Happy Days: “Capitol Critters”

The massive success of The Simpsons caused the other networks to begin green lighting animated television shows that, in retrospect, seem ridiculous. One such show was the notorious Capitol Critters, which was greenlit by ABC. The show would feature a mismatched gang of rodents and vermin who lived under the United States Capitol building. (Isn’t that hilarious?!?) The show had a curious pedigree- it was produced by the high-end producer Steven Bochco in association with the low-rent Hanna Barbera.

Despite the obvious folly of this ridiculous show, Hanna Barbera seemingly thought highly of the show’s potential and was able to sell both Burger King and Kenner Toys on the show’s prospects.

Not surprisingly, the show was quickly canceled by ABC, who didn’t even air all of the 13 produced episodes. The merchandise had barely hit store shelves when the axe fell on the show.

Happy Days: Random TV Guide Ad

Happy Days: TV Cliche Week - “The Misunderstanding”

Today’s TV cliche goes back to the very beginnings of television and was even a staple of Shakespeare’s comedies. The misunderstanding typically involves one character on the show overhearing or seeing something that they misinterpret as something else. The 1970’s sitcom Three’s Company typically used this trope just about every week.

When done masterfully, the audience may not even realize that they’re viewing a “misunderstanding” plot line. Most shows, however, use this plot device sloppily. When this happens, it often makes the characters look like idiots who had to be complete morons to be so confused.

Happy Days: “Turnabout”

There’s no telling why some television shows get greenlit. Many times it appears as though network execs just blindly throw darts at random lists of projects to determine what gets on the air. Often there is *some* reasoning involved in greenlighting a show- it might not make sense, but someone had a reason for greenlighting it. In 1979, NBC decided to greenlight a show based on a hit movie with a premise that had recently been successful for Disney. Described in those vague terms, one would think that such a project would be a slam dunk. But what if you found out that the film had been made almost forty years earlier? That the gimmick behind the film was of two people switching places and while the Disney film had a mother and daughter changing places, this show would have a husband and wife swap bodies? This sitcom would star Sharon Gless and John Schuck as a wayward couple who would have to learn how live life in their spouse’s body.

The idea was an odd one; while Disney’s Freaky Friday provided wish fulfillment to its youthful audience who no doubt imagined what life would be like as an adult, hardly anyone has ever fantasized about switching places with their spouse. Plus, 1940’s Turnabout was just a 90 minute trifle of a film. How could NBC turn its Turnabout into a running series?

As it turned out, NBC learned its lesson the hard way. Turnabout was a disastrous flop that lasted less than ten episodes. The network was able to tie four episodes together to produce a TV movie that would help it make at least some of its money back. Had Turnabout been a success, where would the show have gone anyway? It was a perfect example of a show that was never fully baked.

Happy Days: A Sitcom By Any Other Name...

Today, syndicating reruns of television shows is standard business in Hollywood. It is a known and expected method of generating revenue from a television production. Back in the early days of television, however, most TV programming was seen as ephemeral. It wasn’t meant to be seen after its first viewing and few thought that anyone would want to re-watch something that they had already seen. Visionaries like Desi Arnaz and Walt Disney, however, saw the value in their back catalogs. When other producers saw that extra money could be made by syndicating reruns, they weren’t entirely certain that this “free money” wouldn’t cause other problems. Many thought that viewers would be confused by syndicated repeats and ratings for new episodes would plummet, thus “Syndication Titles” were invented.

Syndicators would create new titles for the syndicated repeats, like Andy of Mayberry instead of The Andy Griffith Show or Happy Days Again instead of Happy Days.

Laverne & Shirley & Company as well as Laverne & Shirley & Friends were used as syndication titles for Laverne & Shirley. Thus viewers could discern new episodes from repeats. This tactic didn’t work out too well when it came to minimizing confusion. Audiences didn’t quite understand why these shows had different titles. Even more importantly, reruns actually gave first run episodes higher ratings. Since audiences could use repeats to catch up on episodes they’d missed and discover shows that were new to them, repeats were a benefit to first run episodes, not a detriment.

Happy Days

Happy Days: “Pig Sty”

The success of the syndicated series Star Trek: The Next Generation and of the brash startup Fox Network made a lot of people at the Paramount lot take notice. Paramount had produced a ton of high rated programming for others, maybe it was time to use the launch of the next entry in the Star Trek franchise to setup a network of its own. The decision was eventually made; Star Trek: Voyager would launch UPN: The United Paramount Network.

