Mack & Myer for Hire (1963– ) User Reviews

Good clean fun ..in black and white

[sonnythefat · 7/10 · 18 February 2007]

I watched this as a young boy back in the Sixty's and I liked the low budget, but arty look, The way the camera tracked the moving motorcycle in the credits and with a catchy theme song that I can still remember, This show never made me think of Abbott and Costello, a little like "Laurel and Hardy",But with a different edge, Not in the ripoff category like "Gilligan" and the "Skipper", in "Gilligan's Island" Now that I am aware that this Classic kids show of the sixty's is available on DVD ,I will buy it for my Wife as she was not able to watch T.V. as a girl And as we have the same taste in Comedy She will enjoy it for the first time and I will be very happy to view this again as a "mature adult".

Advice to the Kids, Don't Hire These Clowns!

[verbusen · 7/10 · 10 March 2020]

I originally wrote a critical review of this show but has since grown on me and I have raised it to a 7 (from a 5). It grows on you. This show is infrequently now on the cable channel Decades which is CBS's old catalog. They are showing short lived and forgotten shows at the 5-6AM time slot like Boston Blackie and Mack and Myer for Hire. As a nostalgia fan I like to watch TV shows I never heard of before at least to become familiar with them. I also think its available in the public domain at Internet Archive. I was born around the same time this was first aired but I don't recall ever watching it on NYC's TV in the 60s (although Wikipedia says it was shown there) and I watched a lot of TV, but in all likelyhood I did watch it but have no memories of it, its very light comedy designed for kids. So what do I think after watching this for the first time in 2020 as a middle aged adult who still loves watching The Abbott and Costello Show and Laurel and Hardy? I think it's a lot of the same humor without the adult themes of Abbott and Costello like with Abbott chain smoking and the boys not paying their bills and chasing after dates, and also lacks violence between the two no matter how much Myer hurts Mack like in L&H. Interesting that Myer wears a hat like Lou Costello and has similiar facial expressions, so I assume this is a kids version of that show. I read the bios of the two comedians and now recognize Mack was on Three's Company and it is interesting that Myer has connections to Phil Silvers, Sydney Fields and Abbott and Costello skits (and the 3 Stooges)! So I may watch some more if they are shown again on Decades. 7 of 10, its very light children's fare but not bad for adults either.

Gave us a few chuckles

[BruceCorneil · 9 September 2003]

Children's live action comedy show about two bumbling handymen who regularly got into trouble while they were on the job.

I don't remember much about this one. It used to go to air as part of "The Super Flying Fun Show" on the Nine Network here in Australia back in the 1970s. Although, it had probably premiered years before that.

The "Fun Show" was basically made up of cartoons which included "King Leonardo", "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and the like. It went to air around 7.00 to 9.00 am during the week and was intended for kids and teenagers to watch as they were getting ready for school. Featured a live host - Miss Marilyn who introduced each segment and conducted competitions.

I don't think "Mack & Myer" will be remembered as one of the all time classic kids shows but it filled a gap and gave us a few chuckles.

Low rent Abbott and Costello retread kids show is best left to nostalgia junkies only (and even then briefly)

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 22 September 2006]

1960's kid show with ex-vaudevillians playing handy men for hire. As you can expect they are a disaster at everything they do. Over the course of the 11 minute episodes (leaving 4 minutes for commercials in the 15 minute time slot), they do things like set up a fence between warring neighbors, help a magician on stage and deal with a found trunk and wallet.

Growing up I had never run across this show (which appears to have been shot in New York). I thought I had run heard of or seen a most of the children's shows from the period either through having watched them as a kid or viewed them at nostalgia conventions. Until Alpha Video released it on DVD I had been completely unaware if its existence.

The show plays like the Three Stooges mixed with Abbott and Costello as done by people aping the routines. (Indeed one of the pair claims to have created the legendary "Slowly I turned..." routine that Abbott and Costello perfected). Its not bad, but its really not good either since everything seems watered down. The timing is often off (Though that maybe due to bad direction) and the jokes were recycled years before the show first ran. Odds are you've seen it all before . On the plus side its the type of thing that would be perfect to introduce very young kids to the magic of vaudeville style comedy, however its going to be trying for parents to sit through even with the short episodes.

For nostalgia junkies only. Everyone else should look to seeing an Abbott and Costello or Three Stooges original.

Brought back fond memories

[sblock-56532 · 9/10 · 18 July 2018]

My dad was the Director of Photography on this short lived series. I remember Mickey Deems coming to my folks house in Tarzana, Ca. many years ago for an evening of watching most, if not all, of the shows that my dad, Howard Block, had the original films still in the cans. I was thrilled as a little boy to have a "T.V. star" at my folks house. I also remember my dad telling me that my mom was an "extra" in one episode in which she wheeled me in a baby carriage through a scene one time. Funny, I don't recall doing that. In conclusion, it is a thrill when I came across M & M on DVD.

Home-town Comedians

[zedmib · 9/10 · 24 October 2008]

I first saw Mack and Myer on WPIX-TV in the New York area back in the '60s and liked them very much. Their work was very much like that of Abbott and Costello, except that Mack and Myer were such kindly folks that their misadventures were more like the kind of thing that Laurel and Hardy would get into (in fact, Stan Laurel contributed to the scripts). Mack and Myer honestly wanted to help people, and in the "Jenny" episode they are willing to go to great lengths to help Jenny get home to Greece; it's a touching episode. There are quite a few episodes that never made it to video; I hope more DVDs will show up some day.