Scorning the Scandal Peddlers

You've probably seen or read promos for a new documentary that is gleefully airing all the dirty laundry of The Price is Right from back when it was one of television’s most popular and beloved game shows.

With Bob Barker as host, Johnny Olson as announcer, and a trio of models – Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson and Holly Hallstrom – viewers came to know and love, that show remains a fond memory for those who grew up with it. Summer mornings, sick days, snow days, we relaxed on the couch watching contestants play games, try to win a car, and guess at the cost of everything from baked beans to Samsonite luggage, all without committing the unpardonable sin of not going over the actual retail price.

When I watch clips from that era they instantly transport me back to happier times. My pulse quickens when a contestant attempts to walk the opulent Golden Road, and I still get angry when the Clock Game is lost because there is no reason to ever lose that game. As a golfer I also loved Hole in One and wished the holes on the courses I play were as oversized as that one.

Most if not all the documentary’s “revelations” had already leaked out years ago – backstage affairs, racism allegations, lawsuits and more lawsuits, with Barker at the center of the turmoil and no longer around to defend himself.

Here is my question: Is it wrong that I really don’t care?

I know that sounds harsh, but I’m being honest. I’m not without sympathy if someone is mistreated at work, but if decades have passed since the supposed transgressions, dredging them up now in documentaries seems more about vengeance than justice, or maybe it’s just about the paycheck.

Uncovering dirt after someone dies is a popular sport these days. And my response after being exposed to such scandals is always the same: Now that I know, what am I supposed to do?

I can’t erase the happy memories. I don’t want to. As I’ve entered my 60s my memories have only grown more precious. I walk through a house full of memories every day. A home that is now empty except for me. The connection I’ve forged with the shows I write about dates back more than half a century. The memories experienced when I watch them again are as fond now as they’ve ever been.

As I wrote in a previous blog, it was the longevity of The Price is Right and this cast that, as it did with soap operas, made the show so special. Janice was pointing at “brand new cars!” when I was 8 years old. She was still doing it when I graduated high school. And she was still doing it when I graduated college, and for more than 10 years after that.

Am I supposed to hate Bob Barker now? How about Michael Landon, Danny Bonaduce, Robert Blake, Roseanne, Darlene Gillespie, James Farentino, Dana Plato…shall I keep going? With some celebrities their sins are paragraph one in any story about them; for others it barely merits a mention. Should I only disown those who acted out of cruelty, and not mental illness or desperation? How would I know which is which?

We’ve had this conversation once before, of course, back in 2015 when I wrote about Bill Cosby. Despite all the accolades that made him one of television’s most influential creators, the legacy of his work has been permanently tarnished. “Good,” some will say. “What a shame,” others lament.

These are issues beyond television, and everyone must decide for themselves where to draw the line. But I think we can all agree that condemnation and banishment come much faster than they used to and cast a much wider net.

Revelations about union activist Cesar Chavez emerged at about the same time as those about Bob Barker – also for things that happened half a century ago. Within days if not minutes, events were canceled and workmen set about removing his name from public spaces. Statues of Christopher Columbus have been toppled. San Francisco tried removing the names of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from schools because they owned slaves. And Tiger Woods got another DUI last week.

None of us are the sum of all our virtues or the sum of all our sins, no matter how exceptional the virtue or how despicable the sin. But on the great scandal scale, those attached to The Price is Right seem positively benign. Some border on ridiculous. According to one article, “After some models expressed concern about their treatment on the set of The Price Is Right, CBS initiated a 10-second rule where people couldn’t stare at models for longer than 10 seconds.”

Wait – men like to look at beautiful models? Shocking!

We also need to keep in mind that the longer ago the alleged behavior, the fewer people still around to validate the allegations. Luckily, Price is Right producer Roger Dobkowitz is still around. He was there for 36 years, and this was his response to the documentary:

“This so-called “expose” makes me realize that there are some people in this world who will happily exaggerate and create falsehoods in order to justify a personal hateful vendetta against a person in order to draw attention to themselves. Making the situation worse is the fact that the accused is deceased, and therefore, making it impossible for the accused to defend himself. The adjective “brave” should never be used in reference to a person attacking a dead person.