Of course, a television network can’t consist of just one television show, so Paramount had to build programming around Star Trek: Voyager. Unfortunately, the studio’s television production arm wasn’t fully on board with the idea of UPN. So instead of shifting some of the higher profile programming it was developing for other networks to UPN, it tried to make something out of the programs that had previously been rejected and were just sitting in the Paramount dumpster. Thus America was treated to Pig Sty.

The classy title sounded like it came out of a rejected Saturday Night Live sketch as did its premise. A bunch of twentysomething guys lived together in a New York apartment (the titular “Pig Sty”) and did all the crude things that Hollywood thinks straight guys do when they live together, sanitized for mid-1990’s broadcast television.

Adding to the mix was a hot superintendent, who the guys would leer at while using double entendres and drinking beer. That was the “clever” part of the premise; after all, this was a *woman* who was fixing things! One can imagine the studio executives patting themselves on the back- after all, a lady was fixing things like a man! That ought to silence those women’s libbers!

The 1990’s!

This crude, mess of a show lasted just one season. As a matter of fact, the only show that survived UPN’s disastrous first year was Star Trek: Voyager.

Happy Days: Drew Carey’s April Fools

The Drew Carey Show was known for its various stunts. The show staged elaborate dance numbers, broadcast live and even had special improvised sequences. In 1998, the show’s regular broadcast fell on April first, which provided Drew Carey and the producers with an idea- what if the show worked in intentional mistakes for viewers to find?

ABC loved the idea and decided to make it a contest. Viewers could keep track of the mistakes during the show, then enter them into a special website. The contest would especially reward frequent viewers who had an obvious advantage because they would know what was and wasn’t normal. By announcing the contest several weeks in advance, the show’s ratings could benefit from new viewers doing “research” into what was normal.

ABC took advantage of audience interest by having “Mimi” from The Drew Carey Show host segments on TGIF to give hints and show viewers what the various sets normally looked like. The episode was hugely successful. Subsequent airings of the show revealed- in “Pop-Up Video” style- where the official mistakes existed.

Happy Days: Party!

Happy Days: Hooray For The Simpsons!

On this day in 1989, The Simpsons premiered with its first episode- a Christmas special that would introduce the show to the world. The Special was a massive success, leading to the launch of the series a month later. Happy Anniversary to Our Favorite Family- the hilarious Simpsons!

“Happy Days” Crazy Sitcom Merchandise

“Happy Days”: Police Squad & Belushi

One of the recurring jokes featured during the Police Squad opening credit sequence was to feature a “special guest star” who would then get immediately murdered. Among the celebrities “murdered” in such a manner were Robert Goulet (who would later get a role in Naked Gun 2 1/2.) and Lorne Greene.

One celebrity who had been scheduled to get “murdered” by drowning was John Belushi. In the segment, Belushi was shown being fitted for “cement shoes” then thrown into the water. The scene was filmed but was removed from the episode after Belushi passed away due to a drug overdose. A segment featuring Florence Henderson getting shot was repeated in its place and the footage from the original segment was destroyed out of respect to Belushi’s family.

“Happy Days”: Lucy’s Missing Movie

“Happy Days” here at Temporary Layoffs will focus on the world of sitcoms every other Monday!

In the early days of television, most programming went out live. Television programming was considered ephemeral, so few executives worried about keeping copies of early programming. Even when it was recorded, it was usually done using a kinescope, which was just a film camera pointed at a television screen. Desi Arnaz, however, saw a future in repurposing programming. Despite the extra cost, he had episodes of I Love Lucy recorded on film, figuring that he could then sell reruns of the show in the future.

After the show became a monster success, Desi Arnaz decided to make an I Love Lucy movie. Instead of making an entirely new film, however, he tied together three episodes of the show. New footage was filmed depicting two newlyweds on their honeymoon in Los Angeles, taking in a recording of I Love Lucy.

It seems odd now that people would pay to watch something that had already been available to them for free, but this was before reruns were regularly available on television. Viewers at the time wouldn’t have expected these episodes to ever be shown again, so a film would have been their one chance to see them. Disney would successfully repackage episodes of Davy Crockett years later in this same manner.

I Love Lucy: The Movie, however, would never be released. After successful test screenings, the film was pulled from release by MGM, who was fearful that the movie was going to cut into the box office of the upcoming Lucy/Desi feature The Long, Long Trailer. The film was mostly forgotten until decades later when it was released on DVD.

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TV Guide Premieres- Happy Days