NBC's Breezy 'Boys'
By Tom Shales

Commences now another in the nine lives of Mickey Rooney, who is still in phase three of his amazing, daunting career: the  beloved old hobbit phase that probably began with his splendid performance in "The Black Stallion" and continued, impressively, with his role in the recent TV movie "Bill." In "One of the Boys," the new NBC sitcom premiering at 8 tonight on Channel 4, Rooney is at his pushily lovable best, and he has been astutely teamed with another hale veteran, Scatman Crothers.

Perhaps Rooney is not universally irresistible; it's just that there is no longer any point in trying to resist him. He's safely in the legend class, and his clowning and camaraderie with Crothers is extremely appealing; this is a Super Bowl of ham, and so a fairly routine comic vehicle is elevated into a rarefied plaything, just right for bouncing on the national lap. Experience does count, after all.

Rooney plays Oliver Nugent, a 66-year-old forced retiree who lives with his grandson on a college campus. In the premiere, he knocks around looking for a part-time job, something useful and demanding to do (though he is advised to be content with "puttering"). He runs into Crothers, as Bernard, at an employment office, and soon, in the show's niftiest moment, the two of them team for a jaunty vaudeville rendition of "Ain't She Sweet," which is marred only by director Peter Baldwin's stupid refusal to get in close.

Jokes about Rooney's height are kept at a merciful minimum ("I'm not short; I'm just economically packaged") and while this is not an occasion for falling out of chairs and slapping the rug in hysterics, the script by Don Flynn is certainly more humane and less panicked than most sitcoms now on the air. Like "Love, Sidney," Rooney's show is taped in New York, and the absence of a frantically cackling L.A. audience is a highly positive influence.

As the grandson, Dana Carvey underplays compatibly, but Nathan Lane's line readings are too formula-snide as he plays the kid's roommate, who doesn't like Oliver and reels off sub-par insult jokes about him. It's very forced friction, and not amusing, and you keep wishing Rooney would belt the kid. Producers are in error when they think a sitcom must have abrasive rat-a-tat to be funny, but Rooney and Crothers still succeed in keeping the show breezy and infectious. Ain't it sweet!

Carvey and Lane recount nerve-racking TV tapings with Rooney
By Tom Walter

Back in 1982, when both were struggling actors, Nathan Lane and Dana Carvey played roommates on the NBC sitcom One of the Boys. Mickey Rooney played Carvey's grandfather.

''Mickey Rooney was a real colorful character, told us great stories. He used to walk around and say, 'I was the No. 1 star in the world, hear me? The world!' And that's when he was alone in his dressing cubicle,'' Carvey said.

Carvey said Rooney rarely appeared on the set, apparently preferring to spend time at the race track. Carvey and Lane had to rehearse with Rooney's stand-in, and the day of taping, Rooney would show up and try to read his lines off cue cards.

If that wasn't nerve-racking enough, Scatman Crothers played Rooney's best friend.

''I remember that Mickey wouldn't learn the lines, and Scatman was always in the bathroom smoking something,'' Lane said. ''When they did a scene together, it was like Waiting for Godot. They would just stare at each other and hope that somehow the dialog would appear in their heads.''

Lane remembered Rooney as an entrepreneur. He tried to sell a cassette tape of acting lessons, and pushed a camp for kids, called Talent Town.

Mickey Rooney's ''One Of The Boys'' on NBC

By FRED ROTHENBERG
AP Television Writer

NBC tries to bring back a little vaudeville Saturday night with the debut of Mickey Rooney's series, "One of the Boys." He doesn't quite stoop to pies in the face, but the physical humor and pratfalls are on the same level as knock-knock jokes.

Rooney plays 66-year-old Oliver Nugent, who somehow has found a home on a college campus with his grandson and a crabby roommate. NBC apparently found the concept a little far-fetched, too, since in the first two episodes previewed, no explanation is made for this unusual menages-a-trois.

Babies with beards are the rage this season. "Mork and Mindy" hatched Jonathan Winters on ABC and now Rooney, as full grown as he's ever going to be, has been delivered on NBC's doorstep.

"One of the Boys" is part of NBC's stopgap plan that substituted retread stars for legitimate story concepts. It's the least creative way to build ratings, and the public hasn't bought it. With series starring Angie Dickinson and Rock Hudson almost ready, only Jim Garner's "Bret Maverick" has proven popular.

James Arness' "McClain's Law" has not caught on and Gabe Kaplan's "Lewis and Clark" was quickly canceled. In fact, "One of the Boys" will fill Kaplan's timeslot, suggesting, perhaps, that NBC is about to make the same mistake again.

Successful comedies revolve around ensemble casts whose well-developed characters are woven comfortably into credible situations. "M-A-S-H" has been a hit for 10 years because its relationships are funny and touching. Some wonderful stories have been done with Alan Alda's Hawkeye in a subordinate role.

Even the Emmy-winning "Mary Tyler Moore Show" often was not about Miss Moore's character, Mary Richards.

As NBC found with "Lewis and Clark," it isn't easy to achieve a repertory comedy effort when the star takes the situations out of sit-coms for the purpose of doing stand-up comedy.

In the same vein, "One of the Boys" is Rooney's vehicle to do schtick, and he's the constant focus, impinging on opportunities to develop the other characters and any workable relationships. In the first two shows, the plausible strong, family bond between Oliver and his adoring grandson, Adam (Dana Garvey) is downplayed and, instead, we get sniping from Adam's snide roommate, Jonathan (Nathan Lane), who thinks retirement should be spent playing shuffleboard.

This is basically a two-joke series: Rooney's age and his height. Then there's the physical humor that might have worked in vaudeville or Rooney's Broadway hit, "Sugar Babies."

Saturday night, when Oliver meets with age discrimination in trying to find a job, Rooney's character hurts his finger on a typewriter, destroys a window shade and steps on Jonathan's foot. Next week, Oliver does an Irish jig, puts his hand in a cake and falls down the stairs (offstage).

It's too bad that Oliver has turned clownish because Rooney is really quite likeable as the spunky senior citizen who isn't ready to give up living just because he's collecting Social Security. But instead of being the wise old sage, Oliver comes across as an adolescent.

His contemporary partner in crime is Scatman Crothers. Also on hand is Francine Beers, who plays an irritating landlady with a crush on Oliver.

At the end of each show, Oliver and Adam (the cute blond for teen-age identification) have heart-to-heart talks about life, like Bill Bixby and son did in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father." If these chats had been treated in the plots and not used as mere throwaways, "One of the Boys" would have a better chance of growing old on TV.

PICKS & PANS; Tube; Pg. 6

HIGHLIGHT:
A checklist of this week's noteworthy TV shows, books, movies, records and other happenings

* SATURDAY, JANUARY 23
ONE OF THE BOYS
NBC (8-8:30 p.m. ET)

Still hot after all these years, Mickey Rooney, the 61-year-old star of Broadway's Sugar Babies, tries his hand at a sitcom for the first time since 1964's Mickey. He plays a retired gent who moves in with his grandson and his college roommate -- but will Rooney prove an artful lodger? (Premiere)