The show was a happy place…our working environment was the envy of other shows. Staff rarely quit...the dozens of women who were in our repertoire of models came back year after year, happy to be on our show. The only unhappy people, as would be found in any company, were the ones that didn't get the raise they wanted, the ones that didn't get the promotion they thought they deserved, and the ones that were terminated for not doing their job.”

I hope he’s right. But regardless I’ve about had my fill of the scandal factories “tearing the lid” off beloved programs and personalities and inviting all of us to share in their disdain. Instead, I’ll follow the guidance found in the Gospel of Luke - “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

“But what fun is that?” say the bottom feeders at E! behind the Price is Right doc and other explorations of the dark side of television.

Perhaps someday someone will take a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes at E!. Wouldn’t that be something.

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Thursday Nights, 1977

At last, CBS strikes back. After an impressive run of ratings dominance by ABC, CBS bested its rivals with a trio of returning favorites. ABC still managed to place two series in the top 30, and even NBC debuted a new hit, followed by a show that became one of the decade’s favorite punch lines.

Otherwise, to be honest this isn’t the most interesting of nights to reflect upon within my journey through the 1970s. Let’s hope Friday is more exciting.

NBC
CHiPs
The Man from Atlantis
Rosetti & Ryan

For all the jokes that have been made about The Man from Atlantis (many of them originating from its star, Patrick Duffy), NBC had reason to believe there was an audience for this sci-fi adventure.

The character of Mark Harris, with his webbed fingers and toes and his ability to breathe underwater, was introduced in a series of TV movies, all of which drew impressive ratings. But when it became a series it got sillier. In one episode, Mark’s nemesis Mr. Schubert (Victor Buono, grandiose as ever) threatens the earth with a giant jellyfish. In another, Mark is transported via underwater landslide to Italy and meets Romeo and Juliet. The show was canceled after 13 episodes.

The network had better luck with CHiPs, which ran for six seasons thanks mostly to likable leads Larry Wilcox and Eric Estrada as California Highway Patrol officers. Like Emergency! It balanced serious stories with lighter fare, with the occasional glimpse at how our public servants spend their off-hours.

Rosetti & Ryan might have been a hit as well if NBC wasn’t so trigger-happy. This was Tony Roberts’ first attempt at series stardom, and the one I think had the most potential. He and Squire Fridell played law partners with opposite personalities; Roberts, as Joe Rosetti, was something like Arnie Becker on L.A. Law: high-class style, active social life, while Fridell’s Frank Ryan, a former cop, was more focused on a by-the-book approach to each case.

Had NBC not canceled the series after just six episodes, I think it might have found an audience. The two leads worked well together, and the scripts were better than those used in other legal dramas that lasted longer. Fridell would later find a career-defining role as the successor to King Moody in the role of Ronald McDonald, which he played in dozens of commercials from 1984 to 1991.


ABC
Welcome Back Kotter
What’s Happening
Barney Miller
Carter Country
The Redd Foxx Show

Both Welcome Back Kotter (#26) and Barney Miller (#17) still had impressive followings, and What’s Happening benefited from its more successful time slot neighbors on each side.

New to the schedule was Carter Country, set in the small southern town of Clinton Corners. Victor French played the police chief opposite Kene Holliday as the Sergeant Curtis Baker. Baker, who is black and from a big-city, higher-education background, gradually ingratiates himself among the rednecks. Richard Paul as the slick-talking mayor was a natural scene-stealer. It ranked just outside the top 30, enough to merit a second season.

As for The Redd Foxx Show, it deserved some credit for being more experimental with the standard 1970s variety show format. But the genre was just about played out by 1977, and it was gone by Christmas.


