Trivia / Car 54, Where Are You?

• Hostility on the Set: Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff has documented the difficulty others had in working with Joe E. Ross, formerly an obscure blue comic mostly known on the burlesque circuit until his role on The Phil Silvers Show. Aside from Ross's unreliable nature, inability to memorize lines and temperamental behavior on set, which increased along with his ego when the show took off, he was also extremely crude and vulgar in his behavior; one time, Hank Garrett recalled, some representatives from Proctor & Gamble came to visit the set, and were horrified to walk in on Joe masturbating in his dressing room. Nat Hiken almost fired Ross at one point and handed the co-starring role to Al Lewis, but Ross was so inconsolable at being told this that Hiken gave up and let him stay.^note Ironically, Nat had had almost the exact problem before with Ross's Phil Silvers co-star Maurice Gosfield, who also believed himself to be the most invaluable member of the cast; the combined stress of working with both men over eight years may have hastened the overworked perfectionist Hiken's heart attack.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Until 2011, when the series was given a DVD release. It's also available on demand through numerous streaming services, including Pluto and Tubi.
• Referenced by...:
  • The TV ad for the Atari 2600 port of Mario Bros. prominently features a parody of this show's theme song.
  • The bleeding walls at the 53rd precinct in Ghostbusters (1984). There is no 53rd precinct... outside of this sitcom. The dynamic between Ray and Egon has numerous nods to the Ham and Deadpan Duo protagonists of the series (both Cloudcuckoolanders, in their own way), while the Ecto-1 and the scenes of it tearing through the streets of New York with siren blaring bear a strong resemblance to the namesake car 54.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: The movie adaptation was supposed to be released in 1991, but between Orion Pictures' financial troubles and poor reactions in test screenings, it didn't get released into cinemas until 1994. It nearly went direct-to-video but was given a theatrical release to capitalize on, of all things, Rosie O'Donnell's role in the live-action The Flintstones movie.
• You Look Familiar: Al Lewis appeared in two early episodes of the series — "I Won't Go" and "Paint Job" — as the city employee supervising Mrs. Bronson's eviction and the operator of a hot-car garage, respectively (both were named Al Spencer, but it was unclear if they were the same character). He would soon join the cast in a different role as Leo Schnauser, remaining as a regular for the rest of the series, and co-star with Fred Gwynne in their next project.

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