Ace Crawford, Private Eye: The Complete Series

ACE CRAWFORD, PRIVATE EYE: THE COMPLETE SERIES

Tim Conway was someone that I would call a comedic genius. If one sees him on The Carol Burnett Show, you see that he could make anything funny. Somehow, in some way, however, Conway flopped whenever he ventured on his own starring projects. Such is the sad fate of Ace Crawford, Private Eye. This noir spoof lasted five episodes, and I think that is five episodes too many. While not without potential, Ace Crawford, Private Eye did not have the wit or charm that might have made it logical for a television series.

Ace Crawford (Conway) is seen by everyone, especially himself, as the ultimate private detective. The joke, of course, is that he is anything but. Ace is a moron, a bumbler who if he solves the case, is more due to accident than insight. There is one person who admires him more than anyone or anything in the world. It is his loyal Guy Friday, Toomey (Joe Regalbuto). Toomey is not only Ace's loving apprentice. He is his accountant. Ace's main hangout is The Shanty, a dive bar by the docks. The Shanty's bartender and owner, Inch (Billy Barty) welcomes Ace, for the most part. The Shanty's pianist, Mello (Bill Henderson) rocks the keys despite his blindness. Sultry Shanty chanteuse Luana (Shera Danese) is smitten with Ace. He, for his part, knows that detectives and dames don't mix.

Ace Crawford, Private Eye's premise is pretty straightforward. Each week, Toomey would narrate one of Ace's cases. Ace would use his skills, usually but not always including a disguise, to gain access to wherever he needed to be. Toomey, his loyal and loving sidekick, would almost always be at his side, even if Mrs. Toomey and the kids were pushed aside. Detective Fanning (Dick Christie) would come around at the end, marveling at how Ace could solve a seemingly unsolvable case with the greatest of ease. At the end, Ace Crawford would walk alone along the wharf...and then audibly fall into the water.

Having seen all five Ace Crawford episodes, I think I can see where the series went oh so terribly wrong; one of the biggest mistakes it made was its laugh track. As Ace Crawford was not filmed before a live studio audience, I think it wanted to show the audience where it was funny. Problem was that many of the moments that Ace Crawford thought was funny, were not. 

One of the oddest moments was in the second episode, Bull Bates. I will grant that the sight gag involving Ace and the title character, a mobster whose moll is about to turn on him, is clever. However, the scene concludes with the soundtrack featuring applause. I think it is a bit of hubris to have phantom audiences applaud, even if I thought it was a well-executed moment. 

I think that the laugh track felt forced, almost as if to show the audience both how funny Ace Crawford thought it was and to cue said audience when to laugh. It did not work. I think about the third episode, Inch in a Pinch. There is a long sequence where Ace, in his usual bumbling episode, destroys Inch's apartment. Ace, unaware that he is stuck in a chair, proceeds to walk around the tiny flat, demolishing everything in his way whenever he turns around. Inch is aware of it, but Ace isn't. I get that Ace is supposed to be so dumb that he does not realize the chaos he is causing. However, the laugh track makes things less funny. It ends up emphasizing the obvious nature of things. 

Another poor choice was in never really setting up the premise. The premiere episode, Murder at Restful Hills, pretty much just throws us into things. We are not really introduced to any of the characters. Toomey can tell us about what a genius Ace is. The audience, however, has to pretty much take him at his word. Ace Crawford should have started out with a proper introduction into how Toomey became convinced of Ace's mastery of deduction. Instead, the first case we see is one where old people are murdered. Over the course of the episodes, Toomey tells us how he and Ace came to be together. I think that was maybe in Episode Three, but narrating the introduction is not the same as having one.

Perhaps Ace Crawford's ghastliest mistake was in the main character itself. Ace, I presume, is meant to be an endearing idiot. For the most part, Conway attempts to play Ace as affable if unaware. HOWEVER, when it comes to Toomey, Ace is downright cruel. Over and over again, Ace belittles and berates Toomey. He shows no patience whatsoever for or to his apprentice. Every time Toomey observes a family obligation, Ace is quick to snap at him.

I figure that Ace Crawford is meant to be a bumbler, but one who does care about his clients. He does not show it when it comes to the good-natured, naive, downright sweet Toomey. Joe Regalbuto plays Toomey as a wide-eyed innocent, who embraces Ace (sometimes literally). The dichotomy between Toomey's sweet reverence and Ace's abusive manner makes Ace unlikeable. 

Ace, apparently, shows no patience for anyone who comes close to helping him. In the last Ace Crawford episode, The Gentleman Bandit, it is bad enough how Ace simply does not care that Toomey is terribly sick. Things get worse when Luann offers to help him solve the case. First, Luann ends up as one of the Gentleman Bandit's victims. There is something very unsettling about seeing a woman attacked, then bound and gagged. As if determined to make things worse, Ace does not help Luann, who is clearly in a difficult situation. Instead, despite being bound and gagged, he starts berating her.

I know that Ace Crawford is supposed to be oblivious. No one, I would say, is that oblivious. It just makes him look like someone whom you want to avoid interacting with. You end up not liking him. The show makes Ace into a moron. That is understood. Why did it make him into a sometimes-raging jerk? Every single time he starts tearing into Toomey or Luann, Ace Crawford comes across as a total egocentric narcissist, utterly convinced that the world should stop because HE is speaking.

There is one last problem in Ace Crawford. That problem is Tim Conway. As stated, Conway was a brilliant second banana. Therein lies the problem. Here, Conway is the first banana. He has to carry the show. Unfortunately, he can't, not with the material he was given. 

When he plays bumbling, Conway seems to sleepwalk through it. It does not help when he is essentially recreating Carol Burnett bits like The Oldest Man in Murder at Restful Hills. When he plays arrogant, that is when we get real disasters. Tim Conway doesn't make Ace Crawford into a dimwitted detective. He makes him into a pushy, short-tempered, almost angry person. Had Conway been directed to make Ace more perplexed than arrogant when dealing with Toomey, it might, might have worked. Instead, every time Toomey made a sensible excuse as to why his family and job had to come first, Ace was more than quick to dismiss it. He was downright belligerent about it.

I would say that Tim Conway was actually too nice to be so obnoxious. It just did not work. 

The real MVP of Ace Crawford, Private Eye is Joe Regalbuto as Toomey. He made Toomey into an endearing fellow. Regalbuto gave Toomey this wide-eyed innocence that makes his adoration for Ace plausible. I would not say "believable" given that this is meant as a comedy. I would say that Regalbuto made Toomey into an oblivious fellow, happy to help Ace solve crimes, who actually grounded a lot of the nonsense. At least as much as he could.

It might have worked as a telefilm, especially if one removed the laugh track. One cannot emphasize how the laugh track killed the comedy. It signaled to the small audience that something was meant to be funny. It only emphasized how it was anything but. 

I had hoped that Ace Crawford, Private Eye would turn out to be some undiscovered comedy gem cancelled too soon. No, it is a bad show. Apart from Joe Regalbuto and the admittedly great opening theme, jazzy and light, Ace Crawford, Private Eye should never have seen the light of day.