CBS
The Waltons
Hawaii Five-O
Barnaby Jones

CBS won the night with the return of three established hits, though all were starting to show their age. Season six of The Waltons (ranked #20) is when viewers began to see less of John-Boy and Grandma. Hawaii Five-O finished its tenth (!) season at #23, and Barnaby Jones (#22) held steady in its sixth season. It would run two more years, but star Buddy Ebsen began cutting back on his schedule, leaving costars Lee Meriwether and Mark Shera to carry more episodes.

Like I said, not that exciting. But at least no shows will be added to the "missed" list below. 

Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)
Ball Four (1976)
Young Dan’l Boone (1977)
Rafferty (1977)
Mulligan’s Stew (1977)
Big Hawaii (1977)

The Classic TV Name Drop: An Endangered Species?

If you paid more attention to the recent Winter Olympics than I did, you probably read several stories about Eileen Gu, an Asian American freestyle skier who was born and raised in the United States but opted to compete for China in exchange for cash and prizes.

Several newspaper columnists described what happened when reporters asked her about the Uyghurs in China’s concentration camps and the jailing of journalist Jimmy Lai. They wrote that in those moments Gu “turned into Sgt. Schultz.”

As Steve Rogers said in The Avengers, I understood that reference. I’m sure you did too. But I wonder how many people under 40 were confused: Who is Sgt. Schultz? Does he ski? Is he heading the Joint Chiefs?

Of course, this also assumes anyone under 40 still reads newspapers, but that’s another topic.

There have been so many times throughout my life when a reference to a classic show or classic TV character provided the perfect summation of a unique situation. Shows like Hogan’s Heroes, which aired from 1965 to 1971 and was prominent in syndication for another 30 years, became pop culture benchmarks for generations. For Boomers and a couple of gens after that, we know exactly how Gu reacted to tough questions without seeing the footage. Probably something like this. 

Twenty years ago, such references were far more common. The anchors on ESPN’s Sportscenter would slip names like Rob Petrie or Mr. Kotter into scripts whenever possible. They grew up with some of those shows or watched them on Nick at Nite. It doesn't happen nearly as often these days, though Pardon the Interruption’s Michael Wilbon will still cite Barney Fife as an apt comparison to an umpire, referee, or governing body like the NCAA, at such times when they exhibit an over-inflated sense of authority in making a wrong decision.

The rapid-fire dialogue in The Gilmore Girls (2000-2007) was awash in TV name-drops, from Charlie’s Angels and The Odd Couple to Holmes & Yoyo and ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. One episode, “That Damn Donna Reed,” focused entirely on how the happy domesticity in The Donna Reed Show resonates (or fails to do so) a half-century later.

Would an episode like that work on George and Mandy’s First Marriage (that’s a sitcom airing now, for those who are clueless like me about current TV)? Or do shows in 2026 make references to shows from 2000 to flaunt their pop culture savvy?

I can’t say but my guess is they don’t, because by 2000 television had already fractured into hundreds of channels, and viewership for network series had plummeted. The main reason character and dialogue references from the Comfort TV era remained familiar for decades is that everyone back then was watching the same three channels.

Does it really matter? I don’t know. Everyone talks about how we’re so divided now as a nation, but that was true in the 1960s as well. What we had then that we don’t have now are cultural touchstones. The dictionary defines them as “a concept, event, work of art, or phenomenon that serves as a point of reference or a standard by which the cultural identity, values, and beliefs of a society can be understood. It embodies the collective memory and shared experiences of a culture, often used to analyze or critique social norms or behaviors.”

They don’t have to be profound. As quotations go, “Yabba Dabba Do” doesn’t hold a candle to “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Same with “Danger, Will Robinson,” “Marcia, Marcia Marcia!”, “Book ‘em, Danno,” “Exit, stage left!” and “Live Long and Prosper.” But even if they provoke a shared smile among strangers, they have served a purpose.

