Leave it to Beaver

New Year’s Eve With Maude!

A Laverne & Shirley Christmas

Penny Marshall, 1943 - 2018

Happy Days!

Who’s The Leader of the Club That’s Made For You and Me?

The Munsters!

They’re Creepy and they’re Spooky!

“Mr. Ed”: A Horse is a Horse

In television’s early years, most of its comedic programming centered around the family unit. Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, The Donna Reed Show and many others derived laughs from family situations. With the sameness of such programming, some television producers sought to make their pitches stand out from the pack. Would a show with a talking horse stand out? Mr. Ed creator Arthur Lubin hoped so.

Arthur Lubin had been directing the lucrative Francis the Talking Mule series of feature length pictures for Universal Pictures and thought that the concept would make a successful transition to television. The series was about an army mule who would only speak to a young soldier, thus making many people think he was crazy. Lubin wanted to acquire the television rights and produce a weekly series. Universal, however, was unwilling to sell the rights at any price; though the series had fizzled out by the late 1950’s, it thought that the series might possibly make a comeback. Thus Lubin would get his first setback in his quest to get a Talking animal program produced.

Hard to say who is the biggest jackass in this picture.

Lubin could have just changed the name of the mule and pushed forward with his project, but since he was the director of five Francis films and had tried negotiating with Universal Pictures for the rights, a copyright case against him would have been a slam dunk. His secretary found an answer to this problem- a series of children’s stories by author Walter Brooks about a talking horse named “Mr. Ed”. Lubin could buy the television rights from Brooks to protect himself from any litigation from Universal. The gambit worked. Lubin, using financing from George Burns, produced a Mr. Ed pilot.

The initial pilot started Scott McKay as Wilbur “Pope”, who owned the titular Mr. Ed. Lubin proudly carried the pilot around town, trying to sell it to network television. He was soundly rejected. Sure, the pilot was unlike anything the networks had ever seen, but while Lubin had seen that as a positive, they saw it as a negative. He would have to come with a new strategy to get his talking horse on television.

Trust Me- I Know What I’m Doing!

Police Squad: In Color!

“Beane’s of Boston”

In 1979, Garry Marshall bought the American rights for the BBC show Are You Being Served? and wanted to make it a sitcom for CBS. The pilot had been considered “lost” for years but it has recently resurfaced.

The show starred John Hillerman as Captain Peacock and Charlotte Rae as Mrs. Slocombe.

The pilot was apparently an adaptation of the original show’s German Week episode. 

CBS passed on the show. Both John Hillerman and Charlotte Rae would go on to take the roles that would define their careers. John Hillerman in Magnum, PI and Charlotte Rae in The Facts of Life.

Desilu Studios, Hollywood

Comic Con Geekend: ABC Takes Out Batman

When ABC canceled Batman, most of Hollywood was in shock. Why would they cancel such a successful show? As it turned out, Batman was the most expensive show on ABC's lineup, and the network was looking to cut its programming budget. All was not lost, however, because NBC was eager and willing to pick the show up. Unfortunately, an overzealous Fox staffer had already had the sets dismantled. (Fox had produced the show for ABC.) When NBC found out that it would have to rebuild the expensive sets, they decided not to bring the show back. ABC and a random staffer had succeeded to do what no villain was ever able to do; they took out Batman.

The Moneymooners!

Jackie Gleason produced, created, wrote and starred in his classic television show The Honeymooners. During the original run of the show, Jackie was the king, both on the set and when it came to getting paid. In the end, however, he would not be the actor who would profit most from the show. That honor goes to Audrey Meadows, who played his frustrated wife.

How did this happen? Audrey enlisted her lawyer brother to negotiate her contract and he convinced her to accept a lower paycheck in exchange for royalties from future use of the show. It was a revolutionary idea at the time and virtually unheard of. The studio eagerly agreed; after all, who would want to watch any television show more than once? In fact, the studio thought it was ripping off this hayseed lawyer and his gullible sister. Of course, Audrey would get the final laugh. While the other actors had to watch the studio make millions off of the show long after their original hefty checks had been spent, Audrey sat back and watched the money roll in. In the end, Audrey made millions more off of the show than Gleason did, all because her brother saw the future value of the show when nobody else did.

M*A*S*H Notes

M*A*S*H Notes

M*A*S*H Notes

M*A*S*H Notes

M*A*S*H Notes