A recurring joke in the NBC sitcom Night Court may have actually given a once-famous singer a late-career resurgence. In Night Court’s pilot episode, protagonist Judge Harry Stone (played by Harry Anderson) was revealed to be a huge fan of the jazz singer Mel Tormé, perhaps most well-known for composing the tune to “The Christmas Song,” sometimes known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” This one-time reference in the pilot eventually became a recurring gag in the show and may even have helped fuel a surge in popularity for Tormé.
Night Court, which is set to be rebooted by NBC, followed the antics of a Manhattan night court led by Judge Harry T. Stone, who was obsessed with singer Mel Tormé. Eventually, Judge Harry Stone’s love of the crooner led to Tormé making repeated appearances on the show. He went on to appear in the sitcom as himself multiple times. Tormé even appeared as Harry’s guardian angel in a parody episode of It’s a Wonderful Life, in which he showed Harry what the world would be like if he had never become a judge.
These appearances, along with Judge Stone’s many references to the late singer, contributed to a late-in-life resurgence for Tormé. Tormé himself even believed that he found connections with a new audience thanks to his multiple cameos on the long-running series. Tormé also perhaps owed some of his late-career success to actor Harry Anderson’s shared obsession with the famous singer, highlighting just how closely entwined the whole Night Court set-up was with the musician.
Before Night Court’s somewhat irresolute ending, the show steadily grew a large audience over its nine-year run. During this time, references to and appearances by Tormé often reached a very different audience, much younger than Tormé’s original fans who knew him from his earlier jazz success in the 40s and 50s. His exposure to a younger audience, in addition to the resurgence of vocal jazz in the 70s and 80s, created a significant uptick in Tormé’s career in the years to come.
Additionally, Harry Anderson, who played Judge Stone, was also a fan of Tormé’s. Because of this, his appearances on the show often featured Tormé taunting or otherwise in conflict with Judge Stone, so as to play up the inside joke of Stone’s fanaticism regarding the singer. And, though Tormé was sometimes referred to as being less warm than other crooner contemporaries like Tony Bennett, these comical appearances alongside sometimes questionably problematic characters like Dan Fielding, endeared many viewers to Tormé’s personality and sense of humor later in his career.
As a whole, the NBC series was known for embracing a vaudevillian or farcical style approach to its comedy. Appearances made by Tormé that were both ludicrous and occasionally fantastical (as is the case in the It’s a Wonderful Life parody episode), introduced Tormé’s work to a whole new generation. Even after his death in 1999, Tormé perhaps owes much of his longevity to Night Court’s oddball references to the singer’s work.