Evil Roy Slade

"Evil Roy Slade," was certainly ahead of its time. It was a pilot for a tv show that never went anywhere. The idea was that the bad guys would be the heroes of the show, and each week there would be a different guest sheriff that would be killed. It's a beauty of an idea and I'd still love to see some variant of it today.

Of course a modern version wouldn't have John Astin. Everyone remembers John Astin as Gomez Adams, but I would see him in anything. I still remember him fondly as Harry's dad in "Night Court." I used to bother folks for years by saying "....but I feel MUCH BETTER NOW." He had the Ebola of infectious smiles. You just sense he had a wonderful time with whatever he did. No different here, his character is so evil that as a baby he raised himself in the desert with only his teddy bear. He grows up to a scoundrel and a villain, but the fun kind who'd say things like, "Mind if I shoot your mom so we can have a conversation?"

Clearly John Astin is center ring of this circus, but this pilot has so much more. Dom Deluise, Milton Berle, and Mickey Rooney show up to make it a show! Plus the writing is fairly sharp for this sort of things. Some of the jokes are a bit old now, but heck as they say everything comes back into style eventually.

If you can find it, give "Evil Roy Slade" a try.