When I discovered “Red Oaks” a few years ago I was late too and it came via a friend’s recommendation. I never saw it advertised or even heard of it. When I did get around to watching it I did what I hadn’t done since “Transparent” and binged it. So did everyone else I raved to about it. Hell, I even made my own bootleg Red Oaks Country Club™ shirts. Every actor in the series was fantastic. We see this all the time in the music industry and as fans of music in general…an artist makes a great record that doesn’t get the accolades you feel it deserves. So, you climb on your soapbox to hip all your friends to it so they’re in-the-know too. Sure, season two wasn’t as strong but overall it still ticked the same boxes that “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, “Caddyshack”, “Stripes” and even “Stand By Me” did for me back in the day.

-Greg Glover

Portland, OR

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We loved it and friends I’ve recommended it to keep thanking me for it. Josh Meyers (Seth’s brother) is over-the-top but hilarious.

Steve Gillan

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My wife and I love Red Oaks!! We couldn’t get enough.

-Dan Diaz

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We caught Red Oaks about a year ago and couldn’t believe we had never heard of it. Great show, great cast, but weirdly no hype

Jack Pratt

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One of those hidden gems…absolutely LOVED this series for all the reasons you stated.

Sandy Alouete

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So glad you wrote about this! Found it during the pandemic, too, and it had just the right amount of “feel good” for these crazy, shtty times. When Esmer said “boychik, boychik, my dear” to the 3 younger actors at the wedding it killed me.

Jared Milgram

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Great fucking show. Wife got me hooked.

Mike Serra

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Wow this is the first time and likely the only time I watched a series before someone!!
And I loved it.

Kara Horvath

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This is an amazing show, came out almost 5 years ago.  Fantastic!!!

Jared Polin

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When son tells dad (Richard Kind) he doesn’t want to work in his field, dad simply says “I know.” But the look on Kind’s face, & the delivery of the line literally made me burst into caterwauling tears.
I too found the series strangely beautiful.

Peter Zizzo

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I’m actually surprised no one turned you on to this before. I thought it was a gem, and the character arcs are anything but stereotypical for this genre. I know you still parse through Amazon Prime Video, because you turned me on to “Bosch”!

Roy Liu

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Red Oaks is great. Actually, Greg Jacobs, who worked with my Dad and Soderbergh on all the Oceans movies and Candelabra, created and produced it. It is largely, I think, his story.

Glad you found it and enjoyed it.

Michael Weintraub

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Saw Red Oaks years ago…even before Maisel. Loved it! Definitely an homage to the John Hughes movies of the ‘80s. Nice to see Paul Reiser as a sort-of asshole for a change, and I’ll take any excuse to see Richard Kind. You’re right…on Netflix it would’ve been a smash.

Rob Maurer

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Red Oaks was a surprisingly enjoyable show — we streamed it earlier this (when Delta curtailed our nascent going out). The soft glow of nostalgia, with a fantastic cast, (and not too much schmaltz). And it’s fun watching Resiser play an asshole.

Streaming has helped us find lots of pre-Covid show that we missed first time around

Try “Madame Secretary” (Netflix) for its surprising depth and characters

-Barry Ritholtz

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Bob I agree with you 110% on this.  I had Red Oaks in my watch list for a couple of years and recently found myself scrolling through Amazon Prime for no good reason.  I had this one saved and decided to give it a go.  And you’re right, it is a show you cannot stop once you start….the acting and the characters are all top notch, like you said.  it helps that I was the same age as these kids were in the 80’s, so I could almost feel the hi-jinks happening around me.  my wife and I binged this show in about two weeks’ time….it’s so worth taking a chance on and I’m not surprised it had such high marks.  I’m glad you chose to watch it and write about it!

Mike Farley

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Good morning Bob. I loved Red Oaks, but you neglected to mention the best part of the show – the music! So many great 80s tracks and not the ones you always hear. They played Ceremony by New Order in episode 1 of season 2, which I’ve never heard in a movie or a TV show. Incredible!

The acting is awesome, but for me, the music stole the show. I’m glad you liked it and you’re right, they don’t make movies like that today, which is a shame.

John Byrne

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Great review. I watched this a few summers back when it first came out. It being an 80s period piece attracted me, and the characters were all likeable and kept me in it. It also turned me on to Roxy Music’s Avalon!

Keep it up,

Nick Benko in Windsor, Ontario

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Personally, I loved it.

Richard Stumpf

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As a big time tennis player from NJ, this show captivated me!

Gary Eskow

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I watched Red Oaks after hunting for something/anything on Prime. I put on the show not expecting much but hung around. The characters are engaging as are the actors.

One of the better parts of the production is that it doesn’t hit you over the head with ‘80s clichés. I don’t remember one “Flock of Seagulls” haircut reference, for example. It’s more subtle and you catch yourself thinking, “oh yeah, I remember that.”

