The Nutt House

The Nutt House is a situation comedy that aired on NBC as part of its 1989 Fall lineup.

Overview

The Nutt House was the creation of executive producers Mel Brooks and Alan Spencer and was a broad farce about a once-prestigious New York City hotel which had of late fallen on hard times, in part, no doubt, due to it being named for the proprietress, Edwina Nutt (Cloris Leachman). Other characters included manager Reginald Tarkington (Harvey Korman), and head of housekeeping Ms. Frick (also portrayed by Leachman). Frick, a more pleasant version of Leachman's Frau Blucher character from Brooks' Young Frankenstein, appeared in every episode, Mrs. Nutt only in the pilot.

The Nutt House was a very broad satire in which the main story was periodically interrupted by short, unrelated, and often surreal background gags, not unlike those of Police Squad!. Its audience was quite a narrow one, as the single-camera show was intensely visual, and it was canceled within six weeks of its premiere. However, all eleven of the produced episodes were broadcast on BBC 2 in the United Kingdom where Police Squad! was making a comeback thanks to the success of The Naked Gun. It became a moderate success being shown on Saturday evening following Clive James' Saturday Night Clive. Brooks appeared on this programme to promote the first episode of The Nutt House on 14 October 1989. However, to the dismay of viewers the BBC did not give the show a fixed airtime. Usually shown around 23.00 hours (but sometimes as late as 23.30), the final episode inexplicably aired at 19.30 on 16 December 1989.