This show was just as stupid as other shows of the era (Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian) HOWEVER watching it now what this show didn't have was charm and charisma. Barbara Eden had it, Elizabeth Montgomery had it in DROVES...but the actors on this show really didn't have much charisma. The production values looked a bit cheaper than other shows of the era as well. I think maybe that is why it didn't catch on.
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I could agree too. Jerry had to do some rather extreme slapstick in one episode and for a brief two seconds, you could see the Dick Van Dyke marvel.
Jerry just did it with no pick-me-up. He all but speaks with a hillbilly drawl (I had typed subdued, then saw you described him the exact same way), while Dick is sharp as a tack. It's all but a shame, because I can only guess Jerry could have matched Dick move for move with his antics.
I agree Jerry Van Dyke is the weak link here. If he was just half as funny as he usually was on his brother's show or on Coach years later, this show might have lasted a few seasons. Unfortunately, he wasn't and the show suffered greatly for it.
No blah, blah, blah!
Maybe the reason why it was canceled after one season because people thought it was stupid having one's mom who's was a car.
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There were different problems in this series. To me, the biggest was the concept. His mother "decided" to come back "as a car" and wanted to help her son through life.
Now he was a successful attorney with a lovely, and loving, wife and kids. He didn't really need her help. But more so, if mom could "decide" how to come back, why on earth didn't she pick something else where she could talk to him more conveniently than by being a car. As a car, she couldn't enter the house, his office, or any other buildings. She didn't even have the option Mr. Ed had with Wilbur, of calling him up on the phone to give advice.
I cite Mr. Ed because that was the most similar premise. But there, Ed was a horse who could talk before he met Wilbur and he just happened to have lived in the barn on the property when Wilbur bought the place and converted the barn to his office. As long as you can accept a horse that speaks, this premise made sense. But My Mother the Car did not make sense in the first place.
The on-going plot of the car collector who seemed to devote his life into tricking Dave into selling or giving him this rare car was also unreal. The guy was supposed to be honest but he resorted to plenty of underhanded means to find a way to become the owner.
But without him, they didn't have much to write stories about.
And then again, how comfortable could Dave be driving his mother around town? Wouldn't he be too worried someone would crash into "his mother" and cause her pain? I know this sounds silly, but IF you accept that this car is actually the guy's late mother, I would think he would never want to drive her for fear of an accident.
Again, I think the premise just boggled people's minds too much and the plots didn't go anywhere all that funny.
There's a reason why, a few years later, on a Get Smart episode, a big-time gangster told Max (who was pretending to be the guy's old partner in crime) "When it's my time (to die) to go, I want you to come in and tell me that My Mother the Car is coming back on television."
Max: "Why?"
Gangster: "So I won't mind going."
Why don't we just shoot 'em down and be through with it?
I would have HATED to have been commissioned to write a script for this show.
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