Ted Danson’s Personas Integrated in One Fantastic, Funny, Fun New Show—Help Me Help You

Ted Danson’s Personas Integrated in One Fantastic, Funny, Fun New Show—Help Me Help You by Roxanne McDonald

Snarky egotist Sam Malone meets crabby curmudgeon John Becker, MD—to bring us another hilarious character, Dr. Bill Hoffman.

It’s no wonder that when Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza collaborate on a pilot for NBC that George relentlessly alludes to Ted Danson—to how Ted Danson is treated, to how much per episode Ted Danson makes ($800,000/episode on Cheers)….

Whether the writers had a thing for Danson or a grudge ( which I doubt) or whatever,

he is also mentioned (as wikipedia contributors note) numerous times throughout the Seinfeld series and brought in once more in the second to last episode, with George again grousing how Ted Danson gets a better plane than they who are being flown to LA to air the pilot do.

And while Costanza is (in the postmodern sense) just as valuable/marketable, Ted Danson is one enduring performer who has come full circle with two TV characters who share commonalities to offer us a third who is a composite of the two and more.

Sam Malone (Cheers, 1982-1993; now in re-run) A former Red Sox pitcher with a continuing following, Sam was the hottie who knew it. He womanized and seduced his way through almost every episode, save those wherein he was in a committed relationship—and then was a frustrated playboy toy boy struggling to abstain from adventures that aggrandized his already bloated ego. Charmer, lover, and foil and fumbler when the comedy called for it, Ted Danson made himself a household name—swoon—early on through this cocky alter ego.

Dr. John Becker (Becker, 1998-2004, in re-run) The character was such a stretch in so many ways from the Sam character, that it is a wonder the pilot of Becker took. But it not only took but flew—with the versatility Danson showed in a character that was perpetually disgruntled, purposely antisocial (save his daily visits to the local coffee shop where the only ones who would tolerate him longer than his medical assistant hung out for hours on end), and predictably obsessive…about the crime, the degeneration, and the decadence of his home and work environs.

Dr. Bill Hoffman (Help Me Help You, 2006-) Danson’s latest character is older, wiser, calmer (or more confident in his place). But he also shows [a modicum, still of] the impatience and intolerance of idiocy that John Becker railed against; still puerilely (sic) expresses the delusions of sexual, potency, intellectual, and other grandeur that Sam Malone consistently paraded in front of friends and folks in the bar. Only Hoffman trips on his tongue in more subtle and maybe less frequent fashion.

Malone would get caught in a tale of sexual adventure and prowess that would send him sulking back to the comfort of Diane…or Rebecca. Hoffman gets taken for an aging emotional fraud who contradicts himself by showing off his smarts or his youthfulness or his vigor or what have you, and the consequences are snares that help to perpetuate his denial.
Bill Hoffman is still sensitive (about himself), still deluded (about his motive of operation), and still misguiding and manipulating those he considers as the less well-informed…or still trying to.

Go Hoffman, Go Hoffman, Go Hoffman….

So is it any wonder why George was so fixated on the man and viewers such as those at imdb post comments that say, “They need to make this show [Help Me Help You] about Ted Danson”? Maybe they have. Maybe they have.

***And a great joyous nod to the brilliant as ever Jere Burns who is as delightfully disgusting a male character as he was in Dear John as the egocentric and obnoixious “KirK.” We missed you!

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