Connective tissue, regardless of from where it emerges, makes a society stronger and more successful. Since the 1950s, classic TV characters have become a part of that tissue. While I’d be sad to see the ones that brought me joy fade into obscurity, the real tragedy is how they likely won’t be replaced with anything else.

Many Happy Returns

It's always an event when a recurring character on a classic TV show returns after its portrayer quits or is written off.

Such things happen all the time on soap operas – right now two characters believed long deceased on General Hospital are back, alive and well. But it’s less common with prime time shows, and thus usually more exciting when it occurs.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but here’s a list of the top ten returns I enjoyed the most, ranging from the milder “oh, good to see you again” to the astonished “Wow – I never thought that would happen.” Add your own to the comments if you like.

10. Bo and Luke Duke

I’ve ranked this lowest only because they weren’t gone very long.

The Dukes of Hazzard was raking in bucks from merchandising – nearly 200 products and $190 million in sales. John Schneider and Tom Wopat were supposed to get a cut, but when they didn’t get enough they decided not to show up for the show’s fifth season. There were other issues as well, including complaints about scripts, but Warner Bros. wasn’t listening and instead hired two lookalike actors to replace them – Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer were cast as Coy and Vance Duke.

Would it matter? Critics thought the car was the star of the show, but Cherry and Mayer had no chemistry with each other of the rest of the cast. Ratings plummeted, and after 18 episodes Bo and Luke were back, and enough viewers also returned to keep the series going for another two seasons.

9. Tasha Yar
Denise Crosby was disappointed in how her character of Enterprise Chief of Security Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation was being utilized and asked to be released from her contract. The series obliged and Tasha was most definitively killed by a malevolent puddle of black goo in the episode “The Skin of Evil.” But apparently that bridge wasn’t burned too badly as Crosby returned in the third season episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” which was partially set in an alternate timeline in which Tasha never died.

8. Lionel Jefferson
Sometimes the actor leaves but the character stays, as was the case when Mike Evans left The Jeffersons, after playing Lionel in season one and previously on All In the Family. Damon Evans (no relation) took over the role, but Mike came back and appeared in four more seasons. 

I’ve referenced my lack of enduring interest in Norman Lear’s shows before, so this wasn’t a big deal to me and was mostly a no-harm, no-foul switch, at least judging by the ratings, but I’m sure fans were happy when the original actor returned.

7. Jaime Sommers
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a return, since viewers who watched Jaime die in the same Six Million Dollar Man episode in which she debuted may have believed they had seen the last of her. But enough of them wrote to ABC to prompt a change of plans, so it was revealed that Jaime was kept alive in suspended animation until her condition could be stabilized. That cleared the path for a successful spinoff and an Emmy award for Lindsay Wagner.

6. Becky Connor
Of all the replacement character situations on this list, Roseanne delivered the most bizarre. Lecy Goranson played the Conners’ oldest daughter, Becky for five seasons, and then Sarah Chalke took over the role in season six. And then Goranson came back and then left again and Chalke returned. And in one episode they both appeared. References to how Becky kept changing were written into the script, and the whole thing was treated as an “It’s only TV” meta joke.

5. Jan Brady
Eve Plumb opted not to return to her TV family when they were reunited in The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which debuted in 1976 and disappeared in 1977. Some would say she made a wise choice, and thus was born “Fake Jan,” aka Geri Reischl.

But when “The Brady Girls Get Married” aired in 1981, Plumb was back with her siblings and would return for several subsequent reunions.

4. John-Boy Walton
Richard Thomas’s Emmy-winning portrayal of the Waltons’ sensitive oldest son was the heart and soul of this series. When Thomas left in season eight he was replaced by Robert Wightman, aka the human equivalent of watching paint dry. 

Thankfully, Thomas returned to the role in three Waltons TV movies in the 1990s.

