'One of the Boys:' Old Age Finds Andy Hardy
Remembering the short-lived sitcom that united Old Hollywood with an incredible cast of future stars — including birthday boy Nathan Lane
February 3, 2026
Today is the legendary Nathan Lane’s 70th birthday. I have no idea how happy he is about aging — if he’s someone who embraces the journey or, like Cher, finds nothing good about time marching on — but if you gotta be 70, you might as well have a long career behind you and a slew of recent projects that attest to your relevance.
Just recently, he’s been on Only Murders in the Building, The Gilded Age, Mid-Century Modern and Monster. And those are after an impressive stage, TV and film career that kicked off in 1981.
But today’s reminiscence is about Lane’s second TV job — as one of the stars of the Mickey Rooney vehicle One of the Boys, an aggressively generic sitcom about a spunky grandpa named Oliver Nugent who leaves his retirement home to live with his grandson, a college kid.
Created by the team of Bernard Orenstein (b. 1931) and Saul Turteltaub (1932-2020), who had worked on That Girl, Kate & Allie, Sanford and Son, and What’s Happening!!, the show was launched with high hopes.
Mickey Rooney, a star from cinema’s Golden Age, had recently enjoyed a long run on Broadway and on the road as the comeback star of Sugar Babies with Ann Miller and Ann Jillian. He had tried TV before, notably with his own sitcom created by Blake Edwards in the ‘50s, but had never had a solid TV hit in all his years.
Would this be it?
The show debuted on January 23, 1982. In spite of all it had going for it, it just wasn’t … funny. In fact, it was fairly painful. How could this crap have competed in an atmosphere with Happy Days, The Jeffersons and Taxi?
The AP summed it up by stating:
“The physical humor and pratfalls are on the same level as knock-knock jokes. This is basically a two-joke series: Rooney’s age [62] and his height [5 feet, 3 inches]. [It’s] too bad that Oliver has turned clownish because Rooney is really quite likable 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.”
The show died after 13 episodes.
The reason I still think about it is it’s a good example of stars from very different generations working together — it’s actually kind of hard to believe they even crossed paths!
Mickey’s supporting cast consisted of then-unknowns Nathan Lane and Dana Carvey, who also had the pleasure of working with veteran actor Scatman Crothers (The Shining) and Francine Beers (whose career went back to radio). The scripts were appalling, but the project gave us plenty of scenes with Rooney, Lane and Carvey goofing off, an intergenerational comedy curiosity.
Another shocking criss-cross of generations occurred when Meg Ryan and Wendie Malick appeared on an episode, sharing scenes with Rooney years before they made it big.
Also, ponder the ages at play here. Rooney was playing a guy who had been living in an old folks’ home … yet he was just 61! Beers was just 57. It’s hard to swallow because in 2026, old is the new young.
Oh, and it should be pointed out that another reason One of the Boys is still on my mind is it truly distinguished itself — in 2002, 20 years after its quick demise, the show was unfondly remembered by TV Guide as the 24th worst series of all time. The good news was that Manimal was even worse, but the bad news was that Life with Lucy was ranked as slightly more tolerable.
Ewwww.
Watch one … if you dare:
Thank you for joining me on this little trip down Nathan Lane. ⚡️
Fascinating look at cross-generational casting gone wrong. The detail about Rooney being only 61 but playing someone in a retirment home really captures how much aging perceptions have shifted. Having Lane and Carvey start their careers on something ranked 24th worst ever is oddly comforting tho.