Did I miss something? Did I pull a Rip Van Winkle and are we now in the 1970s or 80s, and in the run-up to the television season? Probably not, but I could swear I saw a pilot the other day. It was called "Play the Game," and it stars Andy Griffith, and Doris Roberts and Liz Sheridan, who were in just about every television series in those days.
So it’s proper that all three are in a retirement community (such a chilling term), and Griffith still has the urge, if not the ability. As proof of his failing mental status, he asks his grandson to help him become a "chick magnet," or maybe "chick maggot." The grandson’s background?
He’s a car salesman.
David, the grandson, played smarmily by Paul Campbell and obviously blinded by looking in the mirror, gives Grandpa stupid advice. It doesn’t take many moves for Grandpa, but suddenly he’s involved with Edna (Sheridan), who turns him every way but loose. At the same time, Grandpa meets Rose (Roberts), and Rose has a granddaughter. David meets her, of course, and the rest is history, or maybe mystery, but even in the glory days of television, when anything got on the air, "Play the Game" would have fallen as short then as it does now.
Marc Fienberg wrote and directed; it’s his first time around. Hope he gets back to his sophomore year in film school as soon as possible.
At multiple theaters.
–Joe