3. Jill Munroe
This one should have been so much better. Farrah Fawcett returning to Charlie's Angels, the series that launched her to icon status, was supposed to be an event, even if she was only honoring a negotiated contractual obligation to appear in four more episodes. Season three’s “Angel Come Home” came closest, but perhaps too much had happened off-screen for the cast to recapture their previous chemistry. Scenes with “sisters” Jill and Kris Munroe seemed forced. Still, this viewer was always glad to have her back.

2. Bobby Ewing
Is this the most famous character return in TV history? Or the most infamous? In Dallas’s eighth season, 300 million viewers in 98 countries saw Bobby Ewing murdered in a hit-and-run by jealous nutcase Rebecca Wentworth. It was an on-screen death, complete with a deathbed scene in which he said goodbye to his family. “Bobby is gone and can never come back,” Patrick Duffy would assert after filming these scenes. “I appreciate my public and would never fool them.”

And then Dallas lost four million viewers, and Bobby popped up in the shower at Southfork. How? Turns out the entire season, including his death, was “all a dream.” Yes, it took some brass you-know-what to try and pull that off, but once fans stopped rolling their eyes they were happy to have him back. So was Larry Hagman. “I was flabbergasted myself,” he told me when I interviewed him many years ago. “I know we lost some viewers, but we also stayed on for another four years. And those were my big money years. I was making $250,000 an episode, so I was very happy to have him back.”


1. Sarah Jane Smith
When a beloved character returns to a beloved series after a season, or a couple of years, it’s a happy moment. But when a beloved character returns to a beloved series after 30 years…there aren’t any words to describe it, since before the Doctor Who episode “School Reunion” there was no precedent for it. How many shows are even on that long?

Elisabeth Sladen joined Doctor Who as journalist Sarah Jane Smith in 1973, during Jon Pertwee’s wonderful run as the title character. She stayed until 1976, by which time she had become many viewers’ favorite companion alongside Tom Baker, who had become the most popular Doctor of the show’s original incarnation.

When Doctor Who was revived in 2005, it was reticent about whether it was an extension of the show’s original 1963-1989 run, or if we were starting fresh with the run from Christopher Eccleston to Peter Capaldi (I don’t acknowledge what happened after that – you are of course free to do otherwise).

But those questions were answered in 2006 when Sarah Jane returned, once again alongside the most popular Doctor of the era. Every moment of their reunion was so beautifully and perfectly played, from Sarah’s first glimpse of the Tardis to David Tennant’s reaction, and the jealousy of current companion Rose Tyler (which thankfully didn’t last).

It wasn’t just a great episode, it was a substantive one, as it addressed the nature of the Doctor’s relationships with those who travel with him. “You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of my life with you,” he tells Rose. “That’s the curse of the time lords.” It also raised questions about how someone who is shown the universe can adjust back to their old life and routines. Could anything else ever be as exciting?

I don’t get choked up easily, but when the Doctor and Sarah said goodbye this time, it got me. And when Elisabeth Sladen passed away just five years later, it hurt me like no other celebrity death. I’m glad Sarah got the closure she needed, and I hope that Lis’s travels continue as she delights in the adventures of the afterlife.

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Wednesday Nights, 1977

Lather, rinse, repeat. Once again as we peruse another late ‘70s prime time schedule, we find ABC serving up a medley of hits, and two other networks struggling to keep up.

Having failed with The Practice and The Quest, NBC scrapped last year’s Wednesday night line-up and introduced three new shows. Only one caught on with the public, and it wasn’t even the best one. Let’s start there.

NBC
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams
The Oregon Trail
Big Hawaii

Would an evening of adventures in the great outdoors lure enough viewers away from Angels and urban sitcoms? Not entirely, though America did take a liking to Grizzly Adams, whom they first met in a 1974 film that cost $140,000 and grossed more than $45 million at the box office. When the film aired on NBC two years later it drew a 32% share, enough to green light a series. It lasted just two years but made an unlikely star out of Dan Haggerty, who was then working as an animal trainer for Disney.

