In 1970 Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson developed The Odd Couple, based on the Neil Simon play and the 1968 hit film, into a successful television series. Tony Randall plays the proper, fastidious photographer Felix Unger and Jack Klugman portrays the gruff, sloppy Oscar Madison, sportswriter for the New York Herald. Felix is a compulsive neat freak; Oscar views the floor as his personal dumping ground.
The third season of The Odd Couple produced some of the series' strongest episodes. Howard Cosell plays himself in “Big Mouth.” Oscar is forced to apologize to the sportscaster after he insults Howard during Felix’s photo shoot. “Password” is one of the funniest episodes of The Odd Couple ever filmed. When Password host Allen Ludden (appearing as himself) asks Oscar to appear on the show, Felix pesters Oscar to let him be his partner. The partnership is an unqualified disaster and Betty White just adds to the fun.
Continuing the game show theme, in “Let’s Make A Deal,” Oscar, after burning Felix’s bed, suggests the twosome appear on Let's Make A Deal, hosted by Oscar’s old college buddy, Monty Hall. Movie star Jean Simmons (Spartacus) makes a guest appearance in “The Princess” as Princess Lydia of Lichtenburg who is being photographed by Felix and Oscar is falling in love with her. Tony Randall’s co-star from Mr. Peepers, Wally Cox, guest stars on “The Pen is Mightier Than the Pencil” as an amateur writer when Felix decides to take a writing course.
The plethora of notable guest stars helps The Odd Couple's third season stand out. However, some of the episodes that focus on the cast's regular players are some of the season’s best. “The Odd Monks” finds Felix and Oscar at a monastic retreat, exhausted from the pressures of the real world. In “The First Baby,” Oscar retells the story of how Felix’s anxiety got him banned from the hospital after Edna’s birth thirteen years before. In “I Gotta Be Me,” Felix and Oscar try role reversal in an effort to stop their constant bickering.
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