In 1988, Brad Garrett starred in the short-lived CBS comedy TV series First Impressions in which he played "Frank Dutton", a divorced father who amuses his daughter with impressions and makes a living doing commercial voice-overs. The show aired weekly from August 27 to October 1, 1988.
Harry Nilsson co-wrote and performed the show's theme song.
First Impressions Opening
Roger Smith (August 28, 2026)
The first time that I visited California in 1994, I joined Curtis Armstrong for lunch at a restaurant. I manage a Harry Nilsson fan website and Curtis is an expert on Nilsson's music. He worked on the CD reissues of Nilsson's albums. While we were talking a tall man I did not recognize walked by and said "hello" to Curtis. After he left, Curtis explained to me that he had worked with the man doing voice work for "Eek the Cat" and that the tall guy was, at the time, working on the upcoming Casper film.
I had forgotten about that meeting until years later.
Watching an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond," I heard Robert, Ray's brother in the show, say the line "One is the loneliest number" from Nilsson's song. Eager to share this with the Nilsson crowd online, I went to IMDB and looked up the actor who played Robert. I learned that he is Brad Garrett. And, seeing that he worked on "Eek" and "Casper," I realized that he was the guy that had said "hello" all those years ago. Also, from the IMDB page, I saw that Garret had starred in "First Impressions" and first learned that Harry had written and performed the theme for it.