What I can’t figure out is why more viewers watching that show didn’t stick around for The Oregon Trail, which got destroyed in the ratings by Charlie’s Angels, the season’s fourth highest-rated series. And that’s a shame, because this was a first-rate western with a stellar cast.

Rod Taylor, star of such classic films as The Birds and The Time Machine, played Evan Thorpe, leader of a wagon train headed west to Oregon. He also cowrote the show’s fine theme song, “Oregon Bound,” with Charles Napier, who played his second-in-command. And how refreshing it was to see Napier finally playing a good guy.

Also featured were Andrew Stevens and Darleen Carr, two hard-luck TV lifers with several quickly canceled shows on their resumes. This is the show that should have stuck, but westerns weren’t in demand in 1977 unless Clint Eastwood was in them. Only 14 episodes were made and eight aired before the series was canceled. The remaining six played only on BBC television, but fans finally got to see them thanks to a 2010 DVD release which is highly recommended. 

If you’d like to sample it first, an episode called “The Scarlet Ribbon” is on YouTube, with guest stars William Shatner, Donna Mills and Bill Bixby (who also directed). Great stuff.

As for Big Hawaii, never watched it, never heard of it, so on the “missed” list it goes. According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, it was set on a sprawling Hawaiian ranch run by the wealthy Mitch Fears (John Dehner). Conflicts began when his ne’er do well son (Cliff Potts) returns home. Any of that sound familiar? Regardless, like The Oregon Trail it was gone by Thanksgiving.


ABC
Eight is Enough
Charlie’s Angels
Baretta

ABC’s winning streak continued with another new hit in Eight is Enough, which would run five seasons though sadly without original star Diana Hyland, who played the wife of Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) and died of cancer after filming just four episodes.

As I wrote about the series more than a decade ago, “I cannot recall any other series from that era that moved as easily from sitcom style humor, complete with laugh track, to serious moments, and then back again. That tonal switch is fraught with peril, and only the best television shows can pull it off without undermining the drama or overplaying the comedy. Eight is Enough gets it just right.”

There was casting uncertainty around Charlie’s Angels as well. Would a percentage of the audience leave with Farrah Fawcett? Instead, the show rose in the ratings in its sophomore season, with Cheryl Ladd proving to be an equally popular replacement.

As for Baretta, the once top ten show had dropped out of the top 30 and was canceled at the end of this season. It was time.


CBS
Good Times
Busting Loose
CBS Wednesday Night Move

Good Times bid farewell to Esther Rolle this season. Like the previously departed John Amos she was fed up with all the hoopla around Jimmie Walker. New to the cast was Janet Jackson as Penny, a little girl adopted by Willona.

I vaguely remembered Busting Loose (okay, mostly I remembered Barbara Rhoades on it) but was able to refresh my memory with several episodes on YouTube. 

As I watched the pilot again, which introduced ten cast members for a 30-minute show, I thought I wandered back into Too Many Cooks. But to its credit all ten were well-defined and beneficial to the series, each getting at least one moment to shine. Adam Arkin was an engaging lead in a show that tried to be a buddy comedy, a workplace comedy and a family comedy all at once – and mostly succeeded.



Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)
Ball Four (1976)
Young Dan’l Boone (1977)
Rafferty (1977)
Mulligan’s Stew (1977)
Big Hawaii (1977)

Five Reasons "Angie" Didn't Last Longer

I watched an episode of Angie the other day on DVD, and it struck me again how this 1970s situation comedy had most of the elements that would appeal to an audience long enough to keep it on the air for at least 3-4 seasons, if not more. Instead, it was canceled after two years and just 36 episodes.

What happened? I suspect network hubris contributed to its early departure. After ranking fifth in its debut season, ABC moved the series three times into three different time slots and changed the cast, the setting and the narrative. Since the network dominated the Nielsen ratings in the late 1970s they may have figured they could do no wrong, and their audience would follow them anywhere. That didn’t work.

