Fred Savage, former cute-as-a-button star of TV’s “Wonder Years,” is all growed up now…and will prove it by shaking up his image with a new comedy to air on ABC starting January 12. Called “The Crumbs,” the sitcom features Savage as Mitch, the “gay prodigal son who returns home from a failed Hollywood career,” and also stars Jane Curtin as the mother recently released from a psychiatric ward. TV stalwart William Devane–always thisclose to becoming a parody of himself–will play Savage’s skirt-chasing father, who is divorced from Curtin’s character.
The talent involved with the show is intriguing, but this one doesn’t exactly have “breakout hit” written all over it. It’s got a lousy title (reminiscent of Fox’s Randy Quaid dud “The Grubbs” from a few years back), and the script includes multiple references to Mitch’s deceased brother…because dead siblings are always comedy GOLD!
Savage himself admits that studio audiences viewing early tapes of the show “laugh at the wrong places, or don’t laugh at all sometimes.” He insists that this is a good thing, as it means they’re hitting a different tone than the standard sitcom slush — and he might be right about that. These dysfunctional characters just might have the next “Arrested Development” on their hands.
Then again, they might not. As Daniel Stern would likely narrate in voiceover at this point in the show, “Sometimes you just have to wait and see what happens.”
