Simon is an American sitcom television series created by Danny Jacobson, that was produced by In Front Productions and TriStar Television and aired on The WB from September 10, 1995 to February 18, 1996.
A former Wall Street stockbroker moves to Harlem to live with his simple brother Simon.
Simon began airing on September 10, 1995, and has a 30-minute run time. Its premiere marked The WB's addition of a second evening in the week for airing shows. The WB initially commissioned 13 episodes for the series from the production companies In Front Productions and TriStar Television. Ellen Gittelsohn directed the series, which was executive produced by Donald Todd, Danny Jacobson, and Marjorie Weitzman and produced by Walter Barnett. Stewart Levin composed the music, Robert Strohmaier was the art director, Vince Humphrey was the editor, and Alan Walker was the director of photography. The pilot episode featured Peter Dobson as Carl Himple, but later episodes had Jason Bateman in the role.
In a mixed review, The Plain Dealer television critic Tom Feran said Simons television pilot "is slightly overloaded and tries a bit too hard" and called it "a dumb domestic comedy grafted onto a Dumb and Dumber workplace comedy". He liked some aspects of the pilot, writing, "The broadly played workplace scenes offer some real laughs. Simon's so-dumb-it's-smart attitude becomes almost endearing, and there's a real cleverness lurking in the script." Giving the television series 2.5 stars, the Minnesota Star Tribune reviewers Noel Holston and Neal Justin wrote, "Like (Forrest) Gump, WB's Simon is dumb but likable."
Walt Belcher of The Tampa Tribune enjoyed the numerous callbacks to classic television series but found the show to be slightly "silly". He concluded, "Kids will love this one but it's likely to get lost on WB, which has yet to establish itself." The Christian Science Monitors Judy Nichols found Simon Himple's "lethargic voice" to be "really tiresome" and called the show "cliched humor". The Hollywood Reporter critic Miles Beller praised the performances of Harland Williams and Jason Bateman but criticized the show's premiere for tending "more toward the indulgent and forced, an effort to wring humor out of everydayness that fails to connect as something based on resonating experience".