The show works because of not only the characters and casting but also because the many storylines are smartly interweaved and are relatable in any decade. It’s got a nice chill pace and you can get lost in the show as desired.

Paul Nordlund

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I watched this a year ago, very entertaining…anyone who grew up in late 70’s or early 80’ and was coming of age knew someone like at least one if not more of the characters….

Michael Creamer

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Hey Bob! Glad to hear you loved Red Oaks too! My wife discovered it, and I saw bits and pieces of it when she watched. Liked what I saw, started watching on my own, then once I caught up with her, we watched it together and loved it! The only thing I wish they would’ve added was the typical 80s movie end credits like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, etc, with an update on David, Misty and Wheeler, etc. I had to write that part in my head. Great show though, fun to hear your thoughts.

Pete O.

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I stumbled on to Red Oaks 4 years ago and watched every episode. Completely agree with your assessment. It’s good clean fun and well acted. Blows away any of these silly laugh track network offerings. You would think the networks would have gotten up to speed by now as you can say just about anything (IE cartoons like Family Guy) but they seem to live in the past just like the record labels. Lame

Justin Fontaine

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Oh man..spot on. I kinda hated this show while loving it…or loved it while I hated it. I watched the whole thing. About 2-3 years ago after a friend mentioned it. Some of the acting is really bad, I thought…but in a corny way. This write up nails it.

Best Regards,
Eric Seifert

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Glad you found Red Oaks. Steven Soderbergh is a sure sign of at least an attempt at quality and intelligence. He was intelligent enough to hire Hal Hartley to direct a few episodes. Hartley’s films are cult favorites among those who get his dry sense of humor. They have their own rhythm, like Pinter Plays and Mamet Movies. Also, Red Oaks features my old college roommate Richard Masur as Morrie.

best

 

Michael Ross

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Loved Red Oaks. I don’t know what prompted me to watch because Prime is so cluttered as you say and it’s annoying to navigate. But i’m glad I waded in and somehow found Red Oaks. I thought my wife and I were the only ones who’d seen it!

Rick Saunders

Chris Christie sold 2,289 copies of his book “Republican Rescue.”

Now wait a second, this guy was EVERYWHERE! Does it really mean no one cares?

I think so.

But it gets worse…well, nothing could be worse, but… Billie Eilish sold 64,000 copies of her book, and Justin Timberlake’s “Hindsight” has sold 100,000 since its release in 2018. What does this tell us? Not only that selling a book can be difficult, but that being in the public eye, the beneficiary of reams of publicity, does not mean people will lay down their money for your work. Turns out fandom is oftentimes skin-deep. Of course there are superfans, who will buy every iteration of a CD and vinyl album, skewing first week sales so the public, even the media, thinks their work is a big success, but the truth is even some of our biggest heroes/icons/hypes are nowhere near as big as we perceive them to be.

Streaming is good for artists. Because the barrier to entry, to exposure, is so damn low. Don’t these wankers with few streams realize if it weren’t for Spotify, et al, almost NO ONE would be listening to their music! And the big acts benefit from this too. But just because an act has a track with a few hundred million streams, that does not mean it’s got a passionate fan base that will buy tickets.

Everybody is available, very few are desirable.

The media needs heroes to run up the flagpole, stars to influence somnambulant Grammy voters to nominate, but the public at large, do they really care? In most cases NO!

Where the rubber meets the road… There are very few automobiles with traction. Kind of like all those new electric car companies, the Wall Street IPOs…that’s all buzz, not reality. Manufacturing and shipping quality automobiles is not an easy task, never mind software and supply chain issues. You’d think Rivian is a powerhouse in the auto industry, but essentially it’s sold ZERO CARS!

Yes, we live in the age of data, and unfortunately data can be presented in a way to prove just about anything, to the point where facts no longer seem to exist.

And then there’s the spin. If people believe in QAnon, and are convinced Bill Gates has inserted microchips in covid vaccines, what chance do we have to get the truth to them re entertainers? Essentially none. Which is why entertainment has always functioned on smoke and mirrors. If Nielsen Soundscan was reporting troop deaths they’d give a lower value to those killed in tanks, and a higher value to those killed in a group, making the final number far from accurate, giving those who read them a skewed view, just like they do with album (sales)!

People don’t like reality. It hurts. Just ask Elizabeth Holmes. Let’s hope she gets convicted, but we already know there’s no truth in America anymore…you can’t even have faith in the Supreme Court, never mind some local court. Just like Steve Bannon’s bogus case scheduled to be heard on July 18th. Hmm… You’re arrested for robbery, if you can’t make bail your ass is in jail. But if you’re networked, in power, you skate, and in the end the President pardons you. I don’t care what you believe, but the truth is the public has lost faith in institutions.

