Parents' Guide to The Odd Couple

Groundbreaking for its time, it's no real surprise that this 1960s sitcom doesn't hold up 50 years later. As the comedic backbone of The Odd Couple, Felix (played by the delightful Tony Randall) is a man who's surprisingly progressive for his era -- openly communicating feelings, cleaning the shared apartment, and cooking dinner each night. The problem, of course, is that these attributes aren't lauded by the show, but mocked. A man willingly taking on traditionally female roles is, in fact, the central joke of the series. The sexism and traditional gender expectations take more overt forms as well. In the second episode, for example, Felix decides to fight a man after being accused of being "chicken" and tells the man's girlfriend, "All a lady has to do is be her feminine self, no man could resist that."

Female characters as a whole are underdeveloped and treated primarily as props for the men's storylines. That being said, Felix's awkward sincerity about how the world should run is still endearing. Randall and his co-star, Jack Klugman as Oscar, also mastered the comedic tension that arises when two very different people try to live together in harmony. In the end, this throwback may still make you chuckle, but is probably best left in the past.