I’m not saying those poor decisions deprived us of more time with one of the best shows of the decade – that level of quality was beyond its reach. But not every series has to be venerated to be valued. Thirty minutes with likable characters and a welcome setting are all many of us need as accompaniment to unwind after a day’s work.

The series made a fine first impression with a mini arc that introduced us to Angie Falco (Donna Pescow), a diner waitress from the poor side of town, and Dr. Brad Benson (Robert Hays), who comes from a wealthy family but eats at the diner every day, and not because of the food.

They come to each other from different worlds, as sung in the show’s wonderful theme by Maureen McGovern. He proposes, she accepts, but both of their families have misgivings about the match. These stories unfold over the first five episodes, all of which are among the best of the run. The show’s creators – classic TV vets Garry Marshall and Dale McRaven – had a clear vision of what Angie should be about, and they were onto something.

With Doris Roberts as Angie’s outspoken mom and Sharon Spelman as Brad’s stuck-up sister Joyce also making strong contributions, Angie was a series that seemed destined for long-term success. 

Why didn’t it last? I offer these five reasons.


The Move

In episode five, “The Adjustment,” newlywed Angie moves into Brad’s home, which she is surprised to discover is more like a palatial estate. Her reaction, and those of her family and friends when they visit, get to the heart of what this series was about – moving from one world to another. Brad never looked down on the humble Falco home during his visits, but Angie hit the jackpot and couldn’t handle it. She seemed embarrassed in luxurious surroundings.

After a short first season of just 12 episodes, the series returned for its first (and last) full year, and that’s where it made what was to me its biggest mistake. In episode three, “Moving Day,” Angie insists that they move into a humbler dwelling. The house she chooses is unappealing from a set design perspective, and Brad clearly hates it but goes along to appease his wife. The show removed one of the defining characteristics of its premise, cutting off access to rich comedic material long before its freshness date.


What to Do with Tammy Lauren?

Teenage Tammy Lauren was billed third in the opening credits of the series’ first season, right behind Pescow and Hays. She played Joyce’s daughter Hillary, but if you blinked you might miss her entire contribution to that season.

Lauren was completely absent in some episodes, made one-scene appearances in others, and probably spoke no more than 15 lines for her entire duration on the show. In fact, her most memorable contribution happened in the opening credits, when she laughs as Angie wheels her around on a serving cart in the diner, until Joyce puts a stop to that. Now we’re set up to think that Hillary is the only member of Brad’s family who thinks Angie is fun, but in her early scenes she’s just as snotty as Joyce, and that transition is never made. Another missed opportunity – plus she was cute enough to get some teenage boys to watch.

Phipps

Season two introduces Emory Bass as Phipps, a butler Brad hires to help Angie, even though she’s already uncomfortable with the trappings of wealth. Having a butler made sense when they lived in a mansion but seemed silly after they moved to a middle-class residence. Phipps was no scene-stealer like Benson on Soap, and like Hillary was another character left to drift through scenes for which he seemingly had no purpose.


The Marys

The same episode that introduced Phipps (“Angie’s Old Friends”) also introduced the Marys – three childhood friends of Angie: Mary Grace the nun (Susan Duvall), pregnant Mary Katherine (Nancy Lane) and ditzy Mary Mary (Valri Bromfield).

None of them were believable as real people, and not one of the eight episodes in which they appeared was made more memorable by their presence. They were the original Larry, Daryl and Daryl, except those characters worked on Newhart because that show was in the absurdist tradition of Green Acres. Angie already had Debralee Scott as Angie’s sister Marie, who pushed the boundaries of believability by sometimes being too incompetent to function as an adult. Why add three more abstractions?


The Beauty Salon

I can only speculate that having Angie leave the diner to buy a beauty salon was a desperation move to inject new life into a show with dwindling ratings. The network hoped a fresh setting and new supporting characters like Tim Thomerson as a skirt-chasing stylist would catch on with viewers. Instead, they likely hastened its departure.