Truth is Billie Eilish’s latest album is a stiff. She’s been superseded in the hearts of young people by Olivia Rodrigo, who will probably be superseded by someone else soon. And that’s fine, that’s the way it almost always has been, those who appeal to a younger demo, the boy bands, BTS, are flavors of the moment, they don’t last. But the media loves a story and those not living the reality 24/7 are prone to disinformation. The game in music is to last. Especially in the streaming era. And streaming is a way to make your name. Sure, you can get paid a ton if you have a big hit, but really it’s the road and other opportunities that generate your income.

Just like Miley Cyrus. Parents couldn’t get tickets for their kids. So the next tour went paperless and…turns out desire was just not that strong. It was a false mania, driven by scalpers. Which is why acts hate paperless, because too often it turns out demand is low, they can’t sell out.

It’s hard to get people to spend money. They’ve already got a subscription to a streaming service, they can check out your track, but lay down cash? Acts keep bitching that the new economics don’t work for them, but…who is going to actually buy their physical product? This is not the pre-internet era, with fewer than 10,000 releases a year. There are 60,000 new tracks A DAY, and it’s harder than ever to get noticed. Maybe you’re just not that big. But the truth is NO ONE IS THAT BIG! No one has the mindshare and reach of the pre-internet era, there are just too many options, and no one outlet where everybody is exposed to the same thing. If you’re bitching about streaming payments I hope you’re ready to give up your computer and jet back to 1988, because the world has completely changed and you must change with it.

Not that my words will make a difference. It FEELS like you’ve been ripped off, so it must be true. It FEELS like Billie Eilish is a big star, she’s got 97 million followers on Instagram, but she’s nowhere near as big as the perception.

And enough with the social media metrics, forget about the bots, the fakes, how many of those 97 million do you think actually see every post, even one post? How many never even check their feed?

At least in music the major label does not give you a deal until you prove yourself. Whereas in the book business they’re flying blind. They think these social media metrics are a reflection of hard core fandom, but they’re wrong.

Want to know if you’re a star?

Check your wallet.

Just like the corporate sponsors realized they were not getting their money’s worth sponsoring endless tours, the book business has been burned by social media stars and will tighten up the coffers.

So it all comes down to you. What you like, what you do. If nobody you know is talking about it, then it probably isn’t that big. Which is different from good, you can be good and go unnoticed in today’s topsy-turvy world. But if book publishers can’t get it right predicting success based on internet numbers, what are the odds politicos and pollsters truly know what is going on in America? Pretty damn low, ergo the Trump ascension. Chris Christie won as governor. But then he vacationed on a closed beach and uttered nonsense about Trump and he blew all his credibility. And the only people who didn’t realize this were those in the media! They should have said NO WAY to booking him. He’s toast, people don’t care about him, there’s no passion. And it’s all about passion. Without passion there is no sale. You want deep fans, who will stick by you, not looky-loos. Too many are caught up in the moment. Theranos’s idea was unworkable from the start, but fat cat oldsters, mostly men, were mesmerized by Elizabeth Holmes and invested nearly a billion dollars. And it turns out there was nothing there. Sometimes the truth is hiding right in front of your eyes. Chris Christie is a lug without fans, the public is not waiting with bated breath to read what teenager Billie Eilish has to say, and people were passionate about Justin Timberlake twenty years ago, when he was still in a boy band.

And Britney Spears is forty.

Can we please stop living in the past? It’s a changed world, but too many have not changed with it. The public was disinterested in Christie’s book, they knew the score. Forget publicity, if you want to know what is going on put your ear to the ground, listen to the people’s truth, but you might not want to hear it.

Dave Schools is the bassist for Widespread Panic. We discuss the band, but we also cover the “Get Back” documentary and Dave’s personal life and… Dave is quite the raconteur, you will be entertained and edified!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dave-schools/id1316200737?i=1000544433379

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/dave-schools-88894388

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast

Trailer: https://bit.ly/31KuO1w

This show is strangely affecting. On one level it feels like fluff, on another you can’t stop watching it.

So “Red Oaks” is an Amazon Prime series. If you’re a student of the game, you might remember the hype. Paul Reiser is one of the stars and Steven Soderbergh is one of the producers, but I’d never seen it, never thought of watching it. Then a reader hipped me to it and I checked it out on “RottenTomatoes” and it had a 93% critics score and 94% audience score. How did I miss this?

Oh, that’s right, it’s on Amazon Prime.

Never forget the initial Netflix show was the excellent, highbrow “House of Cards,” one of the best series ever made (well, at least until the final season.) With that imprimatur of quality, your expectations rise, you’re looking for the next show.

