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Farewell to ‘Hot in Cleveland’

The Columbian
Published: June 5, 2015, 12:00am

“Hot in Cleveland” ended its six-season run Wednesday. It was time. The show seemed to know it, too.

Never afraid of an inside joke, the comedy seemed to be commenting on itself not long ago in a scene where the characters discussed romantic overlaps: who had slept with both Joy and Melanie, for example, or all the liaisons Victoria’s father had had. The dialogue set up a punch line: Elka cheerfully observing that she was the only one in the group who’d been with Frank Sinatra. Implicit was the idea that the series had worked and reworked the same kind of stories quite enough.

At the same time, the conversation felt like a shot at TV Land itself, which has been trumpeting its shift toward “riskier and more challenging content” while letting “Hot in Cleveland” go.

“Hot in Cleveland,” after all, could be not only frisky but also risky, whether it was doing live telecasts or giving its characters rich and colorful lives that might not be found in young-demographic-chasing shows elsewhere.

Premiering in June 2010, “Hot in Cleveland” was old-school in its format: a situation comedy staged in a fashion that would fit with the vintage sitcoms that were TV Land’s bread and butter. Only within that format was a broadside against mass-culture versions of what women should look and act like, especially after a certain age.

The premise: L.A. ladies Joy (Jane Leeves), Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli) and Victoria (Wendie Malick) are on an airplane flight that is forced down in Cleveland. Despondent over their problems living up to the high-glam and youth-driven standards of their hometown, the women find that in Cleveland they stand out as attractive. Cleveland men like real women, and those women can eat all the chili fries they want. So Joy, Melanie and Victoria settle in.

The show, whose premiere was the most-watched telecast in TV Land history, was far from casually assembled. The three stars all brought considerable comedy pedigrees: Leeves from “Frasier,” Bertinelli from “One Day at a Time,” Malick from “Just Shoot Me.”

And those credentials were small potatoes compared to the long history and audience love brought by Betty White, whose caretaker character Elka was intended as a one-shot but immediately became a regular part of the ensemble. Rachel Sweet, who was a writer and producer on “Hot,” once referred to White as the show’s hammer, “which means she comes in and nails the scene.”

Over the years, as well, the guest stars were a Who’s Who of TV comedy, including White’s old “Mary Tyler Moore Show” buddies, Wayne Knight, Carl Reiner and Tim Conway.

Again, the audience customarily drawn to TV Land’s reruns had something very familiar before it. They were then treated to effective variations on sitcom tales.

There were romantic dilemmas, mix-ups, physical humor and plenty of double- and single-entendres. (One beloved clip involves Elka’s thoughts about “going downtown.”) But they were coming from a cast where the three main women had long since said goodbye to 40 — and White was 88 when the show started.

Age was not a barrier to adventure, nor was parenthood. Joy, Melanie and Victoria all had adult children — and, it would turn out, often randy parents. Elka, for that matter, not only boasted of old conquests, but she also was always ready for new ones.

Don’t mistake this focus on the characters’ vigor as a suggestion that it was a one-joke program. Series creator Suzanne Martin had defined each personality, creating a path for the writers to follow. So the show could readily draw laughs as well from its characters’ foibles: Melanie’s romanticism, for instance, or the seemingly endless inspiration that was Victoria’s vanity.

But it still refused to suggest that, with advancing years, there was little chance of physical satisfaction and romantic love. As frustrating as the pursuit of both might have been, the possibility always remained.

And lest we forget, it was at times a very funny show.

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