphere. Yet, when I started plugging Joey and The Don into various sitcom setups throughout history, I quickly realized that it was always funny!

And so, humbly submitted for your approval, here are some situation comedies that I contend would be pure gold if they starred the dy-no-mite! comedic duo of Joey and The Don. This is only a smattering of ideas that popped into my pop culture-addled brain, so by all means, please share any Nielsen-smashing pilot pitches that you have as well in the comments!

• Drop them in The Odd Couple: obviously gold

• Honeymooners: gold

• Leave it to Beaver: gold

• Have them adopt a little black boy like Webster: gold

• ”I Dream of Donnie” with Joey as Captain Nelson: gold

• Have them pretend to be women like Bosom Buddies: gold

• Have them dress in drag and play The Golden Girls: golden gold

• Have them be hip, wisecracking teens like Saved by the Bell: gold

• Put them in What’s Happening!! so Dee—the best character in the history of sitcoms²—can constantly mock them: gold

• Make one of them a robot like Small Wonder: gold

• Make them both “good ol’ boys” in The Dukes of Hazard: gold

• Perfect Strangers: gold

• Joey and The Don as Pinky and The Brain: animated gold

• Joey as ALF, “C’mon, man! I ate the cat!”: gold

• Zany N.Y. neurotics getting into misadventures like Seinfeld: it’s gold, Jerry! Gold!

Naturally, the theme song would vary to match the sitcom. If we went off of the original photos and created a Hallmark-style sitcom with a heart of gold, then I’d prefer a duet with Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville. Though, now that I think about it, they may both be dead. Oh well, we can use AI for that too then.

1. In case you’re new around these parts, I made all of that up, except for the part about the inimitable Alexander, who did indeed share those hysterical AI photos, and who deserves all the credit (and subscribers). The photos are not real. The story is not real. I actually saw someone in the comments asking if the photos were real, so unfortunately, yes, this does need to be pointed out for some people.

2. Seriously. Danielle Spencer’s deadpan portrayal of Dee Thomas is the best, most savage character to ever appear on a sitcom. She steals every single scene. Yes, even more than the late, great Fred Berry’s outstanding work as “Rerun.” Second place for “most savage” may go to Al Bundy. I’d need to think about it more, so I’m open to suggestions there as well.