The same thing happened with HBO. There was “Dream On” and “Larry Sanders” and then the silver bullet, the killer series, “The Sopranos.” Thereafter, Sunday night was for HBO. Not every HBO show is good, but there’s enough quality in the history to pay attention.

But Amazon Prime?

Amazon Prime started low and has stayed there. Furthermore, its homepage is cluttered with other offerings, just like its retail site. If it weren’t cheap and convenient shopping on Amazon I’d switch, because now it takes me ninety minutes to figure out what I want to buy, what with the sponsored products and the other diversions from reality. So I wanted to buy an electric toothbrush. Well, the model numbers on the Philips site didn’t align with those on Amazon, and what I thought I wanted to buy was gonna be delivered in weeks as opposed to overnight, which is now the Amazon Prime standard, and I was completely flummoxed. After wasting an hour and a half, I ended up triangulating with Amazon Prime delivery, the number of reviews and the “Amazon’s Choice” badge. I literally had no idea exactly what I was getting, and when I opened the box I was surprised…HOW CAN THIS BE?

Distribution is king. Which is why you want your show on the platform with the most subscribers that will promote it for you. Apple TV+’s numbers are fading now that they’re charging, let them build the network, not you, go somewhere else. Then again, having so little product they promote their shows, they don’t get lost in the shuffle. Whereas on Amazon everything gets lost in the shuffle.

Bottom line, I hadn’t heard of “Red Oaks” but then I tuned in and it was a bright spot in these hazy, lazy, confusing days of Covid-19.

So what we’ve got here is a country club story. A Jewish country club, there’s no hiding behind other ethnicities like on “Seinfeld.” And you’ve got the aforementioned Paul Reiser as a Wall Street king and head of the club and he’s not trying to be loved by the audience like he usually is…and with this edge, he’s ultimately more believable and likable.

And you’ve got the poor Jews, Jennifer Grey and Richard Kind. Grey killed her career with her nose job but she does an A+ job of acting here. And Kind and his shtick are overexposed, but by the end of the series he’s three-dimensional and you love him too.

Their son is Craig Roberts as David Myers. Turns out Roberts is Welsh, not that you’d know that without looking it up. David is from a lower middle class family, his education is in limbo and he takes a gig at the Red Oaks country club as a tennis pro. Which brings us to…

ENNIS ESMER! The main tennis pro. Esmer is so good he carries the whole series, even though he doesn’t have to, there’s so much other talent involved. An overweight schmoozer and schnorrer with an indeterminate accent…you laugh and marvel at his performance, he steals the show.

Then you’ve got stoner Oliver Cooper, as Craig/David’s sidekick. A loser who parks cars and deals dope at Red Oaks.

As for the rest of the cast, there are tons of greats, they didn’t settle for second-rate, Gina Gershon is spot on as Reiser’s wife and comedian Freddie Roman is a crotchety oldster willing to speak truth when necessary.

So, what you’ve got here is an ongoing search for love. And Reiser and Gershon’s daughter, Alexandra Socha, is fantastic as the rebel artist living off her daddy’s money. She’s edgy, yet hungry for romance.

And Cooper, he consistently eyes the unattainable, employing bad judgment all the while.

“Red Oaks” is an extended teen movie in an age when they no longer make teen movies. They make teen HORROR movies, but the old romp… There are so many great ones, like “Can’t Buy Me Love,” on one hand lowbrow yet meaningful nonetheless. But in today’s blockbuster era, film companies are reluctant to green light anything that doesn’t appeal to everybody, that also has a fantasy aspect to it, never mind that comedy is hard to do.

Not that “Red Oaks” is as good as the classic film comedies, but it’s certainly better than traditional network sitcoms.

These are just people lost in the eighties, trying to figure out their future. Not everybody is going to end up on top, just like in real life, not everybody can be a world-beater. But you’re entitled to have some laughs along the way!

So don’t go in with high expectations. Just like you never went to a teen movie with high expectations. It was something to do, it entertained you, was a respite from everyday life. That’s how you should look at “Red Oaks.”

And it’s already old, it was made from 2014-17, but it was new to me and will be new to anybody else who hasn’t seen it, and being set decades ago it is inherently dated, that’s one of its charms.

“Red Oaks” would have performed much better on Netflix.

But I’m telling you, if the foregoing resonates with you, you’ll dig “Red Oaks,” at least until the final third season, with only six episodes. But you’ve got to watch those too to see how the story turns out.

That’s right, once you have a summer with hijinks there’s nowhere left to go. They have a plot twist for season two, but ultimately the story has been told, done, finito. But that’s all right, sometimes that’s all that’s there, no use beating a dead horse like on network. But what’s there…

It’s hard to explain. I can’t rave, you can live quite nicely never having seen “Red Oaks,” but it touched me, warmed my heart and made me feel good, and there’s always room for a series like that!