“I don't try to understand it anymore,” said Donna Pescow after learning of the show’s cancelation. “You have to take it as a big chess game and the only person who sees the total logic is the person making the moves.” It’s sad in this case that all the moves were as appealing as Elaine Benes’s moves on the dancefloor – but at least we have a DVD release to remind us of the show’s best moments – and what might have been.  

Defending the Traditional

In a recent conversation about the new Star Trek series (Starfleet Academy) I remarked that one of the many reasons I disliked it was how it couldn’t tell the difference between depicting diversity and fetishizing it, something the original series had figured out back in 1966. One of my friends, whose politics lean left, responded that I wouldn’t have a problem if it were fetishizing something traditional.

I had to think about that for a while. And I’ve concluded he was right.

But first I had to question whether it was even possible to fetishize (have an excessive and irrational commitment) to widely shared beliefs and customs that have not changed for a very long time.

I guess so. Baseball has been played in America since 1869, and over the decades new rules were added, interleague play was adopted, and both leagues now have designated hitters. Someone who fetishized the game might object to all of that. But at its core baseball is still the same – nine players to a side, three strikes and you’re out. Fans may have different views on non-essential rules modifications, but we know where the line is that shouldn’t be crossed.

We should be able to say the same about tradition, at least in how it is manifested in our lives and our art, which includes television. Our minds seek truth, our souls seek happiness, and for many of us those things are found in the traditional. Whether it’s the classic shows of the past, our daily routines, or the beliefs found in centuries-old creeds, we come to these things because they are familiar, they are time-tested, and they just seem to work.

And in this strange era when so much of what falls under that category is not only being challenged but disparaged, it awakens in many of us a crusade to defend what is being lost. That wasn’t upmost in my mind when I started this blog in 2012, but as I’ve analyzed, celebrated and occasionally defended the Comfort TV era, that impetus was never far from the surface.

When did we lose sight of where lines should be drawn? Television used to be a purveyor for such knowledge, extolling through its shows the responsibilities of citizenship, what separates the rational from the fanatical, and the basic differences between right and wrong. Family sitcoms, dramas, westerns, police procedurals, all endorsed community over individuality, and recognized how the exaltation of the self, when we claim the right to define our own concept of existence, just leads to narcissism.

There was also, even if it was rarely stated implicitly, the conviction that there was inherent value in our nature and purpose as human beings, beyond what we ascribed to ourselves.

That is why I cling to the traditional in my television viewing. It did not dismiss the lessons of the past because they were old but valued them as the achievement of the striving of our ancestors.

Television is no longer a central figure in America’s households, which is particularly regrettable because the lessons it once imparted are also disappearing from other sources. The foundations of Western civilization are either denigrated or no longer taught, and that also diminishes the artistic works – television, literature, music, and art – which are the products of that civilization. Quotations from the Bible or Shakespeare, characters from Casablanca or I Love Lucy, the knowledge of which could be assumed across generations, are now as unfamiliar as Egyptian hieroglyphs.

To speak of “seeing through a glass darkly,” or “Here’s looking at you, kid” or “One of these days, Alice…” will not register with people who are the product of what one writer described as “four years of expensive brain deprivation, known as a bachelor’s degree.”

What is emerging to fill that vacuum? Nothing from television, I’m afraid, because not as many people are watching, much less watching the same shows as we did for decades. There are no universal messages being sent through that medium anymore, and the ones that are loudest are doing more harm than good.

We are in a period of cultural decline, not because of material or military failure, but because we’ve succumbed to destructive messages that we, in our superior wisdom, can simply dispense with God, nature, and our great spiritual and intellectual beliefs. In other words, all of what has come to be viewed as traditional.

I guess I didn’t talk about television the way I usually do in this blog. I apologize for that. But if you share my affection for the classic shows of the past, you know that these musings apply to them and are one of the reasons – perhaps the most important reason – that we still enjoy them.